Home made dog food

I have had a couple of bad experiences with commercial dog food recalls, and you may not even know the food is bad until it is to late. This thread is not to bash the commercial food, but i have been making my own dog food for about 6 months now, and am wondering if any of you are doing it also. I know most folks are busy with work, and just life in general, and this is time consuming, but really feel good about knowing exactly what is in my dogs food, and they love it. I will leave it at that until i see if there is interest. I do not have any intentions of selling or starting a business, but just want to keep my guys healthy as long as possible, and would like to share info. With like minded folks.

 

I have heard of this. I haven't really looked into it, but I'm interested to hear about it.

How do you make it?

 

I bought a bag of dog food because it had a pic of a deer on it. Ten minutes after my Yorkie ate it she threw up and started shaking. She’s back to Purina and just got some steak. And lately pieces of oranges. Even table scraps are better than some of the dog food on the market...

 

run neighborhood cats through wood chipper

 

Mine is cooked, I’m not into the raw stuff.

 

Man that looks delicious. I don’t give my pup public or well water either....

 

Well you started the thread inquiring minds want to know what it is you do to make it… My new pup had her first vet visit a week ago and I commented I'm going to switch her to Purina Pro Plan and the vet whole heartedly agreed. Actually the technician in the office said she gives her dog it and also another vet in the office uses Pro Plan. There's dozens and dozens of kinds out there and way more opinions on what's the best. In my humble opinion any "good" known brand and enough exercise is the secret to a decent life. I will not feed her "Wally Mart" level food, things found in that store are generally "entry level" brands and quality at best. Yeah the sell Purina but it isn't their top tier levels of food. Just my .02

 

Ground beef, 70/30. If you get a chance, watch Petfooled. Great documentary about rise of "dog food" since WWII.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eVoicSHimI

All of our dogs ailments went away when we switched to this. Vet was impressed.

 

by baking your own food your robbing your dog of vital nutrients it needs to thrive. Yes it will survive off what your feeding it, because dogs are adaptive like humans.

I have spent a great deal of time researching and reading about dog diets. The best thing you can feed your dog is a biologically appropriate raw food diet. Balanced with 80% muscle meat, 10% bone and 10% organ. below is a picture of one my dogs meals for example.

since switching to a raw diet my dogs have been healthier, faster and their costs have improved to amazing.

 

Thanks for the interest, many top level brands have had recalls, and it is usually human error. The last recall i went through was because they added over 400 times the amount of vitamin D, and my dog got very sick. Purina is supposed to be one of the better facilities, and they say each batch is tested before release. Most places use high heat to bake the food, this takes all the nutrients out, and then they spray the food with synthetic nutrients to get the food back to spec. So to speak.

 

Purina is full of fillers, linked to dogs and cats dying and cuts corners and costs. They are not “high quality”. Also taking advice from a vet in regards to food isn’t the best choice. When you walk in to the vet look at what their stocking and that’s what most likely their going to recommend. Vets are given bonuses to push brands, most vet universities are sponsored by brands and their nutrition classes are taught by reps from those brands.

If kibble is going to be fed I recommend natures logic. Or any 4/5 star kibble which can be researched on here www.dogfoodadvisor.com

 

Yes, i have researched quite a bit, and read good things about raw diets. I may get there but for now i am happy with my
-lbs. ground beef 93% 2-lbs. ground turkey 93% 2-cans sardines in olive oil. 1-lb. chicken giblets 8-eggs
1-table spoon of ginger.
1- bunch kale. (5 cups) 1-bunch parsley. (1-1/2 cups) 3-zucchini. (3 cups) 6-carrots. (2 cups)
2-heads broccoli (3 cups) 1-red bell pepper. (1/2 cup) 2-apples
1-sweet potato
2-pear.
2-cups beef bone broth. 1-cup rolled oats
Vitamin sup. at feedin

 

A nutritionist is the way to go, but i could not fork out $3000.00 to ask them about it.

 

Going to a nutritionist for your dog is a little over the top. We all love them but at the end of the day it's a DOG. Believe me I love them as much as anybody had a blind dog once I spent thousands on.

 

I can point you to someone who charges 1/3 of that and provides you with meal plans cooked or raw to make sure your dog is getting the correct nutrition.

 

To you a “dog is just a dog” but to me, my dogs come first like my family. My wife and myself relocated to a house so our dogs could have a large enough space inside and out. I’m over 20k invested into my dogs with training, crates, etc. my dogs sleep inside the house, their kept inside the house during the day. We base our lives around our dogs, their training and their well being. I got my 4runner specifically for my dogs, to transport them. I get echos every year for my dogs, blood work to make sure their healthy. My dogs aren’t just “dogs” their my family.

 

Ok, i am still at this, and it is a lot of work. If you could PM me the nutritionist info i would greatly appreciate it. I have stuck with the original recipe and it works out well, but would like a professional opinion also, thanks in advance.

