Linda's Home-cooked Diet    - back to the Resources page

I am frequently asked what and how I feed my dogs so instead of retyping it over and over, here it is.  The ‘fine print disclaimer’ is that there are MANY ways of feeding dog and I am not a vet – the information below is not meant to replace your veterinarian’s advice. 

Developing a diet that works for me, our lifestyles and the challenge of fosters plus my own dogs’ health issues began before the pet recall which I thankfully was able to avoid.  It is based upon my own personal research --- “Whole Dog Journal” is a wealth of information and if you have a subscription, once a year they dissect all the commercial dog foods on the market, publishing in-depth nutritional analysis, components and ingredients used in all brands you can buy in the petshops and online.  I HIGHLY recommend this publication.

I developed a base that I work from – and add to it depending upon the dog’s needs.  I have two liver shunt dogs with restrictive diets and a VERY old senior with dementia and idiopathic pancreatic attacks.  I was purchasing the Science Diet L/D and K/D at expensive prices, and then usually throwing a lot away because they just didn’t like it.

This is the base of the diet for volumes – 40% protein, 40% veggies and 20% starch. The protein is usually chicken that I buy, boil and debone… and on occasion, tenderloins depending upon the sale prices that week at the market.  Veggies for me is peas and carrots that I buy frozen and blanch.  Starch is rice – I rotate out between white and brown, using a rice cooker.

Generally I start the ingredients cooking on the stove and go about my daily chores.  I prepare two, three days worth at a time --- chopping up the chicken and mix in the rice and veggies with just a small amount of the broth from the chicken and a DASH of garlic powder (not garlic salt).  I then store this in the fridge for when I need to feed the dogs.  I feed twice a day because I have two with hypoglycemia issues, plus I am usually fostering pups or dogs that are severely underweight taken out of the shelter.

I usually stay with chicken and turkey for the most part.  I stay away from pork products with the exception of Vienna sausages, which I use in bite-size pieces to stuff the nasty daily meds in that they all hate.  Pill pockets have worked for some of the dogs, but not all and if you have a multi-pet household, you quickly learn what works most effectively for your life style.

When it is time to give the dogs their breakfast or dinner, I take out enough of this cooked mixture that I need (about ½ to 2/3 cup per normal sized Chihuahua), put it in a large bowl and hit it for a few seconds in the microwave to take the chill off of it.  I add Royal Canin for Chihuahuas to the mixture (1:3, 1 part kibble to three parts wet).  Each day I rotate out a supplement – one day I add in Synovi G3 (price shop it with Google) and the next day I add in Missing Link.  On Sundays, I put 1 tsp of olive oil per dog to the mixture to give back the oils for their nice coats.

About once a week, I’ll boil some chopped sirloin (the kind with the least amount of fat), drain off the water and add that to the diet for variety.  Once a month I cook liver with Pam, chop it up fine and add in the organ meat for the less needed but important nutrients.  Liver and lamb tends to give dogs gas, so plan on giving it to them when you won’t have unexpected guests!

I stay with Royal Canin kibble (#28 - Chihuahua) because it has worked best for me – they eat it, it helps to keep the plaque down from their teeth and I never have food sitting in bowls later.  There are many dogs that have done fine on Purina, but the less fillers in the kibble, the more digestible it is (and the less poop you’ll be cleaning up later) – what dogs cannot digest, they pass on through their systems rapidly.

Treats for our dogs are either the Healthy Omega Treats by Pet Botanics (they favor the duck more than the salmon) and dehydrated chicken strips that can be purchased in large bags at Costco for about $15.  For the young dogs that can handle more protein, I’ll give them two strips to the one I’d give a dog with protein issues (or very old, etc.).

For lactating moms, I add in cottage cheese, shredded Mozarella cheese and goats milk to their diets along with an occasional scrambled egg (usually on Sundays).  For puppies, I add goats milk to their diet (only goats milk will not give a dog diarrhea – all other versions including cows milk and soymilk can cause diarrhea).  For puppies and underweight dogs, I also add baby food (chicken and turkey – I and the dogs prefer Gerber) to their diets to boost up the protein levels quickly and especially in the puppies, to lower the diarrhea sessions and provide the needed nutrients for growing bones and muscles.  Older dogs that have lost most of their teeth get this as well.

While this all may sound very complicated, the biggest headache has been my husband coming in from work, smelling something good on the stove and thinking it is dinner… More than once he has dished out chicken and rice with veggies and started eating it!  Seriously!   But again, I have never fed my dogs anything I myself would not eat, so until I add the supplements to this base, it is 100% human food.  I’ve clocked it – it generally takes me about 15 minutes to prepare the base in actual time to chop up the chicken and mix it… Not bad once every 2-3 days and there are always empty plates around here!

Dogs have a hard time digesting corn and wheat has developed allergies in dogs which show up in a wide range of symptoms, plus it is hard to pin down the wheat is causing the problem.    The FDA does NOT regulate the labeling of commercial pet food, so despite the listing of ingredients on the label, they are not required to list them in the order of volume as are human consumptive foods (largest component must come first).  I didn’t know this until I did the research and I’m still shocked that the FDA has not stepped in and legislated this gross miscarriage of justice… we might have avoided the melamine and pet food recall plus countless needless deaths if they had done so.

The other thing I do is to have several complete sets of dishes – I pick up the food dishes 15 minutes afterwards and run them through the dishwasher.  I have found the Chihuahuas don’t like the clanking of their ID and license tags against the bowl, so I purchased small appetizer plates that are more flattened.  They don’t force the dog to dig down with their nose into the food and that might be why the dogs eat better for me.  I also have a placemat for every bowl and this makes clean-up a snap afterwards… plate on placemat, I carry it to the sink, throw the dish into the sink, wipe off the placemat and stack until the next mealtime.

I keep Royal Canin in an auto feeder for whenever someone gets hungry in between mealtimes and wants a snack.  I also advocate something called BreathaLyser that can be purchased online and is put in the dog’s water bowl for bad breath purposes.  You use a capful each day, so a bottle goes a long way to help in between brushing their teeth.