who makes their own dog food ?

[Norah]

Hi,

I have been having a problem with hair loss on my min pin-chihuahua mix... after reading about what goes into dry dog food i have decided to make my own food . I am not sure what is causing the hair loss , but I thought a change of feed would be the first step , as he is healthy in every other way. I will also do a full blood pannel .

Well , here are my questions : i am going along the lines of the raw food diet (sort of)

I am not feeding bones... the 2 dogs are small , and are gulpers and i just cant get past the splintering possibility, I have a friend that is a butcher and he strongly advises only Veal bones . Is rice enough roughage for the dog in the feed? Can the "bones" be subsitiuted with a barley, or grain, or brown rice , wild rice ?

The meat, I cook because 1 dog wont eat raw meat (?=()/&%ç) here is my basic recipe , and they love it :

Brocoli , spinache , carrots, veal, beef, lamb , rice, cauliflower, peas, beans ..... i cook that together , and then process it to a chunky fine paste, fill the cupcake cups with it and deep freeze it ..we have a 8oo sq industrial kitchen with a deep freezer that freezes in 10 min ...

I have read that there are enzymes in raw meat , and in muscle tissue of meat , so I do add pieces of raw veal or beef to this with muscle tissue .

I feel like I am missing something vital ... can anyone recommend something else ? I dont live in USA so a product with a "name brand" I cant use ... Swiss import laws are strict. the missing part will have to be something universal that i can get here in Europe .

We are on day 4 now , and they wont even touch the dry kibble , and its very good , expensive feed ( 150.00) per bag ... the best part is that most of the food i fed them is waste , like the stem of brocoli, and bruised veggies, and the Chewie meat that our guests wont eat ... virtually a free food , just takes time to make it .

 

[bevann]

I woud cut out the rice.Many of the top dog foods now in the US are totally grain free.I am using a product called Taste of the Wild.No grains It has salmon and bison in some varieties(few hormones as in our chicken and beef here in the US).You should get enough roughage from the veggies.Not sure what the cooking does to the veggies and meat, but our dog foods here are processed.I have several friends that feed lots of raw chicken.I think it is the cooking that causes bones to splinter.

 

[chandab]

What it would be, I don't know; but you may need to add a vit/min supplement of some sort to be sure they get all they need.

Google raw dog diets, or the BARF dog diet and see if there are any specific vit/min they recommend. Its possible you may be able to use certain people vitamins to make up any deficiencies. [For example, my Cushing's gelding gets people Vit E gel caps.]

 

[Carolyn R]

Have you considered having a blood screen done for food allergies? One of my mini Aussies has food allergies, severe food allergies. One of her symptoms is hair loss or thinning hair. She has a much finer coat than the other mini Aussie, no bald spots, just much finer and thinner. Anyhow, I only suggest it because all of those meats listed are ones my dog is allergic to. I am intrigued by the homemade diets, but since the prescription science diet ZD for severe allergies is working, I am sticking with it.

As I said, her allergies were severe, vomiting, loose stools, blood in her stools, we almost lost her due to malnutrition/weightloss, had I not switched vets and gone to one that was more assertive.

 

[MountainWoman]

One thing I see missing is oils. You definitely need to be adding oils to homemade food and you should also be using a vitamin supplement. I think there are many fine cooked diets. You don't have to use bones and you don't have to use raw food. You might want to do a web search on Wendy Volhard and her NDF diet which you can prepare at home easily. Also, you can go to The Whole Dog Journal and you'll find lots of info there.

Here's a quick link to one of The Whole Dog Journal's articles. http://www.whole-dog-journal.com/landing/homemade-dog-foods-challenger.html?st=PPC&s=GL_PD_HomemadeDiet

I think I'd start with the vet for the hair loss and get a good physical and run some blood tests. Could be anything from food allergies to thyroid problems or more.

 

[Norah]

thanks everyone ...I thought about the minerals and vitamins... I was going to add fresh ground flax seed, and some kind of mineral to it ..i will have a look at that journal , might be a good resource for me . will make the appointment for a full blood pannel . thanks

 

[Norah]

I read that article in the journal ....thanks , I will look for a good dry kibble that meets Fosters needs provided he is not alergic to anything , its the copper , zink , and other suppliments that i have no idea how to provide for him .... so I suppose a diet of both will work for us . ground egg shell is great for calcium and it says fish oil . In the last few days i have seen a difference in his coat though... the shine is back, so i suppose there is something in his dry kibble that doesnt agree with him.

 

[chandab]

What commercial dog foods do you have available to you? I know they'll be different than what's available in other countries, but perhaps with a brand name, others can help you figure out which ones to try that might have the least negative effect on your dog.

 

[Supercilious]

I order EVO for my dog, it is awesome! It costs more but he eats 1/4 cup verses 1 cup of the grocery store brands and his stools are very small also. He acts & looks better than he has in years and no more scratching! I recommend it highly!

