Homemade Feeding - How Much?!

[Guest Fernhill_Jim]

Hi all. You guys have been so helpful with previous threads that I thought I would pick your brains again...

We recently adopted a lovely young Grey (Jim) and I'm looking to feed him more cooked homemade food. He is currently on a very bland sweet potato and chicken diet (following a fast after a very upset tummy) Now would be a good time for us to start introducing some home-cooked foods, as opposed to going back to his kibble.

I've found loads of recipes but it's difficult to judge the actual quantities. Id still like to include maybe 1/3 cup kibble with meals or perhaps less just to keep the costs a little lower. Does anyone have any practical recipes including roughly how many meals they make up? I can just about understand the splits of proteins/veggies/starchy carbs but I want to make sure Jim is actually getting enough dinner!

FYI is a 2.5 yr old lazy Grey and weighs 32kg but is still quite skinny from kennels

Thanks everyone

[MaryJane]

I'v been feeding home-made for more than a decade.

 

I don't feed chicken as it is one of the most contaminated proteins (when they eviscerate, it goes over everything and to fix that - they do bleach baths). For my regular dog - I feed 90% lean hamburger and for my girl who has seizures and IBD (needs special protein and no preservative), I feed tilapia, white fish.

 

For breakfast - I now feed a bit more than 1 cup cooked oatmeal with some milk and honey along with about 7 tablespoons of protein (meat or fish). Before I was mixing some rice to the oatmeal - doesn't look like they need that and the poops are better (more fiber). If you have a dog with kidney issues, you can do a mixture of grits and oatmeal.

 

They get a snack late morning of toast with some butter and about 1 tablespoon of peanut butter - peanut butter needs to be check that "bad sugars" were not added.

 

Dinner is 2 cups (or a bit over) of white rice (cooked according to directions), and about 1/4 cup mashed veggies like carrots and peas or string beans and about 7 tablespoons of protein (meat or fish)

 

snack later in night is 2 tablespoons yogurt with 1 tablespoon unsweetened applesauce.

 

They also get a special pumpkin cake as a treat 3 times a day. My older girl had teeth removed so she cannot do cookies anymore. She also cannot get preservatives, so I cannot do regular commercial treats.

 

They also get 1 fish oil a day along with calcium supplements. I recently stopped the multi-vitamin because they changed the formulation.

 

If your dog is a working dog, you might need to up the protein.

 

I give quite a few snacks during the day because one of my dogs is a seizure dog along with IBD and some of the seizure medicine she gets is tough on the tummy.

[Guest Fernhill_Jim]

That was a super informative reply, thank you so much for that. Much easier for me to understand the ratios with clear measurements like that. My boy Jim doesn't do so well with dairy but everything else sounds entirely doable and not hugely difficult to prepare. Can I ask, what weight are your hounds? I would love to really try a 100% homemade diet but the conflicting and confusing information has dampened my excitement for it somewhat!

Also are those quantities for both girls or per dog? I should also add, it sounds delicious and nice and varied

[macoduck]

An adopter I know fed her greyhound chicken and rice for months and months in an effort to rid her of diarrhea. This had a negative effect in that her dog became extremely nutrient deficient.

 

You should be able to find info online about vitamins and nutrients should be added to meals.

[Guest Fernhill_Jim]

I'm very aware that chicken and sweet potato only is incredibly nutrient low but he's only been on that for 2 days following fasting. New foods will be introduced in over the next few days (also treating this as a chance to see any possible food I tolerances) I wouldn't dream of keeping Jim on chicken only for anything more than a few days at the most

[MaryJane]

That was a super informative reply, thank you so much for that. Much easier for me to understand the ratios with clear measurements like that. My boy Jim doesn't do so well with dairy but everything else sounds entirely doable and not hugely difficult to prepare. Can I ask, what weight are your hounds? I would love to really try a 100% homemade diet but the conflicting and confusing information has dampened my excitement for it somewhat!

Also are those quantities for both girls or per dog? I should also add, it sounds delicious and nice and varied

 

 

My girl is about 68 pounds and my boy is about 75. My last two boys were 80 and 90 pounds and they got a bit more food. My boy before that was about 85 and the one before was over 100 pounds. Depending on how they looked on the diet - I might add more protein or carbs or veggies (or toast). Some of the dogs had kidney issues and in that case, the protein was adjusted down.

 

They also get cucumbers which I have to cut very small for my girl (no teeth) and they love romaine stems.

