Homemade Dogfood

[801driver]

I make my own also, fry couple lbs ground beef, cooked minute rice, cornbread, parboiled potato cubes, cooked carrots, green beans, peas, wet it down with chicken broth, freeze in containers. Hell, if I need a quick meal I could just salt and pepper some and eat it my self. Ha Ha Yep, about the same price as canned dog food, I give him some dry on the side and he can choose what bite to take.

 

[KBFlyer]

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

Never ever give dogs onions. By doing so you are poisoning them slowly.
All parts of the onion plant are toxic to dogs, including the flesh, leaves, juice, and processed powders. Whether raw or cooked, fried or powdered, onions and the rest of the allium family (garlic, shallots, leeks, and chives) are harmful to dogs.

 

[GaryHibbert]

Never ever give dogs onions. By doing so you are poisoning them slowly.
All parts of the onion plant are toxic to dogs, including the flesh, leaves, juice, and processed powders. Whether raw or cooked, fried or powdered, onions and the rest of the allium family (garlic, shallots, leeks, and chives) are harmful to dogs.

Didn't know this about onions. Good to know, but both of our dogs (black lab sisters from the same litter) were fed this supplement from the time they switched from puppy food to adult food. Roxy lived to the age of 14--good for a lab--and Addy died of bone cancer at age six, so it doesn't seem like onions affected them at all.
Gary

 

[KBFlyer]

Didn't know this about onions. Good to know, but both of our dogs (black lab sisters from the same litter) were fed this supplement from the time they switched from puppy food to adult food. Roxy lived to the age of 14--good for a lab--and Addy died of bone cancer at age six, so it doesn't seem like onions affected them at all.
Gary

Ya some dogs can tolerate more then others. Some have cast iron guts and others will cost you big time in vet bills trying to figure out what they can eat.
After getting my Golden Retriever and being retired I started making her home food, you really have to be careful of the ratios of meat, veg's and I use rice as the binder with pure pumpkin. Not the pie filling one as it has tons of sugar. The ground beef and skinless chicken breast I boil for 20 minutes, let cool and run the chicken breast through my grinder and mix every thing together. She will not eat carrots for some reason. Loves peas. I mix it all in with her dry dog food. Some days its gone faster then speeding bullet and other days she takes all day to eat it.

I also make these homemade dog treats which she just loves. I freeze them and on hot days its like a doggie popsicle :)

Ingredients:

One 398mL can pumpkin puree (plain) for dogs not pie mix. get from petsmart or Amazon, sometimes walmart will have it.
2 Tbsp. honey (honey is a natural sweetener)
1 large egg (can skip it if your dog is allergic)
1 Tbsp. applesauce
1 Cup whole wheat flour (add more if needed)
2 tablespoons peanut butter
Serving size: 10 to 15 cookies
Bake @ 350 for 25-30 minutes

Prep time: 15 minutes

 

[paulgeorge]

Ya some dogs can tolerate more then others. Some have cast iron guts and others will cost you big time in vet bills trying to figure out what they can eat.
After getting my Golden Retriever and being retired I started making her home food, you really have to be careful of the ratios of meat, veg's and I use rice as the binder with pure pumpkin. Not the pie filling one as it has tons of sugar. The ground beef and skinless chicken breast I boil for 20 minutes, let cool and run the chicken breast through my grinder and mix every thing together. She will not eat carrots for some reason. Loves peas. I mix it all in with her dry dog food. Some days its gone faster then speeding bullet and other days she takes all day to eat it.

I also make these homemade dog treats which she just loves. I freeze them and on hot days its like a doggie popsicle :)

Ingredients:

One 398mL can pumpkin puree (plain) for dogs not pie mix. get from petsmart or Amazon, sometimes walmart will have the solution of dog stopped eating.
2 Tbsp. honey (honey is a natural sweetener)
1 large egg (can skip it if your dog is allergic)
1 Tbsp. applesauce
1 Cup whole wheat flour (add more if needed)
2 tablespoons peanut butter
Serving size: 10 to 15 cookies
Bake @ 350 for 25-30 minutes

Prep time: 15 minutes

Appreciate if anyone can offer what they are feeding their doggies in regards to canned dog food. I would like to feed raw food to my dog however I just don't have the time. I just purchased Longevity from Springtime and Nadia is currently eating Cannidae. I really would appreciate some high quality canned food recommendations. Thank you all for your input.

 

[Gonna Smoke]

Appreciate if anyone can offer what they are feeding their doggies in regards to canned dog food. I would like to feed raw food to my dog however I just don't have the time. I just purchased Longevity from Springtime and Nadia is currently eating Cannidae. I really would appreciate some high quality canned food recommendations. Thank you all for your input.

Before I switched to making my own, I fed mine Blue Buffalo Family Favorites. There are several different flavors to choose from. If you're ever wanting reviews or other info on any dogfood, check out this...

Dog Food Reviews and Ratings | Dog Food Advisor

The Dog Food Advisor's unbiased dog food reviews and ratings searchable by brand or star rating. Find the best dry, canned or raw food for your dog.

www.dogfoodadvisor.com

On the website, canned is called wet food. There are a bunch of categories reviewed including dry, wet (canned), raw, fresh, puppy, etc. I've used this as a source of info about dogfood for a long time...

 

[bradger]

sounds good thinking of starting to make my own too, my one dog was eating really slow until i started adding fresh pet. it was a problem because as soon as he walked away from his bowl my other dog would run in and eat it.
as a side note, if the carrots you get still have the leafy parts. can make a good pesto.

 

[mike243]

I bought my wife a brown Lab silver phase almost 10 years ago, we only wanted the best for him, for probably 7+ years we fed him a grain free diet per my wifes wishes, talking with the vet she said to get him off the GF diet as it was causing heart problems, he would have been 10 today, we lost him 2-3 months ago to some type of heart problem. She fed him $$ at almost $100 a bag that lasted a few weeks, hard to lose a family member, we have a beagle that we love but savage had a human mind trapped in a dogs body. Been tough around here as he thought he was the favorite grandkid lol. When a dog can unscrew the lid on a water bottle then find a paper towel to soak up what he didn't drink.

 

[Gonna Smoke]

for probably 7+ years we fed him a grain free diet per my wifes wishes, talking with the vet she said to get him off the GF diet

Yeah, the whole grain free thing and the associated Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM) is up for debate, but I too, no longer feed my dogs a GF diet.

Sorry for your loss, Mike, I know it's tough...

 

[Brokenhandle]

I bought my wife a brown Lab silver phase almost 10 years ago, we only wanted the best for him, for probably 7+ years we fed him a grain free diet per my wifes wishes, talking with the vet she said to get him off the GF diet as it was causing heart problems, he would have been 10 today, we lost him 2-3 months ago to some type of heart problem. She fed him $$ at almost $100 a bag that lasted a few weeks, hard to lose a family member, we have a beagle that we love but savage had a human mind trapped in a dogs body. Been tough around here as he thought he was the favorite grandkid lol. When a dog can unscrew the lid on a water bottle then find a paper towel to soak up what he didn't drink.

The harder it is to lose them just proves how much they meant to you!

Ryan

 

[ajbert]

I have been grinding up deer and elk meat the last ten years for the dog. Not the entire deer, just the stuff we don't use for making sausage. He gets a half cup of dry food morning and evening, and a 1/4 lbs of ground meat for dinner with a sprinkling of the dry food. I even holler out, "SPRINKLES!", when I put the dry one. The meat is frozen and we just thaw it out. Our vet seems quite happy with his diet.