What You Should Know About Homemade Dog Food

You’ve heard about the benefits of moving your dog toward a fresh-food diet, and now you’re thinking about making your dog’s food yourself.

I’m all for it.

For people who enjoy the process, homemade dog food can be a wonderful way to take more control over what goes into the bowl. You choose the proteins. You choose the quality of the ingredients. You can rotate foods, adjust the diet as your dog ages, and make changes based on what your individual dog actually needs.

There is a little shopping, a little chopping, a little math and, yes, probably a little reading. But once you understand the basic principles, homemade feeding does not have to become another full-time job.

See your vet for a diagnosis and then you and I can collaborate on a custom strategy for your dog's health.

Is Homemade Dog Food Better Than Kibble?

You already know where I stand: I prefer fresh food as the foundation of the diet whenever we can make that work for the dog and the family.

But there is an important distinction between fresh and thoughtfully built.

Chicken, rice, peas and carrots may taste better than kibble. It may look better in the bowl. Your dog may absolutely love it. But those four ingredients alone are not giving us the full nutritional picture we want for long-term feeding.

I say often that something fresh is better than nothing fresh, and I still believe that. Add an egg. Add sardines. Add vegetables. Add fermented foods. Add real food to a processed bowl.

But that phrase was meant to encourage pet parents to improve the bowl. When the topper becomes the entire meal and the kibble disappears, we need to take a closer look at what the whole diet is providing.

That does not mean every bowl must be mathematically perfect. It means we need a solid foundation, appropriate variety and an understanding of where the nutritional gaps may be.

What Does a Homemade Dog Food Diet Need?

A homemade diet is more than meat, vegetables and a carbohydrate tossed into the crockpot. We are thinking about the overall diet and how the ingredients work together over time.

Some of the core pieces I look at include:

• Quality animal protein
• Appropriate animal fat
• Calcium in relationship to phosphorus
• Organ meats and other nutrient-dense animal foods
• Omega-3 fatty acids, particularly EPA and DHA
• Essential vitamins and minerals
• Trace minerals
• Amino acids
• Vegetables and plant diversity when appropriate
• Calories and total food volume
• Supplements where the food itself is not covering the need

Then we layer in the dog standing in front of us: age, activity level, breed, body condition, digestive history, health concerns, medications, supplements, food sensitivities and what we are actually trying to accomplish with the diet.

Start With Quality Protein

Protein is the foundation of most of the homemade diets I build. Depending on the dog, that may include beef, turkey, chicken, pork, lamb, rabbit, venison, fish or other appropriate animal proteins.

I do not like getting stuck on one protein forever. Different proteins provide different amino acids, minerals, fats and other nutrients, and rotation gives us more opportunity to build diversity into the diet.

It also gives us flexibility. Maybe turkey is on sale this week. Maybe beef works better in winter. Maybe chicken is not appropriate for the dog we are working with. Maybe we are choosing proteins based in part on a TCVM pattern.

This is one of the reasons I have written so much about protein rotation.

Read: Benefits of Rotating Your Dog’s Proteins

Muscle Meat and Organ Meat Are Not the Same Thing

This is an easy place to get confused.

Heart and gizzard are extremely useful foods, but nutritionally they are treated more like muscle meat. Liver, kidney, spleen and other secreting organs bring different concentrations of vitamins and minerals to the bowl.

I want variety here too. Liver is wonderful, but liver is not the only organ worth feeding. Different organs bring different nutrients, which is another reason I prefer thoughtful rotation rather than relying on the exact same ingredients month after month.

Do Not Forget the Fat

One of the most common homemade bowls I see is very lean chicken breast, rice and vegetables.

Where is the fat?

Dogs need appropriate dietary fat for energy, cell health, hormone production, absorption of fat-soluble vitamins and many other functions. Depending on the recipe, I may use naturally occurring animal fat, chicken skin, fatty cuts of meat, eggs, oily fish, grass-fed butter, ghee or tallow.

The amount and type of fat should still be individualized. A dog with pancreatitis, certain digestive issues or another condition may need a very different fat strategy from an active healthy dog.

Omega-3 Deserves More Than a Splash of Fish Oil

Omega-3 fatty acids — particularly EPA and DHA — are an important part of how I evaluate homemade diets.

We use them to support the brain, nervous system, joints, cardiovascular system, skin and normal inflammatory response.

And there is a difference between providing omega-3 for basic nutritional support and using a therapeutic amount when we are supporting a dog dealing with issues such as allergies, seizures, cognitive change, inflammatory conditions, joint disease or certain behavioral and nervous-system concerns.

The more poultry-heavy the diet becomes, the more attention I generally pay to the omega balance as well.

This is another reason I do not simply ask, “Does the recipe contain fish oil?” I want to know what kind, how much EPA and DHA it actually provides, what the rest of the diet looks like and what we are trying to accomplish for that dog.

