Recipe for an elderly, recovering dog: cooks advice please!

Hello all! I know many of you cook for your dogs. Because of various dietary mumph, ours have been on a premium dry food (James Wellbeloved senior) for years. They love it, it suits them, and all is well... mostly.

The eldest (you may know him from the Travails of an Old Dog thread) has come through his surgery with flying colours, only minus a good few kilos. He is currently on four meals a day: three small, one big, involving James Wellbeloved pouch food and sardines, and as much dry food as he likes.

In a month, we'll be taking him to France, where we'll stay for two months. we can't get his regular food there. I'm planning to cook for him. I would be very grateful for your advice and recipes! Especially ones that could help build him up: he is very underweight. He loves his fish tea, but it's not enough. The poor boy looks like a shaved antelope. If I didn't have the other two with me to prove that I do feed them, I'd probably be arrested.

If he does well on the food you have him on now, look at the ingredients (proteins, etc) and try to mimic it as best of possible. For example, if the proteins are beef and chicken, I would add the same to the home food.

All the best.

http://www.dogaware.com/

This is a really good site lots of info on all aspects of health and feeding.

Hope your old lad continues to do well

Tripe is excellent for putting weight on a dog and is full of nutrients stinks but they love it!!

Thanks, guys! Great advice! Most of the recipes are pretty much what I was thinking about anyway... we don't have access to our normal dog food but we will have access to top quality fresh meat and veggies. I'm seeing references to calcium supplements. Old Dog gets a tin of fish every day, most often sardines, bones in. There are usually 4-5 finger-sized fish per tin. Do you think this will be enough calcium? At 13 years old, he shows no signs of arthritis, and he's recovering remarkably well from his illness and surgery, so we want to support him as much as possible.

Ah, Dieseldaft, tripe!!! I would have to cook it outside, in a fire pit. at the absolute bottom of the garden, well beyond the fence. Even liver drives my husband out, though he'll put up with chicken livers on a nice day when we can have all the windows open. Still... tripe is a French delicacy. It'll be well and truly available! Maybe I can find some already cooked, that I can sneak in...

ALSO! As a side note:

One of the things I look out for is what NOT to feed your dog/cat/bird. Dogs and humans share a wonderful evolutionary trait: we are amazing digesters, but not always of the same things. Here's a big one:

XYLITOL

This is an artificial sweetener that is very common in gum, and present in some candy. It is very toxic to dogs. My Akita is mad for chewing up and eating old spat out gum on the pavement. He seeks it out with a vengeance-- I've had to pull it out of his mouth. Please don't let your dog eat gum!