Home Made Dog Food - Safe and Easy Pet Food for Your Best Friend

Prompted by the poisoning of hundreds of animals fed commercial pet food, pet sites and dog lovers are posting recipes for home made pet foods of many types.  Some of the combinations are healthy and a good replacement for commercial pet foods.   Others are nothing more than people food and may contain ingredients not well tolerated by your dog or may lack nutrients that dogs need in their diet.

Additionally, many recipes contain ingredients that are unusual - special flours, for example - or expensive.  That is not necessary and can defeat pet owners best intentions.  If preparing food for your dog is expensive and time consuming, before long it will seem more practical to return to commercial dog foods. 

The recipe below is one I have used for several years.  It is easy to prepare, can be prepared in advanced and frozen in portions.  I now use it mixed with a small handful of a good quality dry kibble product.   Originally, this home made food was used when one of my dogs became ill or had a skin problem - but the recent pet food incident led me to provide home made dog food as a daily routine.

The amount of food in this recipe will feed a 40 lb dog for 2 days...a 20 lbs dog for 3 days or you can extend it with a bit of dry kibble.  The recipe is for adult dogs only as puppies have special nutritional needs.

1 cup cooked CARBOHYDRATE
       (rice, oatmeal, potato, pasta, infant cereal)

1/2 - 3/4 cup COOKED MEAT
        (poultry, fish, liver - remove poultry skin before cooking)

1 Tablespoon FAT
        (vegetable oil, chicken or beef fat, fish oil)

4 Tablespoons FIBER
       (high fiber cereal such as all-bran or vegetables such as peas and green beans)

1/2 tsp BONE MEAL
       (can also use pet calcium-phosphate supplement)

1/4 tsp POTASSIUM CHLORIDE    
       (this is salt substitute in grocery stores)

In addition, give one human adult vitamin-mineral tablet or pet vitamin supplement per day.

Instructions:

Bake or microwave the meat and cook starch component separately.  Chop or grind meat if necessary.  Pulverize the bone meal or pet calcium-phosphate supplement.  Mix all except vitamin-mineral supplement.  Serve immediately or cover and refrigerate.  If making a large quantity, freeze the carbohydrate/meat/fat mixture and add remaining ingredients after thawing.

The vitamin-mineral supplement may be given separately or mixed in the with dog food just before serving.

Don't be too rigid in preparing this home made dog food.  You can use leftover meats from your meals - (but leave out the salt and hot spices if you are doing this), you can use leftover rice or noodles - and a slightly larger amount of a cereal that has good fiber but not high fiber.  (My dog likes Cheerios).  I keep the bone meal and potassium chloride in emptied spice jars - easy to sprinkle over and mix in with the food before serving and I bury the vitamin supplement in the food in my dog's dish.