toblerone
Well-known member
dog food brand---our own!!
hi....
we gave up on commercial dog foods after all the recall problems here in the US. we had been feeding the dogs nutro lamb and rice. i read enough articles and news sources on dog food preparation to make my head spin.
here's what we do...about once a week we make the food. the contents are split about 1/3 protein, 1/3 vegetable, 1/3 starch. we usually use chicken/rice/peas and carrots and ground beef/potato/beans. we also usually top it with a bit of cottage cheese or yoghurt. this week we actually made a giant batch of food that combined all of the above...we decided the dogs wouldn't be particular upset if their beef and chicken menus were mixed. in addition i usually give them a small mid-day treat of a bit of cheese and some fruit. snacks are shredded wheat biscuits and rice crackers. most nights they get a small bit of something from dinner...maybe a crust of bread or a bit of chicken.
they've been on this for about six weeks. we started off giving them the same amount of this that we gave them in dry food (1/2 cup 2x/day). turns out this wasn't enough. we took them to the vets to be weighed this weekend and they both had lost a bit of weight. gadget went from 18.4 to 17.6 and was looking a bit thin (he's on the tall side) and sasha went from 15.3 to 14.6. (he's not even a year old and i didn't want him getting too thin.) so we've upped the quantity for the next couple of weeks and will take them again to be weighed to see how we are doing.
we are not giving any supplements other than cosequin.
i think it was karlin's comments that convinced me that we could do this home-cooked diet without losing our minds. and it's really not bad in terms of extra effort. they love it and i feel better about doing this. (side benefit....poops are MUCH easier to deal with.)
anyway, we'll keep this up for about six months and then have a checkup to see what the vet thinks about how they are doing.
margaret
p.s. in the interest of full-disclosure i need to admit that my husband is actually the one who does all the preparation. he's the cook in the house. but he tells me that it REALLY isn't much work!
hi....
we gave up on commercial dog foods after all the recall problems here in the US. we had been feeding the dogs nutro lamb and rice. i read enough articles and news sources on dog food preparation to make my head spin.
here's what we do...about once a week we make the food. the contents are split about 1/3 protein, 1/3 vegetable, 1/3 starch. we usually use chicken/rice/peas and carrots and ground beef/potato/beans. we also usually top it with a bit of cottage cheese or yoghurt. this week we actually made a giant batch of food that combined all of the above...we decided the dogs wouldn't be particular upset if their beef and chicken menus were mixed. in addition i usually give them a small mid-day treat of a bit of cheese and some fruit. snacks are shredded wheat biscuits and rice crackers. most nights they get a small bit of something from dinner...maybe a crust of bread or a bit of chicken.
they've been on this for about six weeks. we started off giving them the same amount of this that we gave them in dry food (1/2 cup 2x/day). turns out this wasn't enough. we took them to the vets to be weighed this weekend and they both had lost a bit of weight. gadget went from 18.4 to 17.6 and was looking a bit thin (he's on the tall side) and sasha went from 15.3 to 14.6. (he's not even a year old and i didn't want him getting too thin.) so we've upped the quantity for the next couple of weeks and will take them again to be weighed to see how we are doing.
we are not giving any supplements other than cosequin.
i think it was karlin's comments that convinced me that we could do this home-cooked diet without losing our minds. and it's really not bad in terms of extra effort. they love it and i feel better about doing this. (side benefit....poops are MUCH easier to deal with.)
anyway, we'll keep this up for about six months and then have a checkup to see what the vet thinks about how they are doing.
margaret
p.s. in the interest of full-disclosure i need to admit that my husband is actually the one who does all the preparation. he's the cook in the house. but he tells me that it REALLY isn't much work!