Posts Tagged ‘home cooked meals for dogs’
Customizing Your Home cooked meal for dogs
October 29th, 2009
Consulting a professional about a particular dog’s needs is very important. A nutritionist can set some basic requirements for a well balanced meal. For my dogs, the requirements are each dog gets about a half cup of food split into 40% protein, 40 % veggies/fruits and 20% carbohydrates. A 100lb dog will need about 4 lbs of food! Depending on size, age and type, each dog will have different food composition needs.
I try to give my dogs a varied vegetable diet and alternate the protein source every 2 weeks. I only use tubers for my carbohydrate requirement as my dogs are allergic to rice.
As for the amount of food a dog needs, I would recommend trying about 1 cup for every 15 lbs of weight. Another way to choose portion size is to feed slightly less home cooked food than the amount of dry food the dog was eating previously. From the initial amount of food, adjustments can be made to keep doggy fit and trim. Active dogs will need more protein and fats than a couch potato dog.
When cooking for dogs, always measure out exactly how much food the dog is receiving. Keeping a record of how much food dogs are eating will allow owners to be able to easily adjust the amount of food doggy needs.
Owners will know if their dog needs more or less food. When Eppie is hungry, she tends to destroy my house more in search of a snack. If a dog needs more food they will act excessively hungry all the time and lose weight. If the dog needs less food, they will probably gain weight rapidly. Owners will need to adjust accordingly.
Raw or Cooked
When preparing food, either one can opt for the cooked style or raw style depending on the owner’s preference. I personally boil everything together in a pot for about 20 minutes in a small amount of water. I don’t cook the fruits and often give my dogs fresh vegetables for snacks.
If one opts to go the raw food way, care must be taken to properly handle the meats to prevent food born disease. The only meats I am comfortable feeding my dogs are meats that I would feel comfortable eating raw. (I do enjoy sashimi and very raw steak.) Either way, the feeding concept is similar.
As gross as this sounds, it is important to pay attention to doggy’s bathroom habits. Stools should be well-formed and firm. Stools that appear bleached are caused by excessive plant material and shows imbalance in the diet. Loose stools can be caused by excess fats, food poisoning, or while adjusting to the new diet. Because home cooked foods don’t contain the same amount of grain fillers that commercial foods do, stool output will decrease.
As a last note, potato-type starches will need to be cooked as they are not digestible in the uncooked form. Bones, of course, always need to be eaten raw. Also, for large, broad-chested dogs who will need pounds of food, I would strongly recommend feeding at least two meals to avoid bloat.
