An Experiment in
How to Make Dog Food
Have you always wanted to learn how to make dog food but thought it was too difficult?
Rest assured - if you know how to prepare a sandwich or pop something into the microwave to feed yourself, you can teach yourself how to make dog food!
While traveling, we had been feeding Comet mostly kibble, supplemented with bones and veggie treats. However, after a switch to one type of kibble someone recommended, we found that his coat had become rather dull and greasy and he was shedding a lot.
My conscience had been pricking me for some time to try a raw food diet with Comet. I decided to follow the one on this PetsTouch.com video for how to make dog food from scratch. Somehow seeing someone else mixing the ingredients was more helpful than reading about it!
The instructions are for making a week's supply of food for an 80-lb dog. Comet is just under 70 lbs so I figured I only needed to modify things slightly. Since we shop for groceries once a week, this seemed like a good recipe to start with.
Ingredients
The ingredients I used the first few weeks are as follows:- A 5-lb roll of hamburger that contained 20% fat. (I would have preferred a leaner option but that was too expensive.)
- 2 or 3 yams, peeled, cooked and mashed
- 1/2 cup lightly cooked spinach, finely chopped
- 1 cup finely grated carrot
- 1 small zucchini, finely grated
- 1 medium to large apple, finely grated
- 1/4 cup finely grated cabbage
- 1/4 cup finely grated broccoli
- 3 cloves garlic, finely minced
- 3 raw eggs
- 1 cup plain yogurt
I did not use any goat cheese or milk.
I divided the patties we made into smaller ones (about 1/4 lb) for breakfast and larger ones (1/2 lb) for dinner.
Supplements
As suggested, I gave Comet a daily capsule of flax seed oil (1000 mg), mixed in with his breakfast patty. I also gave him about 3/4 of a Brazil nut (if you don't have something to grind the nut up with you can chew it yourself first then spit it out into your dog's bowl).
I tried to give him a marrow bone a few times a week, and some beef liver or beef heart about every third day, instead of a breakfast patty.
How to Make Dog Food Results
Much to my surprise, Comet took to eating the raw patties right away. After a few weeks, we saw a major improvement in his coat and the shedding decreased significantly. His coat became almost silky soft and was shinier. This happened despite the fact that neither the meats nor the vegetables were organic.
Best of all, he was pooping less frequently and the amount was a fraction of what he had been producing before - the inferior kibble we bought had had him going at least twice a day.
However, I was concerned about the fat content of the hamburger and decided to do one week of raw chicken and then one week of hamburger.
How to make dog food the wrong way
Chicken has become rather expensive, especially ground, and it is difficult to find any at WalMart that does not have some kind of solution added to it. I started buying two whole natural chickens and then would spend at least half an hour or more cutting it into parts, cutting out some of the bones. Since we do not have a food processor or blender and did not want to acquire one, the grating of the vegetables took a lot of effort, and I kept overcooking or burning the yams!
I also ended up using individual zip-lock bags for each meal, since I had trouble getting the plastic wrap to work. This meant that my environmental conscience kicked in, so I started washing the plastic bags to reuse them - there went another half hour, at least.
I was also having trouble finding marrow bones and organ meats. These were only available at two different stores, difficult to get to, with one of them in an unsavory neighborhood. So I started leaving more of the chicken bones in so he would be chewing on something. (Only the cooked bones are dangerous). I was also having to add the vegetables separately, as well as the eggs and yogurt and getting confused about which day to add what. The final straw in my experiment with how to make dog food came when Comet started turning his nose up at the chicken.
Since Stan has always been fond of slipping Comet treats, I suggested he take over Comet's feeding for a while. So now it's back to kibble (although a better brand which had worked with Comet before - we finally found a place here that carries it) and Stan supplements that with people food, often leftovers from dinner or little bits of grated salad. If I want to cook foods for us that contain onions, I do them on the side so Comet can have an onion-free share. (See Dangerous foods for dogs for people foods to avoid feeding your dog). He is still getting the flax seed oil and Brazil nuts as well as a raw egg three times a week. So far his coat and overall health are doing fine.
You Can Do It!
Although this page might be more about the wrong way of going about how to make dog food, we do not mean to discourage anyone from trying it. First of all, have the right tools handy - a food processor or blender and perhaps wax paper rather than plastic wrap at a minimum. Also, Dr. Andrew Jones, a vet we admire from Nelson, B.C., says even feeding your dog a homemade dog food diet once a week is beneficial. Concerned about bacteria? See his Myths about Raw Food (scroll to near the bottom of the Canine Raw Diet page).
If nothing else, it gives your dog variety. So if you are just starting out, perhaps aim at once or twice a week, or just feed the fresh foods in the mornings. Just be aware that, unlike Comet, some dogs have trouble switching.
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