 

I'm not taking any responsibility, but this is what my GSD puppy got when she got upset stomach 2 weeks back. She is taking this diet till now and going to ask if I should change it this weekend on her appointment.

 

Our vet gave us something very similar to this when our golden lab started to get diarrhea for nearly a week. Basically this diet is to "reset" them and then we went back to his food for it to only happen again. We went from Fromm food for him to Hills prescribed gastrointestinal food and he's been ok since. We still have one other dog on Fromm food with no issues. What fun it is but we have been considering making our own food for awhile.

 

This is a good forum topic being discussed, and trust me, i'm glad that i'm not the only one going through this. In the last three months, I've switched our dog food three times. Like the OP stated, my concern is with all of the "fillers" that dog kibble contains. In fact, I "accidentally" watched a video on how dog food is made, and that did it for me...

We went to Spot and Tango's "Unkibble." Food was great, beagles loved it, but they were super inconsistent on delivery. I never knew when we were going to get our next bag.

We then switched to Tailored for both guys. These guys were AMAZING... Customer service was outstanding, hell, they even had a money back guarantee. Their food was made with grain that made our little one fatten up... We went to grain free, and that's what we are on now.

Before this, we did the Orijen, good on protein, but all kinds of products. We then went to Royal Canin, but then the doggies stopped eating that after a month... Soak it in water and I realised why... It STUNK!

Like some of you above, our doggies are our kids. For example, we are on our last day of our 17 day Southeast Asia trip, and we personally fly our doggies to our in-laws in Mexico before heading on vacation. Our guys are spoiled more than we are....

Will keep this topic pinned, and looking forward to the continuing comments.

Cheers,

Sean

 

Per the visit today I was asked to transition from home made food slowly to regular dog food. Here's the recommended brands I got from the vet.

** again, I'm not responsible for anything here, I'm just sharing what I got from the vet for my German shepherd.

 

These brands have fillers and are not good for the dog.

vets have incentives to push these brands hence why you see so many of these brands in the vets office.

 

Maybe true, but I would have to follow what the vet said. Just like I go to a doctor and follow the diet plan. So will see how it goes.

 

This topic reminded me of this:


https://youtu.be/ctNFdC6IrWE


Edit: in no way am I trying to make fun of this topic! I think it's awesome that people will take the time to make real food for their dogs. I've heard about the recalls on occasion, and it's damn scary!

I've had good luck with store bought food, so far. But I don't blame anyone for not trusting it.

 

If you have a deer butcher near you ask for scraps. I got my friend in on this. She is on disability but still manages to pick up 6 buckets of meat a week.

 

I’m glad I found this thread. Our pup has sensitive caught in stomach. I’ve tried a few different brands and is monitored him, and now were using a mix of origin, six fish recipe, and with WholeHearted’s active performance salmon and rice.

Maybe this thread will convince me to try a raw diet for him. I know it’s much better, but we also bring him to kennels when needed and it’s difficult to manage raw food there for the handlers.

It’s crazy what we do for our dogs. The puppy place we bring Arthur to even has several 24-hour video cameras so we can watch him anytime we want.

 

After the stomach upset in Nov I started using this Purina Pro Sensitive Skin and Stomach Salmon formula seems working well. The second bag is almost done and I'm about to order the 3rd one.

https://amzn.to/3A14hdX

I also have monthly subscription for "Apoquel Tablet" from WalmartPetRX. Walmart does everything like approval process from my vet. I don't have to do anything.

This is not advice. Just sharing info with my experience with my high maintenance German shepherd. I think anything with German is high maintenance

 

In our experience, our pure-bred British yellow lab is higher maintenance than our Bullador (American Bulldog - American Lab mix) was.

 

Purina just recently had a big recall on some of their products.

 

I'm devoted to my dogs. My nearly 2 year old golden retriever is my 4th. I've always struggled a bit in figuring out what to feed them because I can't find that much information that I regard as reliable. I don't know that I can give my dog a raw diet that meets her nutritional needs and I definitely can't do it on an extended trip. I was feeding my previous golden a grain free kibble from Fromm's that was supposed to be good, but then the DCM scare (heart related) came up with grain free foods and I switched him to Purina Sport Pro Plan. That's what I started my current golden on, but she didn't have a lot of enthusiasm for it and would sometimes leave it in her bowl for a few hours before eating it. That's not normal for a dog as food motivated as a golden. Recently I switched her to kibble from a company called Open Farm. Their manufacturing facility and foods are certified as human grade, which is pretty rare among dog foods. It's significantly more expensive than most dog foods ($75-$80 for a 22 lb bag), but that's only a couple of dollars a day or so. She stands in front of her bowl first thing in the morning and whimpers at me if I don't immediately go to feed her, so I think I'll stay with it. They have quite a few varieties. They also have some more expensive semi-wet foods they call stews that are shelf stable. I add a little of that to her kibble sometimes and she goes even crazier for it.