 

Two of my boys developed osteo between 7 & 8 and their lives were cut short. One developed osteo after 12. One boy lived to one month short of 14 - he was a big boy. My current girl is almost 12 (1 month shy) and healthy except for seizures, IBD, recurrent UITs, and long nerve disease (yes, that is quite a bit but, she is doing OK) and my boy is 6.5 years old. My dogs are healthy and they have blood work and urine every year to confirm that along with the vet's acknowledgement.

 

Please note that I originally went to a vet nutritionist at Angel Memorial in Boston to have the diets formulated. I went back for additional diets (kidney and cancer). As I noted, I am looking for a new multl-vitamin as the one that I was using was reformulated and now has phos - I would rather have one without it because this would be a "no-no" for kidney dogs.

 

The calcium that they get is --the boy gets three 500mg of oyster shell calcium (1500) and the girl gets two 500 mg a day (1000mg) - this is without the Vitamin D. I get it from Amazon. My dogs do not get bones so, this is important.

 

As I noted, I only give one fish oil a day and this is because my girl could be prone to pancreatitis due to seizure meds. She has also had problems with platelets in the past and fish oil can act like aspirin (slows clotting).

 

As an aside, when I make soup for me, I take the leftover skins from carrots and stem pieces from celery and boil that up for about 30 minutes, strain it and use it to add some liquid to their dinner.

 

I do not give cabbage or pork - all my dogs had trouble digesting and seemed to have tummy aches.

 

My dogs rarely have gas and the poops are usually pretty good - the boy does have hooks which we are treating for.

 

Good luck!

[greysmom]

The biggest issue with a home cooked diet is how to make sure your dog is getting all the correct trace elements that are usually added to commercial dog foods. There are many additives and supplements, and you should be consulting with your vet and/or a canine nutritionist to make sure your boy is properly fed.

 

We had a member here recently who had fed her dog "home cooked" food for, literally, years, in an effort to stay away from commercial dog foods (which she didn't trust). She ended up destroying her dog's digestive tract and making her dog very sick, leading to her death. It was a cautionary take for all of us.

 

A few days or weeks or even months of chicken and rice (or any bland diet formulation) isn't going to irreparably harm your dog, but it's something to consider for the long term.

 

If all you're looking to do is make some add-in stew for kibble, or give your dog some people food as a treat, there shouldn't be any issues going forward. I often make up a crock pot of veggie ends and trimmings, oatmeal that won't make a full serving, rice or pasta, whatever I have left over to go in. The dogs love it on top of kibble.

[lifeingrey]

Long time reader, first time poster. Glad someone made a post on this topic. MaryJane, that is all very helpful information on what you feed in a day. My girl does not like kibble and will refuse eating every few days because she wants our food. We really do not give her scraps but have fallen for the sad eyes and grumbling tummy and given her dog safe veggies or ground beef in her kibble then she gobbles it up. This time though, I'm really trying to wait it out and see if she will just eat her plain kibble. She has only eaten maybe a cup of food over the last two days.

 

My question is, I experimented by feeding her some oatmeal with her kibble for a week and she LOVED it. Chowed it down as soon as the bowl was down. However, it caused a UTI flare-up. Our vet wants to do x-rays for bladder stones if these keep recurring (she's had 3 UTI's this year so far), but I really only have ever noticed her get a UTI when I've changed her food or now when she had the oatmeal. Two instances we found a very high protein food to cause a flare up, and now seemingly the oatmeal. Are there foods you would recommend I could add to her kibble that are grain-free, similar in texture to oatmeal?

 

I don't want to keep putting her on an antibiotic. As soon as I have to give her medicine in a certain treat/food, she doesn't trust that food going forward. She doesn't trust cheese, peanut butter, or pumpkin. She is not a food motivated dog whatsoever. She does not like any kind of broth or yogurt. She only trusted eggs once. Oatmeal was the easiest, cheapest, and best thing I got her to eat. She looked so much healthier from eating for a week straight (she came to us at 49lbs and we can't get her to gain more than 1-2lbs). She is a very petite girl, she stresses me out so much when she won't eat! I don't mean to hijack this post, I just would like to find a diet for her that works and keeps her happy. You mentioned your girl has kidney issues, but my girl seemed to get her UTI from the oatmeal. As soon as I stopped feeding the oatmeal, after a day she was fine and no more blood.

