Home Prepared Dog Food

• Trusted Recipe Sources

• Feeding Guidelines

• Supplements

When food is home-prepared we are in control of the ingredients, quality, and the balance of the foods we feed. One common problem with home-prepared foods is that often the recipes are not balanced correctly or are inadequate with regards to vitamins and minerals.

Evaluating Fresh Diets in Practice Justin Shmalberg, DVM, DACVN, DACVSMR

Below are 6 trusted recipes sources that provide correct and balanced recipes for dogs. All the recipes sources require adding some level of supplements to balance the diet. The Meal Mix recipes are the simplest and my favorite to use.

Trusted Recipes Resources

Researching Food Nutrient Content

USDA Food Composition Databases

You can search the database by food item. For example: raw broccoli

Feeding Guidelines

No one food or diet is great for every dog. Dogs can thrive on a raw or home-cooked diets. The key is that home prepared meals need to have the proper ingredients in the proper ratios to include vitamins and minerals for the food to be nutritionally complete. If you include vegetables in home prepared foods lightly cooking them can increase digestibility, but cooking too long may increase vitamin loss. When adding vitamin and mineral supplements they can be destroyed by heat so they should be kept separate from the food and not added until just before serving.

Homemade Food Mistakes to Avoid With Your Dog  By Dr. Becker

“Many (and I would say most) homemade and prey-model diets and even some commercially available raw diets are nutritionally unbalanced. This can cause dogs to become deficient in antioxidants, or the correct amounts of trace minerals and vitamins, or the right fatty acid balance for appropriate and balanced skeletal growth, and organ and immune health. Just because nutritional deficiencies aren't obvious in your dog doesn't mean they don't exist.” [12]

“Human Food” to share with your dog

Although fresh meat is a good source of protein and some minerals, it doesn't represent a balanced diet.  Wild canines eat nearly all the parts of their prey, including small bones, internal organs, blood, brain, glands, hair, skin, teeth, eyes, tongue and other tasty treats. Many of these parts of prey animals provide important nutrients, and in fact, this is how carnivores in the wild nutritionally balance their diets.

There are only two options for assuring nutritional adequacy in homemade diets: feeding a more expensive, whole food recipe that contains a significant number of diversified ingredients necessary to meet nutrient requirements, or using supplements. Most homemade diets lack the correct calcium and phosphorus balance as well as essential fatty acid balance.” [12]

There are several good options. But be very careful you find nutritionally complete recipes. Too many recipes are lacking trace minerals, vitamins, and the proper fatty acids. So there are two primary options. Use a recipe with a wide range of diversified ingredients or use a recipe with a limited number of ingredients and use supplements.

“canine patients could be mineral-deficient, specifically lacking dietary manganese, which as it turns out is the root cause of many human ACL injuries.” “Manganese is necessary for healthy ligament development and maintenance. A dog's manganese requirements are high. Food sources vary on the amount of manganese present.”

Raw meat diets have been show to have improved apparent protein and energy digestibility, reduced faecal weight and better faecal consistency in dogs. But without the inclusion of supplementation (fermentable substrates) “Raw red meat diets decrease faecal microbial diversity in the dog”. Decreased faecal microbial diversity is to be avoided to maintain a healthy balanced microbiome.

“From our results and from the comparison with existing scientific evidences, it appears that the modification of microbiome can be attained when a considerable variation of dietary regimes is applied. Specifically, the administration of highly digestible feed, combining fresh meat with readily fermentable substrates, promoted a more balanced growth of bacterial communities and a positive change in some of the readouts of healthy gut functions.”

Raw meat based diet influences faecal microbiome and end products of fermentation in healthy dogs

Key bacterial families (Clostridiaceae, Erysipelotrichaceae and Bacteroidaceae) are related to the digestion of protein and energy in dogs.

Fermented Foods for Dogs and Cats

Low Number of Owner-Reported Suspected Transmission of Foodborne Pathogens From Raw Meat-Based Diets Fed to Dogs and/or Cats

Age, breed, sex and diet influence serum metabolite profiles of 2000 pet dogs

“Dogs eating dry food had significantly higher GlycA levels than dogs consuming other diet types”

“GlycA is a composite inflammatory marker that consists of signals of different acut

Best Dog Food List

Dog Food 101

How To Choose Pet Food

Canine Nutrition Consulting

Diana Laverdure-Dunetz, MS

How To Make The Food You Feed Better

Supplements

Amazon Supplements

[12] https://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2017/10/09/5-mistakes-dog-parents-often-make.aspx

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