Happy and Healthy Pets: Tips for Making Home-Cooked Dog Food

In recent years, many dog owners started cooking for their beloved pets. Whatever the reason (your pet’s medical issues, food diversity or better nutritional value) you should also consider preparing tasty home-made dog food for your pooch!

Here are a few useful tips you can use.

Create a balanced meal

Sure, dogs can survive on a diet that is not super balanced, but it will significantly shorten their lifespan and affect their health and mood.

It might take years for the health issues to appear, but in the long run, they will definitely come to light.

For instance, you pup might end up with a bone fracture because of long-term calcium deficiency or fall sick because of a lack of vitamins and minerals.

So, make sure to feed your dogs good meals that consist of protein (muscle, organ, fish, beans or eggs), veggies and carbs, especially brown rice.

You can find many great recipes online and recreate them at home without too much trouble!

Add supplements

Since dogs have a high calcium requirement, feel free to add some supplements to your pups’ diet.

Sure, you can always throw them a bone, but there are several health risks that come with it.

Bones can splinter, pierce the bowels and cause inflammations, infections and even death!

So, for your dog’s safety, opt for calcium carbonate or calcium citrate supplements to your home-cooked meals (crushed eggshell also works).

Follow instructions on the packaging and your pup will be strong and healthy!

Learn little culinary secrets

Once you find a good recipe and settle on supplements, it’s time to get cookin’!

In order for your food to retain vitamins and minerals, you must learn to properly process the ingredients.

Make sure not to over-boil veggies and over-cook meat, otherwise, you can destroy all vitamins and minerals from the food.

Oftentimes, a practical Bosch electric cooktop is perfect for preparing most doggie recipes.

It allows precise temperature control for healthy cooking and it has all sorts of different cooktop features for easy and fast food prep.

It also has a handy Keep-Warm function—no more scorching or cold meals for this pup!

Remember to designate a few pots and pans for your dogs’ home-made meals, just to avoid contamination and keep everything hygienic.

Avoid certain foods

You probably know that chocolate is deadly for dogs, but there are other foods that can also endanger your pup’s health.

Never put raisins, grapes, all types of onions, tomato, avocado, yeast, alcohol or caffeine and artificial sweeteners in your home-cooked dog food!

Limit certain foods

There are also some ingredients that are not directly harmful to dogs but should be used only in limited amounts.

Foods like butter and cooking oil should be used moderately. 

Dairy and corn are also to be monitored since they are quite difficult for dogs to digest.

In general grain free dog food is the healthiest option for most dogs. They also tend to be higher in protein while also being lower in fat and carbohydrates.

This makes them ideal for promoting healthy muscle growth and supporting activity levels.

Additionally, dog food doesn’t require any seasoning, so be careful with salt, pepper or any other type of seasoning!

Control the portions

Make sure to research ingredients to figure out the size of portions your dog requires.

You want to provide your pup with the right number of calories that will prevent it from losing and gaining weight.

However, you’ll have to experiment with portion sizes, since no dog is the same.

The daily calorie requirement also depends on your pup’s age, activity level, health and lifestyle differences (neutered, spayed and pregnant dogs all need different amounts of calories).

Once you find good recipes and get the hang of cooking for your pup, your dog will forget all about that boring kibble!

Your pup will have a healthy and nutritious diet that will keep it strong, healthy and happy for many, many years to come!