I've never trusted store bought dog food, so I've been making a supplement dog food and adding it to dry dog food for our black labs ever since they graduated off puppy kibbles. Roxy just turned 14 and Addy died of bone cancer about 8 years ago. They both loved it.
Mine is pretty simple and varies with what is in the fridge and freezer, but always runs pretty uniform.
-4 to 5 pounds of meat (all the trimmings--beef, pork, chicken, turkey, ham, chopped raw bacon)
chopped into roughly 1" pieces. All cartilage is considered meat
-about 3 pounds sliced carrots
-1 bunch of sliced celery
-1 large yellow onion coarse chopped
-any left over veggies in the fridge (usually broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, or blanched swiss chard)
-some tomato sauce or paste
-1 quart of beef or chicken broth
-2 quarts of water
The liquids and veggies go in a BIG pot and boil for a couple of hours. Then the meat is added and boiled for 1 hour. The pot is moved to the back of the stove over low heat for about 4 hours. When cool, it is packaged up in 6 plastic tobacco cans and frozen.
When a container is thawed out, all the fat on the surface is removed.
At meal time, I mix a generous amount into 1 cup of the dry dog food. Visiting critters get the same thing to eat and the bowls always come back licked spotlessly clean.
Gary