Opinion on Homemade Diets info from DogAware.com

[stella&sam]

We have been feeding a mix of canned food with homemade stew (just basic meat, veggies, and fish mix). I’d like to start only making our own food and then transition into homemade raw down the road. I am still in the beginning stages of formulating their diet, but liked the simplicity of this info:
DogAware.com: Homemade Diets for Dogs
What do you think?

[chowder]

It seems like pretty simple and decent information. Do you cook the stew you make your dogs? You could start out transitioning them to raw by just not cooking the meat anymore and just cook the vegies. Since they are not eating bones, the vegies are for the fiber (which they also get from the canned food)

I make up a mix for my dogs a lot of days but I don't really follow a recipe. I'm a little different here because I have a grinder. ( My little dog that I just lost had a jaw problem so I've been grinding all my meat complete with bones.) So like this morning my dogs had a big bowl of raw ground chicken quarters mixed with raw eggs and canned sardines. They LOVE that concoction and I don't really follow a recipe. Sometimes they get their boneless meat like pork or beef just cut up raw and mixed with canned salmon in their pans. I can't always find beef or salmon or other meats at decent prices, plus we tend to lose power a lot here so I still keep a supply of 100% canned meat dog foods in the garage and feed that to them mixed with their raw boneless meats. It stretches out the cost of the meat and the price of the canned food.

I don't think it has to be overly complicated to make up a 'diet' for the dogs unless they have a specific health problem. I give my guys a variety of mostly meats, sometimes give it to them whole (Rocky is still learning to chew whole chicken quarters and doesn't like it!) and add eggs, canned fish, beef and chicken livers, and anything else that I think they need. Shade will eat leftover vegies from our plates so he gets those sometimes and seems to digest them just fine. Heck, he ate all the seeds out of the bird feeder in the yard yesterday and didn't have a problem! Rocky won't touch vegies so he doesn't get those. If we have cooked meat leftover, they get that. I picked all the leftover meat off our Thanksgiving turkey and they had that mixed in with their food for several days.

I do have a half bottle of doggie vitamins leftover from my older dog that we just lost and I toss one of those to Shade but it's just because I have them leftover. I really am not sure that you need to supplement except maybe with some fish oil if they don't eat enough fish.

[stella&sam]

That makes me feel better. I'm afraid I'll throw them off kilter if they don't get exactly the correct portions for every meal, but I also work every day so it's unrealistic that I can spend hours preparing their food.

I have been cooking their meat, not because I don't like raw, it's just that cooked shredded chicken is easier the deal with than cubing it. Now that I think about it....I think we still have a meat grinder in the garage. I bought one on sale so I could grind up whole duck when they were puppies. That was icky!

[jdatwood]

No animal eats exactly correct portions at every meal.

If you don't have a problem with the meat being raw, just throw them an appropriate sized piece and let them go to town! No reason to cut or grind unless they have some serious dental problems preventing them from it.

[magicre]

when you cook for your dogs, i'd be leery about making the diet 50% grain or pasta....that's very high and totally un necessary

vary your fruits per batch you make.....and keep the fruit amount low - 10% or so.

vary your veggies per batch to give them variety...be careful of the cabbages and cruciferous veggies because they can affect thyroid. no onions...and garlic? well the jury is still out....but i don't feed it...

use low glycemic grains if you must, quinoa comes to mind, as does amaranth....

use 10% liver and kidney combined...

and the rest should be a variety of proteins and fish..

when you do come over to raw, the diet will be different....you won't need the grains nor the veggies nor the fruits...just the proteins..and we'll help you with that.

hard to go wrong as long as you remember variety, as little salt as possible....and don't overcook.....use the juices from your stew...and throw away the canned food :)

[KittyKat]

when you cook for your dogs, i'd be leery about making the diet 50% grain or pasta....that's very high and totally un necessary

vary your fruits per batch you make.....and keep the fruit amount low - 10% or so.

vary your veggies per batch to give them variety...be careful of the cabbages and cruciferous veggies because they can affect thyroid. no onions...and garlic? well the jury is still out....but i don't feed it...

use low glycemic grains if you must, quinoa comes to mind, as does amaranth....

use 10% liver and kidney combined...

and the rest should be a variety of proteins and fish..

when you do come over to raw, the diet will be different....you won't need the grains nor the veggies nor the fruits...just the proteins..and we'll help you with that.

hard to go wrong as long as you remember variety, as little salt as possible....and don't overcook.....use the juices from your stew...and throw away the canned food :)

Why would you use salt at all?

[magicre]

Why would you use salt at all?

there are those who will salt for flavour, so i just threw that in....i agree....there's no need for salt at all...:)

[stella&sam]

Thanks everyone! One of our dogs has worn down teeth so no raw, meaty bones on a daily basis. That same dog is allergic to all grains, so we won't be using those at all. I found a book I liked a lot and now I can't remember the name. From that book, we are going to try 75% meat meat, 25% organ meat, and 25% veg and fruit mix. I think the only supplement we'll need is calcium. I'm going to make their first batch on Saturday. Yum!

[Katie Rosehill]

Our dogs have been on homemade food for the last five years. I use a formula of 1/3 meat 1/3 starch and 1/3 veggies and fruits. Meat is chicken, pork, turkey or beef and sometimes fish. Starch is potatoes, sweet potatoes, brown rice, barley. Veggies everything but onions, cooked cabbage, broccoli. They love string beans, carrots and apples.

[PDXdogmom]

Our dogs have been on homemade food for the last five years. I use a formula of 1/3 meat 1/3 starch and 1/3 veggies and fruits. Meat is chicken, pork, turkey or beef and sometimes fish. Starch is potatoes, sweet potatoes, brown rice, barley. Veggies everything but onions, cooked cabbage, broccoli. They love string beans, carrots and apples.

It's good to see a post from someone who has been feeding home-cooked for so long. Two things I'm curious about: How many cups of food total do you feed in a day to each dog? I find that hard to gauge. Also, do you add any crushed eggshell or calcium supplement?