From Kibble to Homemade Food, It's Easier Than You Think

TLDR: (1) Preparing homemade dog meals is easier than you think, especially if introduced to your daily routine in small stages. (2) You will see a noticeable difference in your dog's health and wellbeing as a result of providing homemade dog food. 

My journey towards creating homemade dog treats started with a fussy eater: my chow chow Charlie. In addition to being a picky eater, Charlie has a sensitive stomach, which limited our options for both dry and wet food. Within these limited options was a decent range of "sensitive stomach" and breed-specific dog foods, but Charlie wasn't overly keen on any of them, and meal times always required a lot of coaxing.

Our first attempts at getting Charlie to eat his kibble involved adding commercially made meal toppers, which provided extra oomph to an otherwise unexciting meal. But Charlie merely ate the topper and left the rest—so much for giving him a tasty and balanced diet! We couldn't increase the topper to kibble ratio beyond a certain point, so we had to find other solutions to get Charlie to eat his food. 

We had previously cooked Charlie homemade meals consisting of white rice and boiled chicken, as directed by the vet, when he had an upset stomach. So, it was a natural leap to adding home-cooked food to his kibble. Essentially, every time we cooked something dog-friendly, such as pumpkin, we did the initial cooking without adding salt, herbs, spices, and so on, taking out a portion for Charlie before adding the finishing touches to our own meals. 

Providing Charlie with small amounts of our own meals mixed with kibble also proved a simple way of testing out his taste preference over a wide range of foods. The results were sometimes surprising, such as his love of buckwheat and nutritional yeast! (Our cat Larry also goes gaga for nutritional yeast.)

As Charlie discovered the wide, wonderful world of food, his dislike of kibble only increased and eventually we ditched the kibble altogether. This decision was also prompted by changes I had observed in Charlie as we increased the portion of home-cooked food he ate. These changes included a reduction in allergies, skin conditions and gastrointestinal issues. Moving to a diet of entirely home-cooked food required much research on canine nutritional requirements, an ongoing learning journey for us.

The cooking process for Charlie started relatively simply, with only a two or three-day portion cooked at a time. As the ingredient lists grew, so did the number of days we pre-prepared. Charlie's current meals consist of pre-made frozen portions topped with freshly prepared ingredients. The base consists of chicken breast, chicken heart, chicken liver, beef liver, broccoli, pumpkin, and carrot. Into this, we mix in psyllium, hempseed, flaxseed, seaweed calcium, spirulina, and kelp. We cook enough for roughly 60 portions (a month's worth of food with two meals a day).

The frozen portions are defrosted in the fridge for 24 hours before serving. To the breakfast portion, we add yoghurt, sliced banana, an egg, and a drizzling of olive oil. The dinner portion is served with sardines, kangaroo steak, oysters, a little chopped celery and mushroom, a generous dose of nutritional yeast, and a splash of sunflower and coconut oil over the top.

The portion size and ingredients have varied slightly over time as we adjust them to his taste and nutritional needs. In some cases, the new ingredients are flat-out rejected. Every time we mixed blueberries into his yoghurt, he ate the yoghurt and spat every single blueberry back into his bowl. Another rejection was turmeric—any meal containing it got a good sniff and wasn't touched! 

At first, giving him home-cooked meals felt like a lot of work—but no more work than making home-cooked meals for ourselves three times a day. The process became easier over time, becoming another part of our daily cooking routine (and it helps that we both love cooking). 

The homemade treats came later, and I will discuss this in a future blog post. The changes I witnessed in Charlie once we stopped feeding him processed, pre-packaged foods were radical. Not only did we no longer need to coax him to eat his food, but the changes to his overall health were appreciable. Meal times were fun again. Kibble was assigned to the dustbin of history. And Charlie thrived.