How to Feed Your Dog Without Dog Food

So maybe you've run out of dog food and can't get more until payday. Perhaps you want to make your own dog food to make sure your dog gets the best nutrition, or to control allergies. Another reason people like to make their own dog food is to save money. Learn how to make homemade dog food today.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Cook 1 1/2 cups of brown rice to feed to your dog as a meal if you only plan to be out of food for a day or so. Rice doesn't provide all of the nutrition a dog needs, but it's unlikely to upset their tummy or cause diarrhea. Brown rice has more fiber and nutrients than white rice.

2. Mix 2 parts cold cooked meat with 1 part grains and 1 part vegetables, but not onion. Commercial dog food companies use corn but corn isn't a naturally occurring vegetable, it's been super-bred over the years and contains more starches and sugars than other vegetables.

3. Add cod liver oil or flax seed oil, a little bit at a time, for shiny coat.

4. Transition dogs to a new food slowly, over a 2 week period. Begin by replacing 1/4 of the dog's meal food with homemade dog food and serve it with those proportions for 3-4 days. Then, serve meals that are 50% homemade dog food and 50% commercial dog food. After a few days of that, make dog food 3/4 homemade and 1/4 commercial. After another few days, begin feeding homemade dog food at every serving. if you ever transition back to commercial dog food, wean them over slowly using the same technique.

Tips & Warnings

• For grains, you can use bread, rice, oatmeal, couscous, pasta or whole grain flour; wheat, rye, barley or soy
• For meat-free dog food, use lentils or other beans. When combined with the whole grains, they make complete proteins
• For meat, serve chicken, fish, beef, lamb, goat, rabbit, or turkey. Avoid giving dogs cooked chicken bones. Bone splinters can cause infection or puncture their esophagus.
• Avoid garlic, onions, coffee, tea and chocolate. These foods are OK for humans, but can hurt dogs.
• Avoid sugary foods like donuts, raisins or cookies. In nature, dogs would not be eating white sugar. Sometimes they would eat fruits, but not often.
• Avoid refined white flour, it has absolutely no nutrients and can cause digestive problems in dogs and humans because the carbs are not natural

Resources

• How I Make More Money Than my eHow Friends

[Merriment]

on 5/1/2009 Very good information, ingredients and tips for making your own dog food!