[MaryJane]

Long time reader, first time poster. Glad someone made a post on this topic. MaryJane, that is all very helpful information on what you feed in a day. My girl does not like kibble and will refuse eating every few days because she wants our food. We really do not give her scraps but have fallen for the sad eyes and grumbling tummy and given her dog safe veggies or ground beef in her kibble then she gobbles it up. This time though, I'm really trying to wait it out and see if she will just eat her plain kibble. She has only eaten maybe a cup of food over the last two days.

 

My question is, I experimented by feeding her some oatmeal with her kibble for a week and she LOVED it. Chowed it down as soon as the bowl was down. However, it caused a UTI flare-up. Our vet wants to do x-rays for bladder stones if these keep recurring (she's had 3 UTI's this year so far), but I really only have ever noticed her get a UTI when I've changed her food or now when she had the oatmeal. Two instances we found a very high protein food to cause a flare up, and now seemingly the oatmeal. Are there foods you would recommend I could add to her kibble that are grain-free, similar in texture to oatmeal?

 

I don't want to keep putting her on an antibiotic. As soon as I have to give her medicine in a certain treat/food, she doesn't trust that food going forward. She doesn't trust cheese, peanut butter, or pumpkin. She is not a food motivated dog whatsoever. She does not like any kind of broth or yogurt. She only trusted eggs once. Oatmeal was the easiest, cheapest, and best thing I got her to eat. She looked so much healthier from eating for a week straight (she came to us at 49lbs and we can't get her to gain more than 1-2lbs). She is a very petite girl, she stresses me out so much when she won't eat! I don't mean to hijack this post, I just would like to find a diet for her that works and keeps her happy. You mentioned your girl has kidney issues, but my girl seemed to get her UTI from the oatmeal. As soon as I stopped feeding the oatmeal, after a day she was fine and no more blood.

 

If your girl had blood in the urine, then she needs to have a urinalysis and a culture done. You would need to collect a first morning sterile specimen - that would tell you which bacteria it is and the proper antibiotics for it. As your vet suggested, you might want to do follow up tests to see if there are bladder stones.

 

When my dogs have kidney issues, then the oatmeal might have a bit too much protein and in that case, I used to do a mixture 3 parts oatmeal to 1 part grits - they do have 5 minute grits. You can also try brown rice as that can have a nuttier texture which some dogs like but, it has more fiber so give less of it (also has more protein).

 

you can also try to give veggies - mine absolutely love corn but, it passes through them undigested so I mash it which breaks it down and it is absorbed better. You can also try white potatoes - boil them and then mash and see if that perks her interest.

 

My Lucy also has recurrent UTI's - at least every year.

[MaryJane]

 

 

We had a member here recently who had fed her dog "home cooked" food for, literally, years, in an effort to stay away from commercial dog foods (which she didn't trust). She ended up destroying her dog's digestive tract and making her dog very sick, leading to her death. It was a cautionary take for all of us.

 

 

 

Care to share who that was? I don't remember any members stating that in any posts since I have been on this forum..

[lifeingrey]

 

If your girl had blood in the urine, then she needs to have a urinalysis and a culture done. You would need to collect a first morning sterile specimen - that would tell you which bacteria it is and the proper antibiotics for it. As your vet suggested, you might want to do follow up tests to see if there are bladder stones.

 

When my dogs have kidney issues, then the oatmeal might have a bit too much protein and in that case, I used to do a mixture 3 parts oatmeal to 1 part grits - they do have 5 minute grits. You can also try brown rice as that can have a nuttier texture which some dogs like but, it has more fiber so give less of it (also has more protein).

 

you can also try to give veggies - mine absolutely love corn but, it passes through them undigested so I mash it which breaks it down and it is absorbed better. You can also try white potatoes - boil them and then mash and see if that perks her interest.

 

My Lucy also has recurrent UTI's - at least every year.

 

She just finished a round of Cephalexin prescribed by the vet last night. We do the urinalysis each time she has blood and they've never found crystals (if you can find them that way), just elevated white blood cell count. I just want to try to prevent causing a flare up, I want to do the x-rays if it comes back but she gets so poorly every time she's on antibiotics I just need help to keep weight on her and keep her happy in-between. I myself struggle with UTI's from kidney/bladder damage so for me at least my diet helps protect my kidneys.

 

Thank you for the suggestions, I will definitely try those! I have definitely noticed a correlation between what I feed her and when she gets a UTI, though the vet says that's not possible. So like I said, I want to be cautious and know I am not causing her issues in the first place. I was very upset with myself that the oatmeal really seemed to cause this flare up for her. She's happy as a clam sleeping at home now that I'm at work, she had potatoes with her breakfast and finally ate!