Questions

[Celt]

I'm looking for information on homecooked diets. I have several questions, so bear with me.
1. How much do you feed on a homecooked diet? Does it depend solely on how your dog looks or are there reccommended amounts?
2. Are vegetables neccessary? Are there any veggies other than onions/garlic that are not safe/good to give to dogs?
3. Are grains needed? If so, what kinds are used?
4. How do you balance the Omegas and calcium/phosporus?
5. What are the "best" meats to use? Is it better to just barely cook meat or to fully cook it?
6. What supplements should be added to the diet? I've heard you need to add things like probiotics, yogurt, pet vitamins, etc.
Thanks for any help you can give me.

[dmanduff]

Hi Celt, I'll do my best to answer your questions-

1.)It mainly depends on the weight of the dog and the type of food. If you post back with the answers to those two questions I can give you a better answer on that one.

2.)Yes. Most vegetables are very beneficial to dogs, as you said, no onion, no garlic, I've also heard bad things about lettuce so I stay away to be safe. On a side note, don't forget about fruits as those are also necessary and beneficial to dogs. Just stay away from grapes/raisins, avocados (keep your dogs away from avocado plants as well), and tomatoes.

3.)Grains are unnecessary in a homemade diet, most are actually pretty bad for dogs. They're only used in commercial foods for filler to keep costs down - the high end/high cost commercial foods that can be considered natural and healthy are almost always grain free.

4.)Sorry you would need to be more specific I don't quite follow your question, though someone else may know more on this one.

5.)Lean beef is most popular for price/availability. Almost anything though. Dogs really love venison. Switch it up with chicken, turkey, tuna, etc. Some variety and rotation in food is good as it alleviates problems caused by certain foods/diets over time. Whether to cook well, rare, or not at all is a tricky one as there are some very smart people on both sides who each claim that their way is the healthiest. I would say to leave meat on the rarer side, cooking meat removes important enzymes and the more you cook it the more you enzymes you lose. Dogs usually prefer their meat rare anyways. There is also a lot of personal/dog preference on this one.

6.)Ideally all nutrition should come from food. This being said, most body builders eat chicken all day and still take a protein supplement before hitting the gym. Yogurt is very popular with dogs and owners and is a great source of calcium for dogs, start off sparingly so you can see how your dog's system reacts. Sojos.com sells a natural supplement that increases nutrient absorption directly from food. There are also some good all-in-one powder supplements that you mix a scoop of into meals if you're worried your dog isn't getting the right nutrients from food alone.

I hope that was helpful...

[Lisa_j]

I home cooked for Jax, my diabetic dog prior to switching him to raw. His food was chiken, brown rice or barly amd green beans, fiber one cottage cheese, I plugged the amounts of everything in that figured out the calories as well as his wt and it told me the amount to feed him twice a day to maintain his wt. I added ground egg shell into the mix as well as a human grade multi vit, omegas, and olive oil. I did also add some garlic. I think that was it, I would have to hunt back through to find the exact recipe I used, but if I remember right, this is basicially it.

[TuckersMom]

I have been doing a lot of research on home-cooked diets and have found this site really helpful: dogaware.com

There are also a few books that I got at the library that have helped educate me:

1. Raw & Natural Nutrition for Dogs by Lew Olson (she talks about cooked diets too)
2. The Whole Pet Diet by Andi Brown

I don't have answers to all your questions, but I have learned that grains are not necessary. I don't think veggies are necessary, but your dog can benefit from them. The best way to feed is steamed or blended in a blender to break the outer celluose so the dog can get the nutritional value from them, although, my dog loves the little raw carrots as treats. I don't think it's going to hurt him.

There are definitely supplements that should be added to a home-cooked diet, which include calcium, omega 3 whole fish oil, vitamins B, C, E. Sometimes digestive enzymes can be helpful as well. The site I mentioned and the books will give you a great deal of useful information - the best of luck to you!

