What does a healthy bowl of dog food look like?
Feeding your dog can be a little daunting and keeping up on the best dog foods can be exhausting! There are plenty of good kibbles available on the market but the healthiest choice is to actually prepare a balanced diet of food that you and I would eat. There may be some differences of opinion if you actually need to cook the food or if a raw diet is best. There is a lot of research that supports both as healthy options. We feel raw is the healthiest because you are not cooking the nutrients out, however you do have to be very careful handling raw meats and of course, lots of cleaning up and hand washing as well.
For our dogs, we will sometimes feed a completely raw diet or sometimes do a mixture of raw and a good/high quality kibble. Because of the nature of our dogs and breeding, we will sometimes do different things with different dogs and they will have different needs than a pet that is spayed or neutered, etc. Younger, active dogs and puppies will have different calorie requirements based on their activity level and stages of growth.
This photo is a bowl from a completely raw fed dog. This bowl contains a chicken leg quarter, frozen broccoli that's been thawed but not cooked, frozen blueberries, canned sardines, about a tablespoon of bacon fat, an organic raw egg as well as powdered supplements.
This bowl has a chicken leg quarter, frozen broccoli that's been thawed but not cooked, frozen blueberries, a raw organic egg, about a tablespoon of bacon fat, about 3/4 cup of kibble and powdered supplements
For both of these bowls, the dogs are young and active, not spayed/neutered (usually spayed/neutered dogs will have a much lower calorie requirement) and are in very good health. Sometimes the chicken or ground beef will be a smaller portion, for instance, just 1 chicken thigh and a bit more kibble mixed in. If these were puppies, chicken wing sections are the best chicken pieces as they are smaller and easier to chew. If you have a butcher that will grind raw chicken with the bones in it, that is ideal but not always possible to find.
Never feed your dog cooked bones! Raw bones are soft and easy for them to digest. If you cook meat for your dog, make sure all bones are removed. Raw bones are actually really good for them and have many added health benefits when consumed.
How to make it work for your lifestyle:
One of the easiest ways to feed a homemade diet is to follow the Natures Farmacy guide below:
Some tips include:
Make up a week or more, worth of meals and freeze in individual bags for each day. Just take a pre-made pack out to thaw the day before.
Using frozen veggies is crazy easy and makes it so quick to feed this way. Take frozen veggies out of the freezer in the morning, allow to thaw in the dogs bowl and then add additional meats, etc. when ready to feed. Plus, they seem to like the texture better than completely raw veggies.
You can feed hard boiled, scrambled eggs, etc. but raw is super easy to crack into their bowl
Using Primal brand frozen patties that have all the meat and veggies already pre-made and frozen into portions that you just thaw and feed
If you travel with your dog, or don't have a lot of freezer space, Primal (aff. link) is also available in freeze-dried form that can be rehydrated with water at feeding time and requires no refrigeration or extra packaging.
If feeding a completely homemade diet seems like more than you'd like to take on, then go ahead and add some healthy fruits, veggies and real meat in with the kibble. At least they are getting some really good real food along with a good quality kibble.
People always want to know what we feed or to recommend a good kibble. HERE is a list of kibble, supplements and bones that are all healthy for your dog.
Do your own research on the right diet for your dog. Dogs have a very fast digestive system so typically don't have the problem of getting salmonella like a person would from eating raw meat. If your dog has health issues then a cooked diet may be a much better idea. Dr. Karen Becker has done a lot of research in this area and has a lot of good information as well!
As always, this is information on what we do with our dogs and recommend but is not a substitute for seeking medical advice with a good veterinarian.