Foods Not Safe For Dogs:
The most important thing to know when making homemade dog food for your dog are the foods they should NOT eat.
You can do a quick google search for an all inclusive list or buy a doggie cookbook for reference. Heres a list from the Humane Society of foods that can be poisonous to pets. Be sure to take the necessary precautions if you plan to start cooking for your dog, but also know, theres really not that much to worry about!
Here are some common human foods that should not be fed to your dog:
Charlie LOVES his homemade food and Im excited to experiment with new recipes and treats for him, so if you want to see more recipes for your pup, let me know in the comment section below!
Ingredients Needed For This Homemade Dog Food Recipe:
This DIY dog food made at home is filled with rich protein, vegetables, and healthy grains. Heres what youll need:
- Coconut oil provides a variety of health benefits for dogs, such as improving the skin and coat, increasing energy, aiding digestion, and reducing allergic reactions, just to name a few. And just like us, your dog needs healthy fats in their diet.
- Ground turkey will add necessary protein to your dogs diet, as well as important vitamins and minerals.
- Veggies this homemade dog food recipe uses a mix of zucchini, spinach and carrots. All are safe for dogs and will provide your baby with a variety of nutrients.
- Turmeric a dog-safe seasoning that also provides antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties.
- Egg for extra protein and nutrients.
- Rice a complex carb that provides energy and aids in gastrointestinal function.
Apple Pretzels Homemade Puppy Treats
Ingredients:
- 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
How to Make:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Next, line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set it aside.
Crack the egg, beat it, and set it aside in a small bowl. In another large bowl, mix the almond flour and applesauce.
Next, scoop one tablespoon of egg into a separate bowl, then pour the remaining into the flour mixture. Stir until it reaches a dough consistency.
Take two tablespoons, ball the dough, and roll into a tube. Then, twist the dough into a pretzel shape.
Place the pretzels on the baking sheet and brush with the reserve egg wash. Next, bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown and firm.
Lastly, allow it to cool before giving it to your dog.
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What To Feed A Puppy At Different Stages
Now you know these 5 recipes for homemade puppy food, you will need to know how often you should feed them. How much you feed will depend on the size of the puppy, but they are generally quite self-regulating. If you are at all unsure, check with your veterinarian.
Puppy feeding schedule :
Remember that puppies will eat and gain benefit from the same ingredients as adult dogs. We just need to ensure the consistency is palatable and we control portion size according to their age and development. We have all the information you need if you require homemade puppy formula as a milk replacement.
It is best to vary your dog’s diet as much as possible. Use all different kinds of meat and vegetables, but ensure they are the right kind for your dog. Do not offer any food which is toxic to dogs. While dogs will have a stronger stomach than humans, we still need to ensure the food is clean and free of bacteria. This is especially so for puppies who are vulnerable to disease.
If you want to read similar articles to Homemade Dog Food for Puppies, we recommend you visit our Homemade diets category.
- If you observe vomiting or diarrhea, contact a veterinarian immediately.
- If you want to give bones to your puppy, crush them finely before serving.
- Use high quality and fresh ingredients.
- Have the veterinarian examine the puppy first and continue monitoring their progress.
Homemade Food For A 3
The food for a 3-month old puppy is easy to prepare!
First, in non-fat broth, broiled the chicken with no spices, mix with cooked carrots, peas, string beans, and brown rice. Then, blend the ingredients in a food processor. And you’re all set!
Give about 3/4 cups each for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
When your puppy reaches one year old, cut down to only two meals per day. Also, mix wet and dry food when feeding him.
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When Can Puppies Eat Homemade Dog Food
Once your puppy is completely weaned at about 7 or 8 weeks, shell get all the nutrition she needs from her puppy food. By this age shell also enjoy the occasional treat. You can help ensure that your pup is getting only wholesome ingredients by making, or even baking, her treats yourself.
Recommended Serving Amounts For Homemade Dog Food
As a general rule, dogs will eat around 2 to 3 percent of their ideal body weight in fresh food daily. Larger breeds may need as little as 1 1/2 percent, and smaller breeds may need as much as 4 percent.
This works out to be approximately:
- 2 pounds of food per day for a 100-pound dog
- 1 to 1 1/2 pounds of food per day for a 50-pound dog
- 1/2 to 3/4 pound of food per day for a 25-pound dog
- 5 to 6 1/2 ounces of food per day for a 10-pound dog
There is much variation in what the ideal amount should be as it depends on how much your dog weighs and how active she is.
I feel that the best approach is to feed and watch if your dog is losing weight, give more, and if your dog is gaining weight, give less.
For our pugs, we feed a scoop each in the morning and a scoop each in the evening, plus all their supplements.
