Feeding Your Dog Homemade Dog Food

Since the pet food recall of 2007 more and more people have been resorting to feeding their dogs homemade dog food in order to make sure they are fed safely and stay healthy. Books about making homemade dog food have been steadily increasing in sales.

Yet, dog owners are constantly warned against cooking and preparing homemade dog food for their four legged family member. “Experts” claim that it’s too difficult, complicated, and confusing to make sure your dog has a “balanced” homemade diet.

Before there was commercial dog food, people fed their dogs all types of human food including the table scraps from left over meals. That’s all there was. But because commercial dog nutrition is such big business today, people are being told they shouldn’t do it.

In reality, if you’re feeding your dog commercial dog food, you should really think twice about it. Commercial dog food is full of chemicals and preservatives that can shorten the life of your dog and cause all sorts of disease. Remember, reading and understanding a dog food label is a lot different than reading a human food label.

By doing a little bit of research, you can come up with a good healthy plan to feed your dog a homemade diet. It’s not as hard as it sounds, nor does it take that much time to put together. I would caution against going with a raw diet, but you can’t go wrong with a homemade cooked diet.

You want to make sure you use basic nutritional principles such as balance, variety, and moderation. You also want to make sure you follow these three principals at the same time.

Balance: This means getting all the needed nutrients into your dog’s diet in the right proportions. Actually you do this without thinking about. I know it sounds silly, but it’s true.

Since you as a human being do this well enough to survive, I’m sure you won’t have any problem helping out your dog! Dogs aren’t much different.

Variety: You should vary the sources of cereals, meat, and fiber your dog gets and do it often. Different foods contain many essential nutrients but in different proportions. Just like you, your dog will like some foods more than others, so try different foods and ingredients. Just make sure you know which human foods he shouldn’t eat. There are some human foods that are very poisonous to dogs!

Moderation: Moderation is about keeping the calories balanced. Because you won’t know exactly how many calories your dog is getting, you’ll need to watch his weight. Pretty simple. There really isn’t much more to making homemade dog food for your best friend! It’s safer, healthier and usually saves you money in the long run.

If you aren’t comfortable with feeding your dog just a homemade diet, you can also supplement with organic dog food. The problem with this is expense. You are going to pay almost twice as much for it as you would regular commercial food from the grocery store shelf.

On the other hand, you’ll be paying more in veterinary bills if you feed grocery store bought commercial food to your dog. Your dog may even die before his time. It’s not worth it! I would love to hear any questions or comments you might have about homemade dog food and how you feed your dog!