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Homemade Dog Food

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Give Your Dog the Best:
Make It Yourself


© 2012 by Nenah Sylver, PhD




The Natural Dog

Dogs are carnivores. The wild wolves from whom they are descended eat a natural, RAW, "prey model" diet, consisting of about 30% muscle meat (including heart, which is a muscle), 20% organ meat (liver, kidney, thymus, pancreas), and 10% bone. The best diet for dogs is a variety of meats from cow/steer, sheep/lamb, deer, chicken, turkey, duck, and pig, supplemented with raw egg, salmon or seal and/or coconut oils, along with kelp and nutritional yeast.


Unnatural Commercial Dog Foods

Commercial dog foods are problematic in many ways. Kibble, or what one of my colleagues refers to as "crap-in-a-bag," is the worst food you could feed your beloved pooch. There are no enzymes in those dehydrated chunks! If YOU ate dried, dead food every day, how would YOUR health be? If you must feed your dog already-prepared food, feed it canned. But it must be a high quality canned food. Consider that in most commercial dog foods,

  • Their "protein" is questionable, as "protein" content is allowed to consist of hooves, hair and feathers.


  • They contain species-inappropriate starches, such as potato (which binds the ingredients together).


  • They contain grains or grain husks, which add bulk but which dogs are unable to digest.


  • They often don't contain what the manufacturers claim is in there: note the presence of plastics and other dangerous ingredients in dog foods, especially those from China.


Dogs with poor digestion typically have leaky gut, and cannot tolerate raw food: it gives them diarrhea. If your dog cannot assimilate raw food, cook food for your dog. It's easy, and will give your dog all the nutrition it needs. See below.


High Quality Homemade Cooked Dog Food Recipe

Stop! Raw is best. However, if you have a good reason to cook your dog's food, here's what you can do:

This smells just like canned dog food, and consists of approximately 70% muscle meat, 20% bone, and 10% organ meat of a prey model diet. Reduce the organ or muscle meat volume if you add whey and egg.

The cheapest muscle meat is heart. Asian markets sell chicken hearts for about $2.00/pound.
You can use fresh bones or leftover bones from your own poultry meals. Marrow, bone meal, and naturally-occurring chondroitin in the cartilage are nutritious. If you use liver, make sure it's grass-fed. Since the liver is the body's filtering system, you don't want an excessive level of contaminants.

1) In a PRESSURE COOKER, cook chicken bones and turkey bones (with water) for 6-8 hours. These will become soft enough to grind. Set aside.

2) Cook any muscle meat and organ meat scraps.

3) Add egg at the last minute. It won't take long to cook.

4) Grind the bones in a food processor or VitaMix-type blender. If the bones have been cooked for a long enough time, they will break apart and crumble easily, forming a paste.

5) Grind muscle and organ meat mixture.

6) Mix everything in huge bowl.

7) Add kelp (1/4 teaspoon per day per 25-pound dog).

8) Add plain powdered whey and nutritional yeast if your animal isn't allergic to it.

9) Add 1/4 teaspoon of edible clay per portion. This will help heal the gut.

10) Freeze in containers, each enough for one or two days.


Amounts are approximate. This food is far better for Fido than what you can buy. It takes me about 2 hours (not counting the pressure cooking time) to prepare a 6-week's supply of meals for my dog.


Don't shortchange your dog.
You'll see a shinier coat, more alertness,
and greater resistance to disease in your grateful pet!

This Homemade Food costs the SAME as Store-Bought!




Copyright 2012-2021 by Nenah Sylver
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