Cooking Dog Food

[shmoo]

The main reason for grating the veges/fruit, and putting them through a processor is so the dog will eat them.

Not in this house! All my crew will happily snack on any vegie or fruit i give them. But when we give them dinner we grate/or mash the vegies up to mix it through with rice and meat.

[Wyhldher]

The main reason for grating the veges/fruit, and putting them through a processor is so the dog will eat them. Rice is a filler, but brown rice does contain selenium - but it is also contained in vegetable oils, poultry, organ meat and wheat.

I second that! And the processor maintains the integrity of the vitamins.

Would also probably not use garlic powder as bloss344 previously suggested (sorry bloss!) - they often contain unnecessary additives and salt. I think the 'for flavour' idea is for moreso for us! Personally, I think a bit of raw garlic is good for (anti!) fleas, and there are differing opinions there.

I like to give all raw; though suggest steaming any broccoli to help with its digestion. Brown rice is good if it's not the overwhelming ingredient (!) - white rice has virtually no nutritional value, and can sometimes cause diarrhea.

I'd probably add some fish oil, and mineral supplements.

Eggs can be lightly scrambled for a bit of variety; and it's not a bad idea to wash, and then dry the egg shells in the oven to get rid of the chemical coating before adding them.

[suki's mum]

Also try a bit of liver, heart or kidneys to the mix to add variety. We have been cooking our dogs food for years, as we have had up to four dogs in the household at any one time. We make up a huge pot of food and put it in those plastic take away containers and freeze them, and put in a daily portion in each container for convenience.

By the way our dogs do very well on our mix. They are not overweight, they have great coats, and have good energy levels, considering the oldest is 13 years old.

[hastey]

I feed both my pup on cooked pet mince with rice, pasta and vegies - and my previous ACD - never had a problem ;)

I also mix in some dry food aswell on occasion

[Erny]

The main reason for grating the veges/fruit, and putting them through a processor is so the dog will eat them.

My understanding is that without this, the enzymes in the dog's stomach can't properly break the vegetation down and thus all the nutrients the vegies would otherwise supply remain unavailable.

When a dog in the wild kills an animal (ie herbivore) and ingests the stomach, the vegetation in that stomach is already semi-broken down. By juicing (and adding the pulp back to the juice - which is the method I've used) or processing, you are helping to break down the vegies so that digestion of the dog can absorb as much of the available nutrients as possible.

Edited July 11, 2007 by Erny