Home cooked recipes?

[kilasmamix3]

Can anyone tell me some home cooking recipes? I want to start home cooking for my dogs, but i'm not sure what they can and cannot have... I heard that apples, lean ground beef, chicken, brown rice, brocoli, potatoes, and things along those lines are good for the dog, but does anyone have some recipes i can make for them? And also, is it a good idea to mix the kibble and home cooked meal? Like, put the kibble on the bottom and meal on top. Anyways, I'm just asking for recipes, so if your willing to help, i'd really apriciate it!!! Thank you!

Dezaree

[Lola B Marie]

LOla is 3yrs and she is on a completely human diet except for a few milk bones.I have an easy recipe which is the bulk of her diet.
24 chicken thighs (skinless and boneless)
1medium bag of peeled baby carrots. I use organic but you can really use any kind.
1medium bag of fresh or frozen string beans.
3cloves of fresh garlic
Place all ingredients in pot and cover with chicken broth. Home made or from the health food store. You can also use water if you want to.
Bring to boil. Let boil about 10 min then reduce to simmer for 2hrs.
Remove all solids from broth. I use rubber gloves to mush it all together. To this, add one quart of well cooked brown rice and one cup cooked oatmeal.
Take remaining broth ,refrigerate and use liquid for next batch.

This is Lola's basic meal. For breakfast, I take about 2 cups of chicken mixture and add crushed hard boiled egg some plain yogurt and maybe a sprinkle of grated chedder cheese.
Dinner, 2 cups of chicken mix add, chopped up cooked liver, can of sardines or very lean lightly cooked chop meat (beef). I alternate the 1cup of toppings to balance her diet.

Treats at least once a day, 1 lg milk bone and fresh fruits. Melon, oranges , blue berries, apples cubed and sliced up.

I find this an easy diet because I can just make an extra portion of what ever we are having and put it on top of the chicken mix. Example, last tight we had flounder and shrimps. I kept out a slice of flounder and a few shrimps for Lola. Her portion is placed in foil and cooks right along with the seasoned food we are having. If it's lamb chops, hers just has no seasoning. etc. If we are eating out, she gets the sardines or canned salmon with the bones, in her food. I make this about once a week and freeze in 2 cup portions. If I have time, I double or triple the recipe and freeze for 2 weeks.

You might want to ask your vet for a powder that contains all the minerals and things that this diet is missing. I give one extra strength pet tab with calcium and that's all her vet said she needed.
I never feed kibble but that does not mean you shouldn't. Lola can't digest dog food.
If I was feeding high quality kibble, I would not put the brown rice or oatmeal into the mixture, I would just add cooked beef,chicken, fish, etc. plus veggies and still offer yogurt and fresh fruit.
She gets a fresh raw marrow bone every other day. If she weighs in to heavy at the vet, I scoop the marrow out. I try to keep her weight within a 5lb range.
I hope this helps some what. Search our site for many other home cooked recipes.

[Nishasmom]

I saw a flyer at the vet about Salmon poisoning, it said dogs can not eat salmon; it carries some bacteria that makes them sick. Have you ever heard of this??

[jlaack]

Companion Animal Parasite Council

I saw a flyer at the vet about Salmon poisoning, it said dogs can not eat salmon; it carries some bacteria that makes them sick. Have you ever heard of this??

Yes, it is due to a parasite. I believe (but might be wrong) that cooking the salmon kills the parasite and that the processing of salmon oil also removes this risk.

To the OP, I'd recommend a book called Raw Meaty Bones, you can find it on amazon.com. It has a lot of information on providing a complete home prepared diet. Most of the food you will want to feel your dog should be barely cooked if not raw. The cooking process removes a lot of the benefits of the food.

[AngelBunny]

Why do you want to cook the food you feed your dog? Cooking destroys nutrients and it makes unnecessary work for you. There's also no need to feed your dog fruits and vegetables.

Consider feeding raw. I follow the raw prey model and am highly satisfied with the results.

[lengel]

There are many different types of home made diets. The best thing about them is that they can be tweaked according to your dog's needs. You can address intestinal issues, allergies, etc by adjusting the ingredients. We use Donald Strombeck's "Home-Prepared Dog and Cat Diets" as a base and tweak according to our dogs' needs. One of my dogs gets salmon for every meal because she has dry skin. Another never gets brown rice because she has intestinal difficulties and oatmeal is easier on her digestive tract. There are other considerations. As a result, I don't believe in a one size fits all kind of thing.

The main components of our dogs' diets are:

Meat and/or fish
Starch (potatoes, sweet potatoes, oatmeal, brown rice)
Fruit and Vegetables
Sardines
Once a week additions (garlic, yogurt, cottage cheese)
Commercial vitamin supplements and bone meal

One of our dogs also gets digestive enzymes and two get vitamin C for mild urinary issues.

There's a sticky on diets too.

[kilasmamix3]

Thank you all for the help!! And AngelBunny, i just to start home cooking because i think i'd rather cook for her and know what shes eating... And i've heard raw meat is bad for your dog?

Dezaree

[Weily4Life]

There's also no need to feed your dog fruits and vegetables.

I disagree...

