Home-Prepared Dog Food
Choosing a home-cooked or raw diet for your dog is an excellent alternative instead of feeding kibble. Now, I’m not against feeding kibble. Just make sure your dog flourishes on chosen kibble. Many times, we get stuck on specific ingredients and our dogs look dull. You need both excellent ingredients plus vitality.
Balancing a Dog’s Diet
When choosing a homemade diet, it’s so important to provide balanced nutrition. I can’t stress this enough. With so much information out there, floating around online and especially on Facebook, I urge you to seek and reference expert research, such as National Academies’ National Research Council (NRC) nutrient guidelines for dogs.
RELATED: Healthy Dog Treats
Many dog owners deem AAFCO as dog nutritional experts, however, “the NRC publications form the basis for Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) nutrient profiles, which are updated routinely” per 2010 AAHA Nutritional Assessment Guidelines for Dogs and Cats.
You’ll need NRC’s Nutrition Requirements of Dogs and Cats (2006) resource book when calculating and balancing your dog’s diet. This book will provide your dog’s required nutritional needs plus nutritional value of chosen ingredients for comparison. Or, you can purchase and reference Monica Segal’s books, which provide details using NRC’s guidelines and balancing your dog’s diet. She also offers many raw and cooked balanced diet recipes.
Expert Help for Balancing a Dog’s Diet
Now, I found calculating a balanced diet for my dogs difficult and intimidating to say the least. So, I had Monica Segal, a well-known and highly recommended dog nutritionist, balance my dog’s diet during a phone consult. I thought I was doing well since my dogs looked fabulous on my version of a homemade diet, but four weeks post-NRC balanced diet per Monica, I was blown away at his energy, robustness and gleam in his eye.
Several years ago, Dr. Susan Wynn DVM provided a homemade balanced diet for my Bouvier who was undergoing chemo for bone cancer at the time. Dr. Wynn works with your dog’s personal vet because she takes your dog’s physical appearance into consideration and is extremely beneficial if your dog has a chronic illness.
Additional Resources
Check out my favorite website of all time. I’ve used and followed Mary Status’ information for many years. She offers great resources packed with valuable information on homemade diets and much more.
Instead of throwing unknown amounts of vitamins and minerals in our dog’s homemade diet, seek assistance from a professional. It’s worth every penny.
