healthy homemade dog food recipes vet approved australia
9 Vet-Approved Homemade Dog Food Recipes
Want to try your hand and learn how to make homemade dog food? The classic proportions are 50% protein (including meat or eggs), 25% vegetables, and 25% carbohydrates (like rice or oats). But which ingredients should you use, and how can you make sure your dog food recipe is healthy?
To help you find the best recipes, weve put together this list of 10 healthy dog food recipes to try today. Making dog food at home can save you money and give you more control over what your dog eats. Scroll down to try one of our favorite homemade dog food recipes! And if you have questions, take a look at our recipe tips at the end.
Top 9 Healthy Dog Food Recipes
1. Beef, Herb, and Egg Dog Food Recipe
This recipe is so easy, it only has one step: combine the ingredients! Your pup will love the mixture of ground beef, protein-packed eggs, and dog-friendly herbs like parsley.
2. Turkey and Rosemary Dog Food Recipe
This is another incredibly simple recipe. You probably already have these ingredients in your kitchen! All you need is a package of frozen vegetables, ground turkey, rosemary, and rice.
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3. Simple Chicken and Vegetable
Heres another healthy dog food recipe so beautiful we want to try it! This recipe from Damn Delicious combines vegetables like spinach, zucchini, and peas with lean ground chicken. Its a beautiful and nutrient-packed mixture.
4. Instant Pot Dog Food Recipe
If you have an Instant Pot, youll love this simple recipe! You can cook everything in your pot, including rice or oats, lean ground meat, and vegetables of your choice.
5. Non-Allergenic Dog Food
If your pup has food allergies, this recipe might be just what youre looking for. Nikki at Wheres the Frenchie? was inspired by her French Bulldogs newly discovered allergies to create this straightforward recipe, which includes whole grains, pumpkin puree, and ground turkey.
7. Chicken and Bean Dog Food
Heres another incredibly easy Crock-Pot recipe that you could eat for dinner yourself! This delicious-sounding dog food recipe features chicken, kidney beans, butternut squash, and peas. Plus, Katie Crenshaw of A Forks Tale offers great suggestions for supplements and substitutions! Did you know that you could add eggshells or chicken livers to your dogs food?
8. Turkey Macaroni Dog Food
Brought to you by The College Housewife, this dog food recipe substitutes macaroni noodles for the usual rice or oats but still includes plenty of healthy protein and vegetables. Cook up your ground turkey, broccoli, and sweet potatoes, and youll have a delicious, human-grade dog entree.
9. Doggie Meatball Recipe
These meatballs may look mouthwatering, but they are intended for your dog! Best of all, you can use them to get your pup to take medications. Whip some up, sneak in a pill, and youll be the best dog parent ever.
Dog Food Recipe Tips
Trying new foods is fun for humans, but it can be hard on our pets stomachs. The most important thing to remember is to change your dogs diet slowly. Veterinarians recommend mixing new foods with your dogs previous food. Start with about 25% new food and 75% old food. Then gradually increase the amount of new food until you reach 100%. If you notice any changes in your dogs digestion, you may want to stop the transition and talk to your veterinarian.
Like people, dogs can have food allergies. Common dog allergies include wheat, eggs, chicken, and beef. Keep in mind that some ingredients may be particularly toxic to dogs, like grapes, onions, and garlic. If you notice symptoms like gastrointestinal issues, youll probably want to consult your veterinarian about your dogs ideal diet.
Storing Your Homemade Dog Food
These recipes are really simple, but you probably dont have time to cook a full meal for yourself and your dog every night. An easy solution? Make a big batch and divide it into individual portions. Put each meal in a Ziploc bag in the freezer and pull it out at dinner time!
Making Your Own Dog Food: The Bottom Line
Now that youve learned how to make homemade dog food quickly and easily. We hope youve found your new favorite healthy dog food recipe. Cater to your furballs specific dietary needs, learn a new cooking skill, and maybe even save a little money. Your dogs will love their upgraded diets!
Looking for more dog recipes?
Featured image credit: stockcreations, Shutterstock
A Homemade Raw Dog Food Recipe
Updated September 3, 2021
More and more dog owners are choosing to make grain-free or raw diets. Most vets, on the other hand, recommend premium commercial foods. Neither group is likely to change. I think its time vets put aside their beliefs to help dog owners get these homemade diets safely balanced.
If you prefer, click here to scroll down to a raw dog food recipe designed by a vet. Or click here for advice on home-made vegan diets. However, I hope you can stay for an explanation first. This vet-approved raw diet should be better than most, but its different, and Id like to explain why
Should Dogs Eat Wolf Diets?
Most raw diets are based around the theory that dogs should be fed the diet of their wild ancestors. While this is definitely good thinking, as a vet I have two concerns:
The diet Im going to build will keep referencing wolves but also take into account the changes in domestic dogs. It will also make a great (but still not guaranteed!) effort to be balanced.
Homemade Diets For Puppies?
Many breeders are now selling puppies already on raw diets. Personally, Im uneasy with this and would wait until adulthood. The consequences of getting the diet wrong are worse for puppies, and raising puppies properly is complicated enough as it is!
Update 2021: theres now a page on Raw Puppy Diets including some new evidence.
Cancer Diets?
The following diet also wont meet the requirements of cancer diets designed for dogs. Follow this link to learn more about this special case.
