Although I receive a lot of private email every day, today's requests are heart wrenching. Desperate to find a home-cooked diet to feed their dogs that were kibble fed just a few days ago, people have been emailing all day.
I can't keep up with the emails, so maybe this can help. Please find below, two diets, one for a healthy 20 pd dog and another for a healthy 50 pd dog.
These go against my fundamental belief that generic diets aren't a good choice, but due to the food recall, just about anything is better than feeding an unknown.
These diets are cooked because that's what people have asked for. I don't have anything against raw diets - just to make it clear
Please understand that I won't be tweaking the diets if your dog happens to weigh 60 pds or 8 pounds or whatever.
I've taken into consideration that most kibble fed dogs, especially ones eating foods containing wheat gluten, may have different food tolerances. I've also considered that these dogs are accustomed to more carbohydrates in the diet than what many of us feed. For these reasons, these recipes are *not* indicative of my usual diets. They use ingredients contained in many pet foods and are formulated to make an easier transition. They offer no variety, which is also not the usual way I go about things. However, people are asking for the simplest recipe possible, and I'm trying to honor the requests.
You may crosspost to other lists, if the list rules allow. My goal is to help dog owners, so go ahead and post to your breed lists, breeder lists etc- but please post this in it's entirety, or not at all.
Please note that I have no way of knowing what supplements someone may have access to, or what those supplements may contain. Just be sure that you are not adding more minerals, and that includes the iodine is various brands of kelp.
The amounts of foods and supplements are per day unless noted otherwise. The weight/measure of a food is the *cooked* weight/measure, not raw. Where weight is noted, use a kitchen scale, not cup measurements. Cups measure
volume, not weight,
For a 20 pd dog:
4 oz chicken dark meat with skin, stewed
1 oz beef liver - every 6 days
3/4 cup enriched egg noodles
1 TBS carrot (optional)
3/4 tsp bone meal
1/4 tsp. NoSalt (found in grocery stores next to table salt)
1/16 tsp kelp
5 mg zinc citrate or gluconate
2 capsules, vitamin E -- per week
500 mg wild salmon oil or flaxseed oil
1 3/4 capsules magnesium citrate
2 capsules, Multi Mineral Complex -- per week
1/2 tablet, vitamin B compound, per week*
* B vitamins are water soluble and excreted through urine. They should be provided often, so feed 1/4 tablet twice weekly. Also, B vitamins can upset an empty stomach. Always feed with food. Best bet: tuck it in a hand held
piece of food and feed as a treat.
For a 50 pound dog:
8 oz ground beef, lean, 15% fat
1/3 oz beef liver
7 oz brown rice (boiled as 1 part rice in 3 parts water until very, very soft)
1 oz zucchini
1/8 tsp NoSalt
1/8 tsp kelp
1 capsule, cod liver oil
1 3/4 tsp bone meal
2 capsules, Multi Mineral Complex -- per week
1 tablet, vitamin B compound -- every 2 weeks
2 capsules, vitamin E 200 IU -- per week
These diets meet 2006 NRC recommended allowances.
Nutrient requirements are not linear to body weight. That is, a 100 pound dog does not have the requirements of a 10 pound dog multiplied by ten. So, these recipes would need tweaking to suit the weight of dogs weighing more or less than noted, but they're a start. Feed as required to maintain healthy weight - until you can change the diets to a more suitable profile for an individual dog.
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