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

Carole, It may have been ok, but the fact is you just don't know for sure. In safetly/sanitation glasses we were always taught that meats should always be thawed in the fridge, and that in large poultry the entire bird must be kept under 42-degrees else bacteria form under the skin and then multiply and spread during the long cook time. Yes, theortetically, the bird gets cooked enough to destroy some bacteria, but not all strains. And some strains of bacteria are getting increasingly heat-tolerant. Obviously, some people take the chance and it's never been a problem. My mother used to thaw things overnight on the counter and never ever got sick from it. She did, however manage to send all of us (except me) to the ER at least once over the years with food poisoning. She claimed we were "wimps". My "wimpy" sister ended up in ICU twice. Oj, and the only reason I didn't end up in the ER? My boss called my BF because I was three hours late for work, and the BF was smart enough to realize that wasn't like me at all. He immediately drove over to my apt and found me passed out in the bathroom where I'd been for about seven hours. Tiny, tiny chance of that happening in the case you outlined, but totally not the way you want to spend your weekend.

I used Iams for over 17 years - then the dogs didn't seem to do so well on it any more. So 1.5 years ago I switched to Nutro dry kibble. In the month or so before the wet food recall, I noticed my dog's coats weren't as nice, they vomited on/off yellow frothy stuff, and they avoided eating it until the last moment before we went to bed. Sometimes I had to encourage them with people food on it. These are dogs that are 12, have always willingly ate dry kibble, live indoors with us, and never over eat. The vet and I attributed it to hunting dogs doing what they like to do on our long daily walks (we live in the middle of nowhere, where there are many tasty temptations on the trails). Then around the first part of March, one of mine had violent seizures for the first time in her life at age 12. There is a family history; her brother has mild seizures 2-3 times year. so mild we don't medicate for them; and I know they can spring up at any age, so truly that is the most likely answer. However, that day I stopped feeding the Nutro, and began home cooking cold turkey. That strange vomiting with both dogs ended that day (despite the fact I thought switching to such a rich home cooked diet would cause some upset). Coats sleeked back up in short order. Please knock on wood for us, but no seizures yet (I still am reluctant to connect that to the food, because of the dog family history, but need to put it out there because I do think there is something less than fatal in this food that was at the least causing the vomiting/tummy upsets. My girl had a cluster of 6 in less than 24 hours, and it took days before she was "normal", ie pacing for hours, some vision issues, couldn't sleep, wobbly legs, etc.) It was a nightmare. Then I heard about the wet food recall. I thought I was a food snob. I did ask questions, but 1) how can I know if I am not told truthful answers re QC and ingredient issues, and 2) frankly, accidents like a bad batch of X can happen - to both pet and human grade food. I don't know what to think now, except that if commercial wet food has issues with rat poison, plastics poison, god-knows-what-else is still in it that is causing problems less than death in it, too much Vitamin D (the Royal Canin lawsuit, which btw, I had tried the cat food years ago and it was simply awesome at the time, but still, they screwed up)... well, I can guarantee that as a home cooker, I can be more careful than that. I am just lucky that I can make the time to home cook - what a burden that would be in other circumstances for a lot of people. The cat would be harder to do a good home job with; so I am trying Felidae dry kibble. P.S. The store and Nutro were very stand up about taking our returned sacks of dry kibble for full credit.

Oh for Heavens sake. Houzz decided to swallow all my attempts yesterday to post this and then regurgitate them all this morning. IGNORE THIS THREAD. It is a duplicate.