I home prepare, which does not mean everything is cooked, plus occasionally give raw meaty bones. My dogs receive a variety of vegetables and some fruit occasionally. A favorite vegetable of theirs is broccoli, which is a good source of Vitamin A, and vitamin C, potassium, folacin, iron and fiber. Broccoli has as much calcium ounce per ounce as milk and contains a few important phytochemicals: beta-carotene, indoles and isothiocyanates. Phytochemicals prevent carcinogens from forming. They also stop carcinogens from getting to target cells and help boost enzymes that detoxify carcinogens.

[kilasmamix3]

What do you mean raw meaty bones... arn't bones and rawhide bad for dogs? because raw hide is hard to digest and the dog might choke and the bone will splint and hurt the intestinal system? I feel like im getting misguided... ):

[Weily4Life]

I never cook the meats, a dogs digestive system assimilates raw meat. The rice I have to cook longer than would be usual for human consumption. Broccoli initially produced gas until the girls became used to it.

It is okay to mix the kibble and home prepared. When I made the switch to all home prepared, I gradually gave more home prepared and less kibble over time until they were eating all home prepared.

[Weily4Life]

Originally Posted by kilasmamix3

What do you mean raw meaty bones... arn't bones and rawhide bad for dogs? because raw hide is hard to digest and the dog might choke and the bone will splint and hurt the intestinal system? I feel like im getting misguided... ):

jlaack could probably shed more light.

I am still waiting for my book, Raw Meaty Bones to arrive after learning of it in March, so I can get more meal suggestions. But, I have given my girls each a raw chicken quarter, skin removed, twice so far since reading about them on RDN in March. Fozzy was a natural tearing the chicken off the bone and then crunching and eating the bones. Greta, couldn't get the hang of tearing the chicken from the bone so I had to take it and cut as much as I could off, and then held the bone for her until she grabbed the middle, crunched down and chewed. Bones are a natural source of calcium. But, until my book arrives I probably won't give anymore though as my DH isn't comfortable with it. (I like having a book to refer to so I can get all the details and be as informed as possible, and also have more to show my husband)

So for now I will continue to follow the recipes I have been using from my book Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats.

Cooked bones are a problem because they can splinter. I did read a post somewhere that someones dog had a problem with the raw bones. I don't remember the circumstances. Always supervise no matter what it is. Before I knew better we gave our dogs rawhides, then one of my dogs choked on a piece and I had to dig it out of her mouth.

I hope I have not confused you, in know way want to misguide.

[lengel]

Raw bones don't splinter. That said, I always give raw bones to my dogs under supervision because their jaws are so strong that they can still break off chunks. For the most part though, they are concerned with the meat portion while the bones themselves clean their teeth. Our vet prescribed raw bones to clean our dogs' teeth. It works. Breaks up tartar like nothing else out there.

[psychosid77]

so the dogs can get a raw piece of beef or chicken, and have no problems with it? i heard their saliva breaks down the possible issues that e-coli poses etc., but i have been nervous to give my pup 100% raw chicken or beef. so are you all saying it's 100% okay to do that?

[jlaack]

What do you mean raw meaty bones... arn't bones and rawhide bad for dogs? because raw hide is hard to digest and the dog might choke and the bone will splint and hurt the intestinal system? I feel like im getting misguided... ):

Understandably so. This is part of the ploy of dog food manufacturers to scare you into buying their food and other products. Raw food, including raw meat, is far better for dogs than processed pet food in a bag so long as the dog doesn't have a health concern that would contradict feeding raw and the diet is balanced. We feed a prepackaged raw meat to our dogs (Bravo!) which contains raw meat, raw bones that are ground, and internal organs--then we add in vegetables and grains to make it balanced. Dogs can process the food without being affecting by the bacteria in the meat that hasn't been killed through cooking because their intenstines were designed to digest uncooked meat.

There is a small possibility that a dog could be affected by bacteria in a raw diet. However that can also happen with a plethora of foods humans buy and eat at the grocery store--not to mention dog food in a bag. The risk is so low that the benefits are worth it IMO. The food that I feed did have a recall because bacteria levels were higher than acceptable. However this problem did not cause serious health problems. In most cases the dogs simply had mild GI symptoms that passed. The only time I have been concerned about feeding raw was when my eldest was going through chemotherapy. During this time we lightly cooked his food (the meat) since his immune system was weakend and a bacteria problem would be hard on his system.

Raw bones are definitely better than rawhide. However use common sense when feeding them. We supervise our dogs when they are chewing on a raw bone, buy bones of an appropriate size and only let them eat them for 30-45 minutes. Bone is very porous so usually it will be ingested as particles about the size of sand. Our experience has been that sometimes larger pieces will break off and our dogs will try to swallow them whole which is why we supervise. We don't feed raw chicken necks or turkey necks intact (ground yes) only because our dogs inhale them.

Weily4Life, there is a raw dog food manufacturer in MI, Taylor Pond Farms. Just curious is that what you feed?

[kilasmamix3]

No, i don't mean you guys misguided me i mean some other people that led me to believe the other way about raw meat and bones. Is it okay to break and eat the bones? Or no?

Dezaree