I have a toy poodle and I made about 8 to 9 days worth today in my Le Cruset roaster!
I cooked about a pound of ground beef some bits of leftover chicken and beef...about 1 1/2 cups brown rice about 2 cups of broccoli, 2 carrots 3/4 cup dry milk powder, an egg and enough water to cook....Oh and a handful of crushed corn flakes because I over did the water a little LOL!
Linda C....with the Diva Dog

Let me tell you, the first time I walked into Charlotte's kitchen when she was making dog food, I thought she had a fabulous "people" dinner cooking in her oven. It smelled marvelous. I could see her large roaster through the oven window and asked what she was cooking. She lifted the lid on a totally full roaster and said it was for her dogs. She must have had 20-24 pounds of food in the pan. While I like to use the PC and cook chicken so that the bones just mash into pulp, I thought her solution for a large amount was brilliant.

I cooked dog food today too. Three and half pounds of bone in chicken breast, 1 1/2 pounds of top round, and about a pound of hamburger for the meat. It always amazes me that round steak will be on sale here for less than ground beef. I wish I would remember to buy a little bit of chicken livers to add in. Todays veggies included, green beans, carrots, a large sweet potato, half a head of cauliflower and two stalks of celery. The starches were brown basmati rice and rolled oats. I added three eggs at the end, just beaten a little to combine them and stirred in to be cooked by retained heat in the food. I ended up with ten and a half pounds of food, about 12 days worth.

Brockley kept me company while I cut up the veggies. He snacked on raw carrots and a piece of Brie.

Linda, good idea about the corn flakes. I always use cooked rice and I add it and quick cooking rolled oats at the end and partly base the amount I add by how much water is left to be absorbed. Another thing that works to absorb water and thicken the food at the end is couscous. Since it's OK to use pasta, couscous fits right in.

I basically start out by making a soup in the PC using 4 or 5 cups of water. My first time making dog food I used much less water with the chicken and I realized it was smelling like roast chicken just in time to quickly cool down the pot under cold water and rescue the chicken before it became toast adhered to the bottom. I have very little experience using a PC and I learned that it takes a lot of water to cook chicken for 75 minutes.

There will be lots of happy doggies this week.

Lee

Snowy the Yellow Lab usually gets dry dog food but this past weekend I ran out and then had to leave town for the week with no time to shop. So I mixed up a batch of brown rice and ground beef. I kept it simple. She was a happy dog. Back to dry dog food this week, though.

I feed my dogs a mixture of 2/3's dry kibble and 1/3 fresh raw vegetables and fruit. I usually always have broccoli and cauliflower and then any fresh veggie in season. For fruit, my dogs love melon of any kind, apple and banana are the most common but they like watermelon and grapes too particularly red or purple grapes are their favorites. And I had 2 dogs that loved grapefruit but would not touch oranges but they all eat tangerines! You do have to be careful with the sugar in fruit though, so they get fruit just once a day and raisins are a big problem for some reason. Sometimes I sprinkle peanuts or sunflower seeds on top.

I've feed this way for 10 years now and my dogs are all performance dogs and I did have one in the breed ring for a time. And don't think that the movie "Best in Show" was just a comedy, it's pretty much on track with how it is! LOL!!!!

Michelle

I am blown away by dog's dislikes and likes. I made Chabby a batch out of canned salmon rice, spinach carrots dry milk and egg....and she wouldn't touch it...sniffed and came to me and whined. So we had something else and I tried it again another day....nope! I thought it was the salmon, but I had salmon the other day and she got the leftovers....then I made her another beef meal with spinach....and discovered she won't touch spinach! Nor will she eat a banana nor any other kind of fruit I have found. One dog loved grapefruit and would lick a grapefruit rind for a long time. One dog would beg and yip and whine for apple peel when you were peeling apples....and another dog was crazy for booze! Chabby won't touch anything with any alcohol in it nor anything carbonated....but Snoopy was a lush! I can't tell you the number of times she lapped at a martini on the coffe table or at champagne on Christmas morning. I remember once she got so drunk she almost couldn't get into the house after licking the drip from a keg of beer in the back yard....and another time I had one of those containers with a spogot full of bloody marys....and it dripped....and she sat under it waiting for the drip and it was dripping on her head....and she shook.
It was embarassing to have to tell guests "Watch your glass or the dog will have her tongue in there"...she was a poodle. LOL! A Poodle floozy!..She also ate the strawberries out of the strawberry garden!
Linda C

Michelle, I've read that grapes are toxic to some dogs. (How does one know which dogs?) Also onions, macadamia nuts, walnuts, fatty meats, chocolate, and, as you mentioned, raisins.