Calcium and Phosphorus Need Some Attention

If you are feeding primarily boneless meat, calcium is one of the first nutritional gaps I want you to think about.

Muscle meat is naturally higher in phosphorus and comparatively low in calcium. We need both, and we need them in an appropriate relationship.

Calcium might come from edible bone, eggshell calcium, bone meal or another appropriate source depending on the recipe and whether you are feeding raw or cooked.

This becomes especially important with puppies, pregnant dogs and nursing mothers. Those are not diets I want you winging from a Facebook recipe.

What About Vitamins, Minerals and Supplements?

This is where a homemade diet can look beautiful and still leave nutritional holes.

Depending on what you feed, we may need to think about nutrients such as zinc, copper, manganese, iodine, selenium, vitamin D, vitamin E, B vitamins, taurine or other amino acids and trace minerals.

I do not want you blindly tossing six supplements into the bowl because somebody online said every homemade-fed dog needs them.

I would rather look at what the food is already providing, where the gaps are likely to be and then supplement with intention.

Sometimes we can fill a gap with food. Sometimes a supplement is the cleaner and more practical answer. Often we use a combination of both.

Digestive enzymes, probiotics, fermented foods, raw goat’s milk, kefir and other microbiome support may also be useful, but those are supportive additions. They do not replace the nutritional foundation of the diet.

Does Every Homemade Dog Food Bowl Have to Be Perfectly Balanced?

I do not expect every single meal to contain every vitamin, mineral, fatty acid and micronutrient in exactly the same percentage every day. I look at the bigger nutritional picture.

This is one of the reasons I encourage rotation and diversity. Different proteins, vegetables, fats, organs and other foods bring different nutrients to the diet. Thoughtful variety can help us create a much broader nutritional profile over time.

The goal is not a perfect bowl. The goal is a thoughtfully built diet.

That still means having a sound foundation. Rotation cannot turn a chronically limited diet into a great one simply because we changed one ingredient.

Switching chicken, rice, peas and carrots to turkey, rice, peas and carrots is technically rotation, but we have not created very much nutritional diversity.

Thoughtful rotation means varying the foods that actually bring different nutrients to the diet: proteins, animal fats, organ sources, vegetables, eggs, oily fish, fermented foods and other nutrient-dense ingredients.

If you want to understand this part more deeply, read:

Rotating Dog Food Ingredients  and  Benefits of Rotating Your Dog’s Proteins .

What About 80/10/10 Raw Feeding?

Many raw feeders use a version of the familiar 80/10/10 framework: roughly 80% meat, 10% edible bone and 10% organ. You may also see the organ portion broken out further into liver and other secreting organs.

Plenty of people feed this way.

I tend to build beyond the basic ratio because I generally like some plant diversity, pay particular attention to omega-3 EPA and DHA, and may use eggs, fermented foods, herbs, supplements or other additions depending on the individual dog.

I also do not love butcher blends that combine several proteins into one grind as an everyday feeding strategy. When we blend chicken, beef, pork and turkey together in every meal, we lose much of our ability to rotate proteins intentionally or identify the culprit when a dog reacts.

If you buy a butcher’s “dog grind,” ask what is actually in it. Find out which proteins are included, how much fat it contains, how much bone, which organs and approximately what the ratios are.

An 80/10/10 framework can be useful. It is still only a framework. The individual dog gets the final say.

Use Variety — But Customize It for Your Dog

One of the things I love most about homemade feeding is that we do not have to feed every dog the exact same food.

A young athletic dog may need something very different from a sedentary senior. An allergy dog may need a completely different protein rotation. A dog with seizures may cause me to look much more closely at therapeutic omega-3 support, inflammatory load and nervous-system nutrition. A dog with digestive disease may need different amounts of fat, fiber and plant matter.

I may also look at food through a Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine lens, considering warming, cooling and neutral foods, season, constitution and patterns such as heat, dampness, stagnation, deficiency, digestive weakness, stress or inflammation.

Muscle testing may help guide tolerance and direction in sensitive or complicated dogs, and experience helps me recognize patterns, ask better questions and avoid wasting time on random product guessing.

This is where homemade feeding becomes much more interesting than simply following a generic recipe forever.

Raw or Gently Cooked?

Both can work beautifully.

Some dogs thrive on raw food. Others digest gently cooked food better. Some dogs may move between the two at different stages of life or during periods of illness and recovery.

For cooked diets, I generally prefer gentle cooking. A slow cooker can work well. I am less interested in routinely grilling, broiling or charring meats at high temperatures.

The cooking method does not make the diet balanced, though. What matters is the overall nutritional picture we create with the ingredients.

Do Dogs Need Vegetables in Homemade Food?

I generally include some vegetables and plant diversity in the diets I create unless there is a reason not to.

Vegetables can provide fiber, phytonutrients, antioxidants and compounds that help feed different portions of the gut microbiome.