We have an easy system for this: homemade food is refrigerated in a sealed container with a measuring cup , and all the supplements are lined up together in a cupboard in the kitchen. Keeping your ingredients organized and accessible will make feeding time fast and smooth.
Compared to feeding commercial food, where you might scoop out kibbles or open up a can, feeding homemade food with all the supplements takes maybe 10 seconds more. And even if it took 10 minutes more, fresh wholesome food for our furbabies is worth it.
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Homemade Dog Food For 8 Week Old Puppy
Dog Food AdvisorForumsHomemade Dog FoodHomemade dog food for 8 week old puppy
- Member
Next week, my 8 week old puppy will be arriving. She is half german shepherd and half labrador.
I know that a homemade diet is much healthier than kibble. I have a lot of knowledge on homemade dog foods for adult dogs from experience and from doing lots of reading. However, I cant find that much information on if you want to feed a puppy homemade dog food.
So my question is, how much protein, calories and carbohydrates should I feed my 8 week old puppy? And how much do the amounts increase as my puppy gets older?
I called my vet, and they have no knowledge on homemade dog food so they are no help.
The Best Foods For 6 Week Old Puppies
Although many breeders wait until a litter is at least 8 weeks old before sending the puppies to their new homes, its still possible to adopt a puppy at 6 weeks of age. This is a tender time in a puppys life, but you can ease the transition by offering her a nutritious diet that she can chew and digest without too much trouble.
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Ideal Milk Formula For Puppies
To evaluate and better understand the nutritional needs of a puppy, we can look at the nutritional makeup of their mother’s milk.
1 liter of a mother dog’s milk will provide between 1,200 and 1,300 kcal and contains the following nutrients:
- 80 g protein
- 45 g carbohydrates
- 1.3 g calcium
- 0.8 g phosphorous
Looking at the nutritional values of the two formulae, we can see that the composition of cow’s milk is half that of dog’s milk. If we think we can just double the portion, then it is unfortunately not as simple. The puppies can only stomach so much milk in their small bodies. Getting the right level of nutrients takes a little more effort. We can give some cow’s milk in an emergency, but we can cause damage to the puppies if we use it in the long-term.
How To Clean Your Puppers Kong
How to keep your pup happy and healthy is a question everyone asks, especially new owners. So here we will share with you via the link from the masters themselves how to properly clean and care for the Kong you trust your pup with. A good cleaning is important as it will prevent bacteria and mold build up inside the Kong EWWW, Are you grossed out too?
* Be aware, Im not a veterinarian, pet behaviorist or nutritionist so please talk to your personal veterinarian when trying new things for your pup. If you are not confident in feeding something to your pet that you are unfamiliar with I recommend to just not do it and consult your pets doctor before making any changes or adjustments to their diet. Also most of these recipes are considered treats, but in some cases
Please keep in mind that we may receive a small commission when you click our links and make purchases and as an Amazon Associate, this site earns from qualifying purchases. However, this does not impact our reviews and comparisons. We try our best to keep things fair and balanced, in order to help you make the best choice for you.
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Is Homemade Puppy Food Better
Is cooking dog food at home really better for your pup? While there may be claims made to that effect, theres no hard scientific evidence to support it. Owners are told by many sources that homemade food is superior to commercial products. However, there is no proof to support this claim, says Dr.
The Dos & Don’ts Of Feeding People Food To Puppies
A meticulous researcher and editor with 17 years of fact-checking experience, Cherisse Harris reviews articles at The Spruce Pets for factual accuracy and consistency. She has fact-checked articles for multiple publications, including InStyle Magazine, Refinery29, The New York Times, Seventeen, and Details.
The Spruce / Charlotte Engelsen
It’s fun to treat your puppy, but people food is not the best for them. While an occasional table scrap treat may not be harmful, these should be limited when your dog is young. Learn the healthy ways you can treat your dog and which foods are best.
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The Results From Feeding Our Diy Dog Food
Back to the story of Bug
After only a couple of weeks of feeding her a homemade diet, the hubby and I were blown away by how much her mental and physical health improved. And we wholeheartedly believe she was able to bounce back because of her new food.
She went from an ailing, exhausted, incontinent, tail-down dog to a happy, energetic, curious, communicative pup. While she isnt miraculously walking again, her hip dysplasia also hasnt progressed or caused her any pain.
Weve learned to watch for signs that she needs to relieve herself as weve realized she knows when she has to go, she just cant get there without our help.
We feed both of our pugs the same food, with the hope that we can stave off any potential health problems for our older one.
When we travel, well bring their homemade food on the road in a cooler. On occasion, weve even ordered their dinner from a restaurant when we ran out of food .
If were camping, well usually just feed them whatever were cooking in camp they love corn on the cob, hobo packs , and the whole assortment of tri-tip, sausages, and ribs that weve usually got going on.
As you might imagine they lovecamping trips!
