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Dog food

M

mardinim

New member
Hello All,

I just joined this forum, so apologies if the following questions have been answered. I have a 10 month old cavalier named Miles and I've been feeding him Honest Kitchen Chicken and Oat recipe, but his stool has been soft. Do most of you make your own food for your dogs? If so, can you recommend a good recipe for Miles? Thank you,
Mark
 
I'm new here but I have been making my Cavaliers lightly cooked food for many years ( I could never quite get into raw and now with MVD it is recommended to stay away from raw). Be careful of recipes found online as most are not balanced including some from Nutritionists. I use a human recipe calculator which identifies all nutrients/vitamins/amino acids and then I manually compare those amounts to the NRC guidlines. There are some things that need to be balanced like calcium/phos ratio, copper to zinc ratio and it's nearly impossible to get enough Vitamin E from food alone so you will still some supplements. Because my Bailey has MVD, I feed a high protein, moderate fat and low carb & low sodium diet and rotate proteins but she does get some beef heart in every batch. It's a lot of work initially but once you have a few recipes created it's simple to change out a few ingredients without too much work. It may be easier to just use a meal mix where you add only a few fresh ingredients but then you are somewhat locked into using the same food each batch. I usually make 9-10 pounds of food which is 18-22 days (depending on the calories in the batch) for her and freeze in containers & I always have 2 different batches that I rotate daily.
 
When I adopted a Cavalier puppy, the vet said that she should eat a premium, small-breed formula until she was 12 months of age. I chose Royal Canin Cavalier Puppy for her and fortunately, everything is ok. I will take her to the vet again soon (I checked petsylife and found several in our area) as she is almost 1 year old and I think it is time to change her nutrition. Did anyone try cooked food after a year of dog food? Is it possible to switch and is it advisable?
 
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After age one, you can consider a range of foods. Personally, I don't like feeding only a dry food, even though vets tend to recommend this as a safe approach. But breeders will almost always suggest supplementing (mixing) with either a quality wet food, or appropriate healthful foods like some sardines, some cooked white fish or mince or chicken (never cooked bones of course and no skin or fat). I've always compared an only-dry food diet with a person eating only Wheaties or fortified cereals... you'll get the balanced nutrition through supplementation, but dry foods offer little of the nutrient and fibre diversity that we know is important for healthy gut flora. The main issue with a cooked diet is getting such a diet properly nutritionally balanced. If you wish to try a home cooked diet, or to alternate it with a quality wet or dry (or commercial, balanced raw) diet, then I'd recommend Monica Segal's website and eBooks, and signing up for her newsletter. She knows cavaliers, and is a professional nutritionist, not someone randomly claiming expertise in this area. She will design tailored diets as well for dogs needing special care or with health conditions like chronic pancreatitis.

Monica's website:
 
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nebex said:
When I adopted a Cavalier puppy, the vet said that she should eat a premium, small-breed formula until she was 12 months of age. I chose Royal Canin Cavalier Puppy for her and fortunately, everything is ok. I will take her to the vet again soon (I checked petsylife and found several in our area) as she is almost 1 year old and I think it is time to change her nutrition. Did anyone try cooked food after a year of dog food? Is it possible to switch and is it advisable?
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Karlin gave you great advice to look at Monica Segal recipes. Looks like the Royal Canin is chicken by-product protein so I would also suggest prior to cooking a batch of new food that you start with adding a topper of lean plain beef, turkey, pork, eggs, sardines or salmon rotating each for several days and no more than 10% to make sure there are no allergies to each of them and to transition her stomach to a variety of proteins. She will love the fresh food. My Bailey would eat every speck of fresh food and leave the kibble as a last resort. FYI, I lightly cook most proteins but salmon has to be thoroughly cooked because it can have parasites.
 
My ruby Rosie is the fussiest eater. After a year of trialing all sorts she now eats and completes Butternut Box food only. I find it pricey as she is one of three dogs but she enjoys it & once she’s happy and satisfied that’s all the boxes ticked for me
 
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