How many of you give your dogs a home cooked diet?

Just wondered

I'm fast coming to the conclusion this may be the way forward for Harvey

Would be interesting discussion to see how others home feed

Polly has royal canin hepatic diet in the morning then in the evening she has a mix of sweet potato, brocolli, carrots, white fish and cottage cheese. I cook it up about once a fortnight and freeze it. She also has bananas stuffed in kongs and apples and any raw veg bits that are around.

If she has much meat/fish she goes wobbly and is very confused. So far what I am doing is working OK but I am not sure how long it will work for.

The others have kibble!

rune

Do you find the sweet potato is more nutritionally balanced than ordinary potato? I've seen ,it recommended before for home made diets.

Do you ever add tinned food to the home cooked? I didn't expect to have to start cooking again for Harvey so am not prepared this weekend. Tonight he had potato, broccoli & some tinned Butchers. I will be better prepared next week when I go shopping.

Is it the frozen blocks of white fish you use from PAH?

Haven't a clue but I know what she likes and I thought sweet potato fitted the bill! At the moment she is still eating well but I have had a dog before with a dicky liver and she gradually stopped eating everything (home cooked did last longer than either the kibble or the tins.)

I get everything from whichever supermarket I happen to be in. So the fish is the value pack with 6/7 smallish fillets in it, one large tub of cottage cheese goes in---the rest is veg. I mash it up but the carrot doesn't mash well----I need to feed those raw and do more of the other veg---or add something else. As she is having the kibble as well I reckon she is getting more or less the right things.

As soon as she has anything resembling meat she goes wobbly. She has the very occassional fish stick but any more and it is too much for her liver.

Her coat is not shiny and when she goes down it is covered in dandruff. Then she has no animal oils/fats so I suppose it would be.

When I decide the time has come she is going to live on chocolate for a week---she loves that!

rune

Sweet potatoe is meant to be healthier than normal potatoes - but - it is sweet, and ideally the diet shouldn't be too sweet, so I would say they are fine as a treat but maybe not as a staple.

I've experimented with lots of different diets with Rocky, and found home-cooked the best, not only is it his favourite but he seems to be doing the best on it as well.

His staple is:

6 or 7 large potatoes (washed and cut into chunks)
4 or 5 large carrots (skinned and cut into small slices)
With cabbage/cauli/broccali etc thrown in on the top
(All boiled)
With a whole chicken that is spread over two days or if it's large 3 (the above veg lasts a day)

I spread his meals over two large and one small (before bedtime) and occasionally give other meats, like liver, mince.

Ideally you want to add herbs and the occasional raw bone tho - but I'm being careful with him at the mo as he has a sensitive digestive system.

I don't think it matters too much now for Polly---I'd rather she ate and seemed to enjoy it than worry too much about the sweet bit---she loves sweet!

I'd love to give bones again but she had an extreme reaction when I did.

It is so variable for each dog. Worth experimenting a bit.

rune

Mostly raw but I add in some cooked too. Last night Loki had boiled haddock, potato, broccoli and carrot. He'd had banana, tinned mackarel, two raw chicken bones and raw beef mince during the day. He's doing all raw today.

Used to give Millie cooked when she was little now she gets raw :>

sweet by flavour compared to normal spuds....but are better imo and perfectly fine as a 'staple'