Depending on the dog, I might use leafy greens, broccoli, bok choy, cabbage, zucchini, green beans, squash, carrots, berries or other appropriate produce.

I usually prefer vegetables lightly cooked, finely chopped or pureed so the dog can better access the nutrients.

And once again: rotate them.

Your dog does not need peas and carrots every day for the next twelve years simply because peas and carrots were in the first homemade recipe you found.

What About Rice, Oats, Potatoes and Other Carbohydrates?

Dogs can eat carbohydrates, and modest amounts can have a place in a homemade diet.

Rice, oats, sweet potato, squash and other carbohydrate sources may be useful depending on the dog and can also help stretch the food budget.

What I do not want is a homemade diet that slowly turns into a giant pot of rice with a little meat and a few vegetables mixed through it.

Once the carbohydrate portion becomes the majority of the bowl, we have moved a long way from the fresh, animal-protein-centered diet most pet parents thought they were creating.

Is Chicken, Rice, Peas and Carrots Balanced for a Dog?

By itself, I would not consider chicken, rice, peas and carrots a complete long-term homemade diet.

Those ingredients are not bad foods. They simply do not represent the entire nutritional picture.

We still need to think about calcium and phosphorus, appropriate fat, omega-3s, organ meats, vitamins, minerals, trace minerals and the overall nutrient diversity of the diet.

And this is how homemade feeding often happens.

Your dog does not feel well. You make chicken and rice. You add some peas and carrots. Your dog loves it. The stool improves. Everyone sleeps for the first time in three days, and you think, Well, he certainly likes this better than kibble.

Three months later, you are still feeding it.

I understand how you got there. You were trying to help your dog.

You may simply have stopped halfway between adding fresh food and building a complete fresh-food diet.

We can work with that.

So, Is Your Homemade Dog Food Balanced?

Maybe.

And that is the question I want you asking.

A homemade diet can absolutely be balanced, diverse and nutritionally rich without requiring every single bowl to look exactly the same.

I look at what you are feeding across the bigger picture: the ingredients, approximate ratios, protein rotation, organ sources, fats, omega-3 intake, vegetables, supplements, calories and overall variety.

Then I look at the dog.

Age. Breed and size. Body condition. Activity. Stool history. Appetite. Digestion. Allergies. Health concerns. Medications. Supplements. Lab trends. Stress. TCVM patterns. What has already been tried and what we are trying to accomplish next.

That is a much more useful question than asking whether Tuesday night’s dinner contained exactly 100% of every nutrient your dog could possibly need.

Already Making Your Dog’s Food? Start With a Recipe Review.

Maybe you do not need another recipe.

Maybe you already have a bowl your dog loves and you simply want to know: Am I covering the important pieces?

That is exactly why I offer Recipe Reviews.

We can look at what you are already feeding, identify areas that may need more attention and make practical adjustments without automatically throwing away everything you are doing and starting over.

Sometimes you do not need a brand-new diet. Sometimes we just need to finish the one you already built.

Ask Me About a Recipe Review →

Want to Learn How to Make Homemade Dog Food Yourself?

If you want more than a recipe and actually want to understand why we choose the ingredients we do, I created my Homemade Dog Food Course for you.

We cover the building blocks of homemade feeding — protein, fat, organs, calcium and phosphorus, omega fatty acids, vegetables, carbohydrates, supplements, calories, how much to feed and how to think about rotation and variety.

The goal is not to turn you into a canine nutritionist. It is to help you understand your dog’s bowl well enough that you are not blindly following random recipes from Google or Facebook.

The course is available stand-alone, and it is also included as part of the expanded value of The WellOiledK9 Membership.

Explore The WellOiledK9 Membership →

Some Dogs Have Less Room for Nutritional Gaps

There are certain stages of life when I want you paying even closer attention to the nutritional picture.

Puppies, pregnant and nursing dogs, seniors, and dogs recovering from illness, surgery, chronic digestive issues, weight loss or another period of stress on the body may have very different nutritional demands.

Puppies and pregnant or nursing dogs are building and supporting new tissue, so calcium, phosphorus, protein, calories and other nutrients need to be approached more carefully. This is not where I want you experimenting with a random recipe from Facebook unless you really understand what you are doing.

Seniors and dogs in recovery can have the opposite problem: they may eat less food at the exact time their bodies need excellent nutrition. Reduced appetite, smaller meals, muscle loss, inflammation, poor digestion, medications and the demands of healing can all make nutritional gaps harder on them.

If they are eating less, every bite has to work a little harder.

That may mean paying closer attention to quality protein, appropriate fat, calories, omega-3 EPA and DHA, vitamins, minerals, trace minerals and the nutrients needed to maintain muscle and support repair.

And this is where customization becomes especially important. A growing puppy, a nursing mother, a senior dog with kidney concerns and a dog recovering from pancreatitis or surgery should not all be eating the exact same version of a homemade diet.