THere is nothing wrong in feeding tomatoes, they are perfectly safe to feed to dogs, raw or cooked.

The only time you may wish to avoid them is if your dog has arthritis as it is believed that vegetables belonging to the nightshade family may exacerbate the condition.

They are not toxic to dogs.

Thanks for posting this. It's a valid point but the problem is, not all dogs thrive on raw food.

Interestingly, humans too who go on a raw diet and who feel good on it, often see improvements health-wise. But I still prefer cooked food

Also, while cooking does destroy some nutrients, it also destroys certain pathogens etc.

asbo loves tomatoes

but I think maybe the point of Clo's post was about balance over time? Rather than 'to cook or not to cook' I know she mentioned the difference between the two but I felt it was more about the variety over time thing maybe?

Also, some of these pathogens, (healthy) dogs seem to have no problem with so destroying them may not be beneficial and a waste of other valuable nutrients that a dog can get from raw food?

As I said I'm not against home-cooking for dogs, just that I don't really 'get it' if you know what I mean.

yeah i meant the balance over time. it was really interesting to read. saying that by cooking the diet for the dog, you are doing exactly what a commercial dog food does by cooking it, but somtimes you end up doing it worse than commercial because a homecooked diet doesnt at extra vitamins or nutrients that have been cooked out.

just thought it would be an interesting thing for people to read who feed homecooked.

yep Work Wonders with Raw Meaty Bones is good too (it touches on suitable cooked foods/leftovers)

There are quite a few books on homecooking too but I havent really read them.

I seen a YouTube video on cooking for your dog and they were using a pressure cooker to cook chicken legs and then grinding the bones down later (they go crumbly in the pressure cooker)

I havent been brave enough to try that! He eats raw chickens anyway.

yeah i dont bother cooking for mine either. they eat everything raw so i dont see much point.

I've read that too... I'm not a fan of home cooked diets if I an honest. I know not all dogs do well on raw, but I think a lot of dogs who don't do well, it is more of an owner error than the dog not suiting it. JMO.

yeah after reading more of this book i agree with that too.

When I had Cherry I tried feeding raw and she was unhappy and didn't like it at all. She would just take the meat and hide it in her beanbag and growl at Parker when he went near her I tried for a few days but she was an older dog and didn't enjoy the change at all.

I started feeding home-cooked after running out of dog food and the small pet shop I bought their "Barking Heads" food was closed so I went to Tescos for some kibble. I spent half an hour reading the labels and discovered there was nothing I was happy to feed to them so bought some fish and wholemeal rice and gave them this with veggies. Seeing them enjoy their food so much made me look into doing a home-cooked diet permanently. I then bought a book by a vet about home-cooked diets.

As to cost, as I buy reduced meat or fish so it costs very little. For example they had Rainbow trout the other day that cost only 60p. This week they have been eating turkey mince that I got reduced to quarter price so that probably works out at about 30p a day for the 2 of them, plus the cost of the rice, eggs, veggies and small amount of natural yogurt.

I think sometimes people who feed raw can come across as a bit "elite" in their opinions that this is a dietary answer to all dogs but some may not thrive on it for whatever reasons.

I met someone with an "extra-old" dog yesterday on the heath (it was almost 17). It looked very fit and healthy for its age and I asked the owner what he ascribed this too. He replied that he had always fed his dog vegetarian dog food. I certainly would not be wanting to feed my dogs vegetarian dog food (even though I am vegetarian) but I could not deny that this dog looked very well on it.