Both grapes and raisins can be toxic. Some dogs eat them with, seemingly, no ill effects. However, some dogs become ill after ingesting only a few grapes or raisins. The first symptom is vomiting, followed by acute kidney failure, from which many dogs do not recover. As of yet, the toxin is unknown, nor do we know why some dogs become sick and others eat grapes or raisins without a problem.

ICA,
Sophie ^i^

Here is a link that might be useful: Dogs, don't eat these - quiz

Sophie, Note "as of yet the toxin is unknown". Hmmmm, wonder what is in grapes/raisins that is unknown. ;) With raisins it is the concentrated sugar that causes diaherra, not death.

Grapes are not toxic to dogs, otherwise mine would have died long ago. They helped themselves to our 500' of red and green concord grapes every year and stripped the vines as high as they could reach and they did not eat small quanities either.

Linda, we have a friend that had to secure their bar because their female Doberman would pull the pourers out of the bottles and help herself. Mostly she went for the sweet liquers but she wasn't always so picky!!

Michelle

I haven't tried making dog food for Clancey, my Shih Tzu but the vet told me not to feed him, grapes, onions or chocolate.

He loves fruit & veggies, he gets them every morning when I'm, making DH's lunch...

We just got back from visiting our DD and SIL in NC what a beautiful state....so green and I loved the thunder storms..LOL I had never seen a firefly before except for in Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean. LOL

We may be moving in a few years to NC as we loved the area and all the brick houses..

Linda

How did you guys get your dogs to eat fruits? My Dad had a chihuahua who would go crazy if she smelled you peeling an orange, but other than that I have never seen a dog eat fruit.
My dogs will eat veggies cooked, but not raw. They even pick out the veggie flavored kibble out of their kibble if it is in there.
A lot of dog food over here has grain pieces in it. They won't eat that, either.
I am asking because our plans are to get a large dog when we don't have the two small ones anymore and I am very interested in cooking for it myself.
My other question is how much do you know how to feed?
Lisa

Lisa,
I say feed the same amount that you have been feeding of canned food. If a large dog gets one can a day, feed the same amount of homemade by weight or cups full.

I've made my mini poodle's food for the past several months now. About every other week I cook 3-4 chicken thighs with 1 cup brown rice, add some canned green beans, carrot, broccoli, sweet potato, celery, or canned white beans - whatever I've got on hand. I take the meat off the bones, chop fine and add to the rice and vegetables. I freeze the extra. Andy also gets a doggie vitamin pill each morning.

He loves bananas, apples, peaches, melon, little bits of cheese as a treat. I never give him onion, grapes/raisins, or chocolate. Sometimes he has bites of my toast.

Linda, come on down to NC - you WILL love it here. I've been here all my life and still think it is a great place to live. The way our numbers are growing, lots of other people think it is the place to be too.

Teresa

Teresa,
I would move today if I had my way...but DH wants to wait until he's 62 (1 1/2 yrs). We'll see who gets their way first LOL. The kids are in Mint Hill area.

Linda

I still haven't taken the plunge to start cooking my dog's own food - one of the concerns I have are is his teeth - his teeth are great between the brushing and the dry kibble - are you worried (especially those of you with small breeds) that their teeth won't get the cleaning they need with the homemade food?

I've tried feeding my dog various fruits and veggies - he takes the snap peas but just lets them sit there -until I saw him in my garden one night EATING ALL THE SNAP PEAS FROM THE VINE -- apparently he only likes his veggies very, very fresh . .. .

The problem is my dogs self-feed. I keep dry food in a container that works on gravity principle.
Neither one are overweight so this has always worked for us. They just eat when they want to.
I guess I will have to research the type of dog we end up with and serve what is recommended at its age.
Lisa

Lisa, I'm glad to see you here again, hugs to you and CJ!

WonderWeiner loved orange juice but wouldn't eat oranges. He liked apples but not bananas, and would sneak and eat grapes although I tried to tell the girls not to let him have them. He liked cauliflower raw but not cooked, but wouldn't eat white potatoes for any reason. He liked sweet potatoes but not pumpkin and would eat brown rice but not white. Go figure. He loved corn on the cob but hated eggs. He only drank milk if it was left over from a bowl of highly sweetened breakfast cereal and wouldn't touch oatmeal if I put it in anything. He hated fish but liked shrimp and loved cheese.

I think dogs are much like humans, with specific likes and dislikes. Find what your dog likes and feed them that! Elery's dog, Pancho, has been having some digestive problems and I think I'm going to mix him up a batch of homemade stuff, just to see how he likes it.

Annie

for my large german shepherd, i used to make a mush everyday (just once a day)
1 beef patty (costco)
one cup organic veggies (costco)
1 cup dry food (pedigree)
1 cup uncle ben's rice

Bring water to a boil, mix all the above, let it cook for 5 min. then cool it.

Dog would eat it all in a few minutes.

He passed away 3 years ago of old age :(

Here