[Celt]

Thanks everyone for the help.
dmanduff--My dogs are a 13 lb and a 11 lb Italian Greyhound (who needs to lose a little weight), and a 65 lb, very elderly Gorlen Retriever. I'm not sure of the diet as of yet as I wanted to find out more before starting them on it. I know it will have as much variety as I can get, but the main meat will probably be chicken with others either mixed in or if sufficent on their own, will probably start out without grain, but may add it if they seem to need the extra carbs, and will add veggies, still not sure of fruit. Some say it's needed, others insist that it only adds sugar to the diet.
On the omegas and calcium issues, I've heard that you have to balance between omega 3 and 6and calcium/phosporus (not sure of the spelling) or the dog will end up with either absorbtion issues or other not good problems.
Lisa j--what did you use to make your calculations?
TuckersMom--Thanks for the book references. I'll have to see if my library carries them.

[Lisa_j]

Metabolic Energy Requirements For Dogs
This will help- you will need to add up all of the calories in the food you make and then plug them in here.

Here is one for ground eggshells and calcium too. I rinse the shells, placed them in the oven at 200 degrees for 20 min then ground them in my coffee mill.
http://www.pet-grub.com/part1/how_to..._dogs_and_cats

[dmanduff]

You can pick up omega 3 and 6 supplements if the diet you decide on doesn't contain enough, or if you're worried about absorption problems (there's also a natural supplement from Sojo's that I mentioned earlier which increases nutrient absorption).

I researched a little on the balance between calcium and phosphorus and this page has some good info you might be interested in - http://www.yourdogsdiet.com/calcium_in_dogs_diet.php - the article appears to be lifted from another source so I would double check anything before implementing, but it looks like solid information all the same. Given the lack of good sources on the topic I think you inspired my next blog post :), if i come across anything in my research that may be useful for you I'll let ya know.

[sassymaxmom]

Dogaware is a terrific source of information. I really like the newsletter Lew Olson wrote for B-Naturals though and if I was forced to feed Max cooked food I would be doing this if possible. She has a book available now as well. Good stuff.
Low-Glycemic | B-Naturals.Com Newsletter

If you are feeding lots of meat stuff then figure 2% of your dog's weight for starting out and adjust from there. Since it is usually not a bad idea to feed less rather than more that ought to work out. I started feeding the dogs a minimum of 1 gram protein per pound of dog and 20 calories per pound of dog and Sassy ended up getting 1.5 grams protein per pound and 25 calories per pound while Max only needed 15 calories per pound. That works if you make up recipes and know all those numbers, I used nutritiondata to make up recipes.

I learned you can just add in 1/2 tsp of powdered eggshell per pound of food to balance the phosphorus in the meats. Gets you right where you need to be. Using bone meal at a rate of 900 mg per pound of meat works as well and might be better as you might be short changing phosphorus if using egg shell. Studying Nutrition facts, calories in food, labels, nutritional information and analysis – NutritionData.com I learned that feeding about 1/7 the meat as fatty fish gets the omega 3 about where it belongs. The two don't have anything to do with one another as far as I know.

Sassy got loads of supplements as she was getting twice boiled chicken and rice. I fed her cooked kidney diet food for 3.5 years and worked up her diet each time I cooked for her. Work but worth it. A diet with veggies and/or grains and red meat with a little beef liver would be far more complete and the minerals and B vitamins she needed wouldn't be necessary. If you are depending on chicken you need zinc, copper and iron at the very least as well as a good source of B vitamins. Canned oysters can help. Beef liver can help out too. Lightly cooked meat is better but whether you cook well or light make sure to feed the cooking liquid and don't worry about fat so much. Fat is super good for dogs IF they can tolerate it.

Either veggies or grains are needed for bulk. Veggies wouldn't add calories and grains adds loads. Meat is higher in everything but magnesium, manganese and potassium than plant products I think. Use both if you like but feed a minimum of 50% meats.

[Celt]

Thanks everyone for all the information and sites. I've been going through them :0) I was thinking of closer to 95% lightly cooked meat and some veggies. I might add grain if their stools are too soft or they start losing weight, but it wouldn't be more than 2% of their meal. Is it better to boil the meat or sear it? I don't worry about feeding fat. I've fed them meat trimmings even before I heard about raw/homecooked.

[sassymaxmom]

Boiling is better. I did heat the meat in the dry pan until it started to sizzle and smell good before adding water though.