Home Cooked Food for Your Dog

          I am happy to say that we have been making our own dog food for a few months now.  I have written on this topic before and if you will recall, the last time I wrote about dog food it was because Jasmine (our black lab) got very sick when we transitioned her from the homemade food back to her dry dog food.  Since that time, Jasmine and Frankie (our Siberian husky) have been enjoying a steady diet of homemade food.

          Jasmine has lost a lot of weight.  It’s funny, but we have been trying to get her to lose weight for a few years now, and nothing seemed to be working.  We would exercise her daily, we cut back on the amount of food we would feed her three times until she was eating a cup in the morning and a cup in the evening.  We had no idea her weight loss would be the result of homemade food.  She is now 20lbs lighter.  She lost the weight so fast it gave us pause and we took her to the vet.  The vet was shocked and did a full work up on her, she is in perfect health.  We are now feeding her 2 cups of homemade food in the morning and 2 cups of homemade food in the evening.  She is slim, her coat is so much softer, and she has so much more energy.  She is a completely different dog.  Frankie has lost a few pounds as well, though she was not overweight to begin with.   The big difference with Frankie is her coat.  Huskies have a very thick coat and they tend to shed… a lot.  Since we have been giving her the home made food she has not been shedding nearly as much and her coat feels like incredibly soft.

          You might think making dog food for your dog will be labor intensive.  I won’t lie to you, at first it was.  We now have a routine and we make the food once a week, sometimes we will make a batch that will last 2 weeks.  It is not all that hard to do, it takes about 30 minutes to put together, and a few hours of cooking time, but that is as easy as boiling some chicken.  There is no need to worry about spices or seasonings, dogs don’t need that stuff.  In fact it’s better for the dog if you don’t season the food.  Too much salt is a bad thing for a dog.  The cost is a little more than buying the dry dog food we used to, but honestly the difference is not that much.  The benefits we see from the homemade food outweigh the little extra cost.  I used to think people that feed their dogs homemade food were spoiling their dogs.  It took Jasmine getting sick for me to see how much better homemade food is for my dogs.

          I am giving you the recipe we use for our dogs below.  Try it for a month and see what happens.  It can’t hurt to try; right?

This recipe will feed two medium dogs for about a week.

You will need.

Chicken legs (2 family packs approximately 32 legs)

8 cups of medium or long grain rice

2 big family sized packages of frozen vegetables (carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower)

To cook the rice, put 8 cups of rice into a large stock pot add 16 cups of water, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook until the rice has absorbed all the water

For the Chicken legs you can boil them for a few hours or until the meat is easy to remove from the bone.  You can also put them in a crock pot in the morning, when you come home they will be ready.  Place on a cookie sheet to cool.  Once cool remove the meat from the bone, do not forget to get the small bone, it will come off with the meat, do not let that get into the food, it could harm your dog.  Make sure you save the water you cooked the chicken in.

Boil the vegies until done.

Once the chicken is deboned, the rice and veggies are cooked you can combine it all, mix in a little of the chicken stock you saved from cooking those chicken legs until it is a nice consistency.  Store it in the fridge and use that to feed your dogs. 

You should warm the food to just about room temperature before feeding.  You can do this by putting the food in the microwave for a few minutes.  Make sure you test the food before you give it to your dog.  You don’t want to accidently burn them, and microwaves are famous for creating hot and cold spots. 

          I hope the recipe is clear.  If you have any questions feel free to e-mail me at doggiediaries4u@gmail.com.  If you try this for a month I am betting your furry family members will love you for it, and it will make the all the more happy and healthy.

Nick C

DoggieDiares4u@gmail.com