Here is a good place to research dog foods http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/

I chose EVO & I order it from http://www.petsupplies.com/

 

[Jenna]

I haven't gotten my puppy yet, but my breeder makes her own food, she uses a combination of the Performance blend from The Honest Kitchen as well as a diet based off of Natural Rearing, I will be doing the same. Growing up we always fed our dogs just plain old Purina dog food (for the various stages) and my Golden will be 14 in June, but reading about all the issues with dry food and realizing that making your own food isn't nearly as time consuming as you'd think, it's something I want to do with my future Aussie. The Natural Rearing website is a wonderful wealth of knowledge, and took me days to get through (mostly because I took extensive notes)

 

[MountainWoman]

Jenna, The Honest Kitchen makes AWESOME products. Natural rearing is the way to go.

 

[Jill]

For years, I've been making our own "wet" dog food, which our dogs get once a day. I started doing it not for allergy reasons, but because i had read that some of the "protein" in dog food is things like hair and because of all the dog food recalls.

Our dogs have free access to a commercial dog food that I think is good quality (we rotated 3 different ones... Nutro Natural Choice, PetSmart's Authority, and Costco's Kirkland). My motivation was not a special dietary need.

For the "wet" food (a/k/a doggy dinner) for our dogs who do not have special requirements, A few times a week, I cook either rice or pasta and mix in eggs and a lean meat and a veggie that they like (for ours, green beans work well). I usually make hardboiled eggs, and from what I have read, prprescription foods for easiloy digested dog foods are primarily eggs and rice.

I harhard boile eggs by putting them in a pot, covering + and inch or so in cold water with a tablespoon or so of salt, then put on a burner on high. Once they come to a hard boil / rolling boil, turn off the heat, cover and let them "set" for 30 minutes. Then pour out the hot water and cover with cold. After 5-10 minutes, peel and slice. The salt makes the eggs peel easily. I have a < $5 egg slicer from the grocery store and just peel and slice the eggs and put them in a ;arge container (where the rice / pasta alreayd is or will be)...

Then I put in the cooked rice, pasta or combination of both.

I have already prepared the meat part. For that, my favorites are chicken thighs from the crock pot (just one bone to remove), chicken hot dogs, and / or balogbologna. Really, usually, a combination of some of those things. My agenda is that I didn't want our dogs eating something that the "protein" was hair or other undigeindigestibles and that I was concerned about all the pet food recalls related to essential poisons.

We do also dole out what we do not eat for dinner to our dogs. I try to do our meats so that I thaw out enough for one meal, or if it's something that keep and re-heats well, then more than one meal. We normally eat either chicken breast or chicken thighs (boneless / skinless) -- like 5 or more times a week!). I feel like that will mix well in with what our dogs our eating. We try to eat healthy and I feel like if it's good enough for us (and for what people raise 2-legged kids on!), it is good enough for our dogs, who truly our OUR kids. who are all furry.

We do give them dog vitamins. I don't know if that's important, but we ourselves take vitamins so I feel like it won't hurt and could help. ...

Hope this helps someone. Our dogs are family to us, and I know that it's the same way for a lot of you!

 

[Marty]

I make my own dog food. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8zr5JcUrdI

 

[Jenna]

Oh and speaking of bones, as long as the meat is RAW (meaning the bones are as well) you don't have to worry. Raw bones from things like chicken necks etc are even recommended But they must be raw. Don't worry about your dog getting salmonella or whatever, wild canines do not make a camp fire before eating a deer they take down etc. Also when adding veggies, you don't have to cook those either! So really in feeding raw and natural its just all about having the ingredients, cutting them up and ploppin them into a bowl....voila!

 

[susanne]

If feeding eggs, the eggshells are also good for them -- just crush them finely and stir them in.

I've noticed that a lot of the recipes for homemade dogfood include raw eggs, which contradicts what I've read -- that dogs should not eat raw eggs. Is there a new school of thought on that?

 

[Norah]

I also read that ground eggshell is a great sourse of calcium, for us too . The raw egg thing is contravercial ...some believe saminilla can be in raw eggs . I think its a matter of what you feel OK about giving. I dont give bones, except veal bones ...thats just my "thing" . I did find a 100% natural food that has no glutin or wheat , or garbage , that i give now with my home cooked meal for them... poop is great , little smell , coat looks good , lots of energy ...I am going to stick with this combo, and see what happens over the next months . Now , on to the horses ....anyone make suppliments for ponys? how about a weekly suppliment made into a horse cookie?

 

[Jenna]

Dogs are equipped with enzymes and bacteria in their stomach from being evolved to eat raw meat...any meat, especially bird can have salmonella, it's not just eggs. I feel as thought it would take a very strong strain of it to really bother a dog...which would more than likely be from a bad egg or an old egg...