Our home cooked food

[ShorkieHumour]

Hello everyone,

We have a Shorkie and 2 Malteses. Years ago, a veterinarian friend recommended a home made diet for our doggies (at the time we were taking care of a Maltese with joint issues, and were promised the condition would resolve on the new diet... it did).

We have tweaked their diet over the years, and become increasingly efficient at making big batches - I'm now doing the final mixing in a stainless steel full-sized bucket!

The dogs are doing very well on this diet, and I thought I would share an outline of it here :

Simmered in water and made ready - fish and poultry (chicken or turkey).. one of our Malteses is allergic to red meat as tests have shown.

All cooked up and mixed together, a variable mix of the following - sweet potato, green beans, chickpeas, green peas, blueberries, bananas, brown rice, chopped up carrots, zucchini, oats, farro.

Stirred into the combined mix - nutritional yeast, flaxseed meal, chopped leafy greens. I would take a guess that aprox 20% of the calories in this mix are derived from animal protein, and the rest comes from the freshly cooked fruit and veg ingredients.

We're plant-based ourselves, so apart from the animal protein, we'd be good to eat all of this. In fact, I have to be careful sometimes that we don't accidentally eat our girl's food.

I'm keen to learn of other's experiences. The latest vet to look after our doggies is blaming this diet for their poor dental health. He may be correct, but we're not going to be feeding our dogs any of the commercial food that we have seen so far (they won't touch it anyway). We have tried the various dental chews, to tackle the plaque accumulation, and all of them are a failure so far.

If only we could get in there with a little toothbrush! But it's not going to happen....

Interested to see others thoughts on this.

[ladyjane]

I have home cooked but ONLY used a diet formulated by a veterinary nutritionist. One size fits all is not the way to go imho.
You can get a free diet that is balanced at: www.balanceit.com What you are doing is not balanced.
As for the teeth...the diet may be deficient and affecting them, but that diet will affect other parts of the body as well. You REALLY need to get a well balanced diet plan for them.

Much of what happens in terms of periodontal issues in small dogs is genetic and also due to their tiny mouths. Most small dogs need dentals done by the vet ...even if you brush them, they still need them. Not doing dentals will lead to major organ diseases and quite possibly failure.
Info on dogs oral health here:

Veterinary Oral Health Council

[ShorkieHumour]

Thanks LadyJane for your thoughts. I think we all have to be careful here about 'the facts'. I'm not sure anyone on the planet knows exactly what would be the ultimate diet for these precious little creatures.

What I can do is pass along my observations. Our dogs are eager to eat, full of energy and fun. Meanwhile, families around us have dogs that get sick and die. They all buy in commercial food, not one of them make the effort to prepare fresh. The results are cruel to witness.

The vet that told us about this diet is someone we trust. He started out with showing us how to fix a joint and gait issue with an older Maltese, as soon as swapped our dogs to this diet. Success within a short period of time. He is currently on a campaign to knock kibble out of dog's diets. Our dogs will not be exposed to kibble again (we have healthy treats avail for their enjoyment).

I think our dogs would have more or less the same set of dental issues even if we DID change their diets. The risk as I see it is that we would at the same time be exposing them to disease risks thru poor nutrition, and potentially toxic canned muck. I think we'll stick with the problems we have!

Thanks for the link...

'You can get a free diet that is balanced at: www.balanceit.com What you are doing is not balanced.'

I just checked here, and by scanning across the foods selector, I see that we're hitting 100% of the goals prescribed by this site. I would only add that we do a lot more ingredients per batch than is suggested by this site. Do we know anything about the person or people who put the site together?

I'm as suspicious of oils for our dogs as I am for us. We no longer have any oils in our diets. All oils are a dense source of empty calories and pro-inflammatory components for humans. Now well established.... Commonsense suggests that oils will be as useless and harmful to our dogs as they are to us. Just my opinion, based on my accumulated knowledge (our dogs get no oils in their daily meals). I'm aware of the old school thinking about needing certain oils for Omega 3's and other fatty acids. The best science has been updated since then, there are more supportive sources of these, but not everyone has kept up with the updates (ditto re the admonition to drink red wine.... sorry, NO!)

Good luck. Thanks again for the ideas.

[ladyjane]

Balance it is run by a veterinary nutritionist. As for oils, some is necessary in a diet.
My dogs are all thriving on the canned muck as you refer to it.
Unless one has a degree in animal nutrition I won't follow them nor their advice.
To each his own.

[ladyjane]

Another site that is very informative. It is also run by veterinary nutritionists.

www.petdiets.com

you can read their resumes here:

https://www.petdiets.com/about

[ladyjane]

Link from the BalanceIt website that has boarded vet nutrionists information:

https://secure.balanceit.com/info/acvnecvcn.php

[ladyjane]

Originally Posted by ladyjane

Balance it is run by a veterinary nutritionist. As for oils, some is necessary in a diet.
My dogs are all thriving on the canned muck as you refer to it.
Unless one has a degree in animal nutrition I won't follow them nor their advice.
To each his own.

Oh, and on kibble, too. I have fed my pups commercial food AND I have home cooked for some but only with a vet nutritionist formulating the diet that is balanced for them and has supplements added. Balance It has basic diets, but they ALL require supplements which they do sell on that website.

I make sure the commercial food is AAFCO approved....complete and balanced for their life stage.

[Lovetodream88]

Going threw my Vet assistant classes and then with personal experience if their food is not balanced then you are doing much more hard then good. I know many dogs who were fed non balanced food and due to bone loss have/had lost all their teeth. In more extreme cases are sudden breaks of the jaw. That’s not even the other things that go wrong with the body. You don’t have to believe people on this message bored but go actually talk to a vet nutritionist. My dogs eat Royal Canin dry food for Yorkies and are thriving. They also when I have the money get a few spoons of Just Food for Dogs in the morning and night time. Dogs are not having issues these days because of eating scientifically made dog food but that fact that we are destroying our planet. The food that you are cooking has the same chemicals in in fact maybe even more. Dogs stems have evolved to relying on dog food as well as their bodies for certain vitamins. You don’t have to feed dog food but you should at least be using a recipe from a vet nutritionist and a supplement.

[Lovetodream88]

Originally Posted by ladyjane

Oh, and on kibble, too. I have fed my pups commercial food AND I have home cooked for some but only with a vet nutritionist formulating the diet that is balanced for them and has supplements added. Balance It has basic diets, but they ALL require supplements which they do sell on that website.

I make sure the commercial food is AAFCO approved....complete and balanced for their life stage.

Also WSAVA compliance https://wsava.org/wp-content/uploads...on-Toolkit.pdf