Preparing fresh Dog food

So you would like to make your dogs dinner dog's dinner instead of buying it. Where do you start?

Well it's up to you, you can buy pet quality meat from the freezers in the pet shop and just add dog mixer biscuit to it or you can do better than that.

You can buy cheap cuts of meat from your butcher, cook the meat forever and feed that to your dog with vegetables and rice and pasta or you can do better than that.

So you would like to make your dogs dinner dog's dinner instead of buying it. Where do you start?

Well it's up to you, you can buy pet quality meat from the freezers in the pet shop and just add dog mixer biscuit to it or you can do better than that.

You can buy cheap cuts of meat from your butcher, cook the meat forever and feed that to your dog with vegetables and rice and pasta or you can do better than that.

Best also happens to be easiest and cheapest which is good to hear isn't it? Best is raw which means no slaving over a hot stove and gets my vote every time! Raw what? Raw meat, raw bones, raw vegetables, yes this diet is simplicity itself.

Perhaps it would be best if I described what I feed my own dogs. Josh is a nine year old cross collie and weighs about 50 lbs. Mack, a three year old German Shepherd weighs 85 lbs.

I feed them twice a day. Breakfast varies but is usually a mixture of raw vegetables which have pulped in a juicer or whizzed round in my food processor until they are as fine as grains of sand. Any vegetables or herbs are fine except onions which can cause problems but you should try to include green leafy vegetables as well as a root veggie like carrots most days.

Now it depends on your dog's taste buds whether he or she will eat vegetables on their own. Josh and Mack like their veggies mixed with gravy or soup or fish or even minced meat. You get the picture, variety is the spice of life and by using a variety of veggies you provide a variety of vitamins. You can also add nuts and seeds like sunflower or pumpkin to this mixture too. I sprout wheat grain and alfalfa seed for the dogs and put them into the food processor too. Once or twice a week I'll add eggs to this mixture.

A couple of important points here. Firstly vegetables prepared like this will oxidise and lose their health giving properties quickly so only prepare them just before you feed them or when time is short, as it is for most of us, prepare the vegetables and freeze them in portions.

Why bother preparing them like this, why not give chunks of vegetable or grate the veggies instead? The reason lies with the short digestive tract of the dog which is incapable of breaking down the cellulose wall of vegetables and getting the health giving properties in the short time that they're in the dog's stomach.

So how does this square up with a species appropriate diet? No food processors in the wild after all! That's true but dogs have the same digestive system as their cousin the wolf and when a wolf kills a rabbit and eats the contents of their stomach, the grass or whatever will be all chopped up by the rabbit's teeth and easily digested. The same line of thinking tells you that wolves do not barbeque their prey so feed raw food for preference.

The dog's short digestive tract is also the reason that they can eat things that would make you and me very sick. Dogs will eat faeces after all, their own and other dogs, bunny balls, meadow muffins, cat caviar, you name it and dogs will eat it. This is an animal which licks its own and other dogs' backsides so a few bacteria in raw meat are not going to do it any harm. I needed to explain that before I tell you what Josh and Mack get for their evening meal.

The evening meal is usually raw chicken wings or chicken carcasses or chicken backs. Maybe some breast of lamb or some other meat. Once or twice a week they'll get some offal, liver, kidney whatever. They also get raw meaty bones of whatever type I can get from my butcher. But the important thing is that all of this food is raw, uncooked and therefore highly nutritious. Josh (remember he weighs about 50lbs) is very active and yet just three or four chicken wings and some other meaty bone is all he needs every day to keep him fit and healthy.

Mack, the GSD, will eat a whole chicken carcass with his meaty bone or perhaps seven or eight chicken wings. This is just to give you a rough idea of quantities for your own dogs. And in case you're wondering I spend about £3.00 ($5) a week on their food; that's for both dogs, not each.