Homemade dog food gives us the flexibility to fine-tune their diet as needed. Im forever grateful for the extra time we were given with our beloved Bug as a result of the food we chose to feed her.
Recipes For Homemade Puppy Food
Proper nutrition is extremely crucial for growing puppies because it ensures a healthy foundation for optimal growth and development. Although a commercial diet is much more convenient than homemade puppy food, it can lack some essential nutrients. Therefore, its always better to feed your pup homemade food because it gives you total control over the ingredients.
Cooking homemade puppy food will definitely require some commitment on your part as it takes time and effort. Other than being nutritionally balanced, homemade food can also help you save some cash. Keep reading to learn some easy recipes of homemade puppy food that you can make for your canine friend.
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Can 4 Week Old Puppies Drink Water
Prior to the age of four weeks, puppies have no need to drink water. They receive all the hydration they need from mothers milk. While older dogs can drink water thats straight from the tap, its wise to start puppies out with bottled water or tap water that youve brought to a boil and allowed to cool.
Cooking Our Way To A Healthier Dog Diet
Ever since I started raising my own dogs, Id always wanted to make their food at home but thought it would be too expensive or too time consuming, or that they wouldnt get the nutrition they needed.
During the month of Bugs doggy depression, I vowed to make her precious life as comfortable as possible.
Both of my pugs had a range of health issues growing up, which I unfortunately found out were common for the breed.
My older one had persistent hot spots and itchiness that no commercial dog food could cure .
Bug was overweight for a while when she was younger, even though she ate the recommended amount of food for her target weight. Eventually, I settled on Wellness kibbles and they did well with that brand.
But, I wanted to explore other options. I wanted to give them real food fresh, nutritious ingredients that I recognized and could even eat myself.
Ive mentioned in my post on homemade whole grain chicken feed that the entire household all share the same whole grains and seeds that we buy in bulk, as well as the bounty that comes from our edible garden.
Everything our animals eat, we can eat.
When it comes to homemade feed for our laying hens, we stick to a tried-and-true formula that works for every layer: 16 to 17 percent protein , vitamins, minerals, and amino acids from a wide variety of grains and seeds, and free range of a pasture for weeds, greens, and insects.
Dogs, on the other hand, arent bred for a standard function the way chickens are.
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At The End Of 2019 During Our Yearly Vet Check We Received The Devastating News That Our 11 Year Old Dog’s Blood Work Showed That He Was In Stage 4 Kidney Failure
Honestly, I was a basket case, how on earth did we miss this? He seemed like he was just dealing with some symptoms of getting older – frequent urination, sometimes excessive water drinking. It definitely didn’t feel like life-threatening symptoms. As much as the diagnosis was a shock, the price tag of the prescription diet he would need to eat for the remainder of his life was pretty horrifying too!
Dry Vs Wet Puppy Food
Although dry kibble is a popular choice, its not the only option. As you walk the dog food aisles, you may see both dry and wet puppy foods.
This can make it harder to decide what to feed your puppy. Fortunately, as long as both the wet and dry formulas are complete and balanced for growing puppies, you can feed either one to your pup with confidence.
You and your puppy may have a preference when it comes to dry versus wet. Feeding a combination of the two is also an option.
According to Purina Nutritionist, Allison Millican, PhD, If youre feeding your puppy a combination of wet and dry food, it is extremely important to ensure the total caloric value does not fall short or exceed their daily energy requirement. Use the calories reported on the package to understand how much wet food will replace the dry and vice versa. This allows you to calculate the amount of each product needed to meet your puppys nutritional requirements.
For example, Millican explains, one thirteen-ounce can of wet puppy food may contain four hundred and seventy-five kilocalories and replace approximately one cup of a dry puppy formula with a similar value of kilocalories per cup. In this scenario, you could substitute a thirteen-ounce can of wet food for one cup of the daily dry food recommendation.
The brand websites and your veterinarian are great resources and can help you develop a feeding plan specifically for your puppys needs.
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Homemade Dog Food Sources
- Meats: chicken, turkey, beef, bison, pork, lamb, venison
- Vegetables: broccoli, cauliflower, carrot, zucchini, summer squash, spinach, kale, collard greens, chard, thawed frozen peas
- Complex carbohydrates: brown rice, wild rice, quinoa, lentils, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, winter squash
Recommended Serving Amounts
- 2 pounds of food per day for a 100-pound dog
- 1 to 1 1/2 pounds of food per day for a 50-pound dog
- 1/2 to 3/4 pound of food per day for a 25-pound dog
- 5 to 6 1/2 ounces of food per day for a 10-pound dog
This information is not intended to replace professional medical advice. Every dog’s dietary needs are different. Please consult with your veterinarian and use personal judgment when applying this information to your own dog’s diet.