Raw Diet Ingredients
So what should we put in a raw diet and why?
Meat Selection For Dogs
If feeding raw, red meats such as lamb and beef should be chosen over poultry. Read here why feeding raw chicken is hazardous to dogs and people. If you need more convincing, think about wolves again. They catch and eat mammals, not birds.*
Its absolutely true that chicken is better tolerated by dogs, especially at high amounts. This isnt telling you that chicken is better, just that youre putting too much meat in. Wolves dont fillet out the best cuts and discard the rest. Being a whole prey feeder means just that: eating an awful lot more than just muscle.
You can just as well use goat, camel or kangaroo. However, and I am on record on this point repeatedly, Australias pet food industry is under-regulated. Until this is fixed, I would only feed meat to dogs raw if it was fit for human consumption. This does add a lot to the cost.
*(Cats, by contrast, do naturally hunt birds; read here how & why I feed raw chicken necks to cats.)
Grains In Dog Food
Theres actually no firm evidence against grains, but they arent necessary or especially healthyeither,so Ill avoid them. One exception is rice, which for a long time has been recognisedas beneficial to dogs. We even use rice to treat some tummy upsets.
This is where my ideal wolf and dog dietswill differ. You can use brown rice, which I fully support, but Ill use Basmati rice as it has a similar or lower glycaemic index and is a lot easier to prepare.
Fillers In Dog Food
Fillers are bad, right? Yes, but remember what I said about high meat diets. You do need something to balance out the rich ingredients. In a wolfs world, this would be all the stuff they scavenge between kills, like bugs, roots, and the lower-value parts of their prey like gut contents (ick!)
I really like using pumpkin as its more fibrous and less starchy. However, theres nothing to stop you experimenting with whatever you can get by the box at the farmers market. Just take a look at these bad foods for dogs first.
Raw Fruit & Veg
Any puppy owner who visits me knows I do go on a bit about raw fruits and veges. As long as you avoid grapes (onion too, but only an idiot dog would eat raw onion) they are great fun to try.
Add this after cooling to preserve the vitamins destroyed by cooking. Alternatively, you can do what I do and put afreshbit from your own diet on each days meal. Dogs love a surprise ingredient.
Calcium
Eating raw bone is natural for wolves.If youre open to trying raw bone feeding, calcium should be no concern.Otherwise, adding a finely ground eggshell to the recipe will help. I believe you canmake raw bone feeding low-risk by following these guidelines.
Despite what I tell my clients about never leaving a dog alone with bone, I trust my own dogs to be sensible so that they can chew on them when they desire. This keeps a steady mineral supply going in, firm poop coming out, and happy dogs throughout.
A Homemade Raw Dog Recipe
Serves the requirements of an 8kg dog for 3-4 days
- 250g chopped beef or lamb,raw
- 1 cup chopped carrots,raw
- 1 cup chopped apple,raw
- cup frozen peas, defrosted
- 1 cups chopped pumpkin or squash
- cup brown or basmati rice (will cook to 3 cups)
- 4 teaspoonssunflower oil
- 4g fish oil
- Other ingredients? See below
Method: no need to get fancy.
- Cook the rice and pumpkin together until soft, and allow to cool
- Mix in the raw ingredients (dogs mostly also like their peas raw)
- Feed the required quantity per day, refrigerate the remainder
- Can be refrigerated for 3 days or frozen for 2 weeks
Other Ingredients
Analysis of almost any homemade meal would show multiple vitamin and mineral deficiencies. In practice, this may be tolerated by your dog but I recommend a vitamin and mineral supplement. Balance IT is designed for home-made diets and can be ordered from the USA. If not using, the following supplements can be ground together and mixed in the recipe after cooling:
- 1 Cenovis Zinc Tablet (25mg)
- 1 Trace Nutrients or Interclinical Copper Plus tablet(2mg)
- 1 g Iodised salt
- 1 Centrum Advance Multivitamin/Multimineral Supplement
Most dog owners will have a favourite extra ingredient like chia or sardines. For me, each of my dogs gets fish oil. If youre feeding something unusual its a good idea to check with your vet first. Also be careful with large amounts of oil due to the risk of pancreatitis.
Click here to discover why is there no offal in this diet.
How Much To Feed
Sorry! Youre going to have to do some maths. Using the diet above, 32 divided by your dogs weight equals the number of days of food it will make. For example, if you have a 4kg Maltese, it will feed for 8 days. Its up to you if you feed each daily portion in one meal or divide it into two or three.
Then watch thechange in your dogs weight and adjust the amount accordingly. No two dogs eat the same amount.Visit our page on how much to feed your dog for a longer discussion on the subject.
Finally, if you want the best and dont mind spending $300, we have access to excellent veterinary nutritionists. They can design you a balanced homemade diet tailored to both your dog and your preferences (such as higher meat levels). All you have to do is ask!
Related reading: Food Allergy and Elimination Diets | Healthy Treats For Dogs
A disclaimer: this diet, like most homemade raw diets, has not been analysedor tested. It is impossible to guarantee that it is nutritionally complete or that bacterial contamination will not occur. Use of this diet is at the dog owners own risk. Cooking the meat is safer and will not alter the diet significantly.
Have something to add? Comments (if open) will appear within 24 hours.By Andrew Spanner BVSc(Hons) MVetStud, a vet in Adelaide, Australia. Meet his team here.
