Homemade Dog Food

Homemade Dog Food

Are you ready to make the switch to homemade dog food? Now you can create your dogs food at home. You will know that you are creating the best natural dog food for your dog. Your dog is part of the family and want the best for them. I am here to share with you the homemade dog food recipe that I make for our fur baby, a little blue french bulldog named Lady.

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As your probably aware of the craze about raw diets for dogs and home made dog food, that’s why you’re here.

We got a puppy back in March. A French bulldog puppy. I started with kibble and she didn’t really like it and her stool was not right. From doing my own research I found that French bulldogs have sensitive digestive systems.  So, I started looking into doing a raw diet for her. I even asked my vet for help with recipes but she was against it and continued to tell me to feed her a certain brand dog food. I was shocked! So, here I was on my own to figure this out. Have you had a similar experience?

I decided to go with a cooked dog food as oppose to raw food. For me I just felt more comfortable cooking the food.

Disclaimer: I am not a vet or a nutritionist. This is what works for my dog.

After months of research I came up with this base recipe to feed Lady. I will share with you what I feed her everyday. I feed Lady her home made dog food two times a day. Once in the morning and once at night.

I primarily use ground beef with some ground turkey. In my research I found that a lot of French bulldogs are allergic to chicken, so I decided to omit that from the beginning. I buy very lean ground beef. I buy 88%lean/12%fat from Costco.

With making your own dog food you know that the ingredients are human grade and you don’t have to worry about recalls that come along with kibble. It only takes a little bit of your time to make.

How much to feed

I ended up using the figure of 3% of her body weight for her food ratio.  I will be monitoring her weight and adjust accordingly to increase or decrease portions due to her weight. You should take in account if your dog is a puppy or an adult dog. Puppies need more calories. Also, if your dog is fixed or not could have effect too.

To figure out how much to feed your dog just calculate 3% of their weight. For example, if your dog weighs 25 pounds: 3% of 25 pounds is .75lbs. So .75lbs is how much they can eat for one day. Then you would divide that in half to equal their morning meal and dinner meal.

In my recipe I also add 10% organ meats. I use beef liver and beef hearts. As well as 10% vegetables and one can of pumpkin puree for fiber and a small amount of coconut oil. Note about the pumpkin puree, make sure you buy 100% pumpkin puree, do not buy pumpkin pie filling. That has spices and sugar in it not good for dogs.

 

Ingredients

Supplements

Along with my base recipe I also add in her supplements and toppers. Her supplements that I give her are a multivitamin, calcium, heart health, and skin and coat supplement. I give them to her according to the instructions on the labels for each. I also only give her supplements once a day in the morning.

You can find them here:

Seaweed calcium

Cardio Canine

Multivitamin and skin and coat

The foods that I top it off with occasionally are yogurt for probiotics, blueberries for antioxidants, sardines for the omegas.

Everyone in once in a while I will add some potatoes too, to add some carbs. It’s totally customizable because you are making it!

When I make her dog food I go to Costco to get ground beef and ground turkey in bulk. I can then make up to a months worth of food at one time. I put it in containers and freeze them till needed. You just take a few out every couple days and keep in the fridge till meal time. That way they can defrost.

A thing to keep in mind if you are switching your dogs diets, which ever you chose make sure you do it over a period of a week or two. Slowly adding more of the new food and taking out the old food. That way its not a shock to them.

How to make homemade dog food

To start cook all the ground beef.

Add coconut oil to pot and add veggies, chopped liver and some ground beef.

Cook the turkey.

Add the pumpkin puree and mix well

Mix everything together thoroughly.

I found the best way to cook the beef liver was to cut it in tiny pieces and cook it with some of the ground beef and the veggies in one pot. I tried to cook it on its own a couple of times and it was a mess. The pan got all gunked up and it smelled. If I put the tiny pieces in the pot with some already cooked ground beef and the veggies the liver cooks beautifully and doesn’t stink up the kitchen. Then by putting the lid on the pot the veggies and liver get to cook and get soft over a period of the time it takes me while I’m cooking the ground turkey. You can watch my YouTube video below to see how I made it.

When everything is cooked, add the ground beef, ground turkey, cooked liver and veggies, and canned pumpkin puree. I mix everything together in a large tray. Making sure its evenly mixed together.

I’ve seen other recipes using an Instantpot around, but I found it easier for me to do it this way because I only have to make her dog food once a month instead of a once a week.

How to store homemade dog food

After everything is mixed well I take my kitchen scale and measure out my portions into containers and place them in the freezer.

I use a scale like this to weight out her food and I use these containers to store it in.

When we need more food we just take a few containers out of the freezer and put in the fridge.

Lady

Lady enjoys her food very much. She always licks the bowl clean. We noticed since we started feeding her this recipe that her skin and coat are shiny, she has energy and very happy pup. Her stools are better and her ears have less build up. She loves when I’m making her food too, she waits right next to me waiting for me to drop a piece but I always give her some to taste test.

 

 

Please enjoy this printable recipe card below.

 

Watch my YouTube tutorial.

 

Shop this post.

Seaweed Calcium Supplement

Cardio Canine Supplement

Multivitamin and Skin & Coat Supplements

Food Scale

Plastic containers

Flexible cutting boards

 

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