Home cooking for dogs

Blaez is such a happy dog and loves chasing birds, barking at Menchi and most of all cuddles, but  about a month after I got him he became ill, he always had an appetite of note but I noticed he didn't have the same amount of energy that he had when I first got him, he was definitely a working line German Shepherd, but it was difficult because I did not know what was normal for him, was he just settling in or was something wrong as he was eating but not with the same vigour as usual, so I took him to the vet. According to the vet he should have been dead or in a coma with severe tick bite fever, his white blood count was very low and he had a bad parasitic infection as well, he went into the hospital immediately but recovered quickly. I felt so bad, he just came from kennels where his previous owners dumped him and he must think I did the same and I was confused, he was eating and playing just a little bit lethargic, even ran around the vets office and ate a cookie the vet gave him, I think the vet was also a bit stumped, never the less rather safe than sorry onto a drip he went and he recovered quite fast and I could fetch him the next day, he was on a whole bunch of meds one of which was Prednisolone, those pills made him worse than what he was when he was sick, he was just lying there and drank gallons of water, a couple of days after  his schedule for the pills ended and the last effects worked out he was back to his usually over the top energy self. I was elated and thought it was over and done with but three months later it all started again, this time I caught it fast about a day after he became lethargic ( lethargic for him means normal for another dog) so off to the vet again, I thought it would not be so bad this time but his blood work showed he was worse than last time, I was shocked but I must say it took the vet ( a different one from last time) about 10 minutes to find the tick bite virus, we waited and waited and I thought it was a good sign but she searched for it until she found one, so the recommendation was to go into the hospital again, but Blaez really was better than the previous time he ate like there was no tomorrow, drank liquids and ran around so we opted to take him home, the vet was not very impressed but I just thought he is eating, drinking and playing, why stuff him in a small crate with a cone on his head with a drip, so the agreement was as soon as he gets worse I would bring him in immediately, well he didn’t get worse what he did get was Prednisolone again and it made him really lethargic, so once the antibiotics was finished I started weaning him off the prednisolone really fast and as soon as he was off that he was back to normal.

 Three months later he started again, this time with diarrhoea  I thought I was going to cry, surely a dog can’t get tick bite fever every three months, I googled and asked but got nowhere, his gums were pale again so that meant his white blood count was low again so I thought I am just going to push his white blood count up a bit before going to the vet so that night I gave him an iron pill, well the next morning he was back to normal, that was weird but I left it there and a month later he became ill again so he got raw liver and he was back to normal, somebody at the dog club said I must rather give him raw liver and I read later that iron pills are bad for dogs so we switched over to raw liver, he developed severe diarrhoea and after a while it became bloody as well, I really was very worried but he just took it in his stride and went on happily, eating, playing etc. He did lose weight with the bouts of diarrhoea, every time he had a dip so to speak he would get raw liver and he was fine again, but I was worried, at this stage and the vets did some tests while I was googling away furiously trying to find out what could be the problem, well the problem was irritable bowel syndrome, either it is hookworm or whip worms or just a genetic thing, so I started changing his food slowly switching to non-allergenic food, then fish and rice, then sensitive stomach every time it was just a week or two then he would start with the diarrhoea, I did find out that he was very allergic to fish, so fish was out, eventually after all my research that I did I decided to try one last thing, to cook his food and cut out all commercial dog food.

Another couple of days of research for the best dog food recipe and I decided on a lady that said she was a K9 nutritionist and she does the third diet, third grains, third protein and a third veg, I also bought Dr. Pitcairn’s book a while back and studied through that, I literally studied anything and everything I could get my hands on as I deemed his diet very important, so I embarked on a cook off for the dogs, obviously Menchi and Shadow would go on the same diet as it would just be easier than giving each separate food and because Blaez had an appetite of note and would wolf down his food and their food in no time and the whole point was to get him off kibble. Poor Blaez was very thin at this stage and I found a recipe that would help him pick up some weight, Satin balls they call it, I decided to incorporate that into my recipe. It was very trial and error about what he can and cannot eat but his diarrhoea stopped almost immediately when he fully started on the cooked diet, I weaned him off the kibble onto rice and bland chicken for about a week and then started adding more of the cooked food into his diet making sure he started with the pumpkin as a vegetable.

 These days he is nice and round and his over the top happy self, he rarely gets a dip and if he gets one I can be sure he ate something he shouldn't have like a dead bird he caught  but then it is only for a day and he is back to normal, he has never had pale gums again and he has a very shiny coat, he always looks like he just had a bath, but I must tell you it is a mammoth task I undertake each month, when payday hits I buy a 5kg bag of rice, I order the meat special from the butcher  and I hit the vegetable market, I did start a vegetable patch but not very good at that yet,  after I get all my ingredients the cook off starts, pots with vegetables and rice and meat on the stove, containers everywhere that gets filled as soon as things are finished cooking and then goes into the deep freeze, I tell you it takes me about a day but then the dogs have food for the rest of the month, which is quite a relief. 

Like I said, It was very trial and error to find the right amount to feed each dog as nowhere out there, there is a definite guide on how much cooked food to feed each dog, but my dog weights are as follows:

Menchi is about 11kg ( a bit overweight) I gave him 1cup of each (Veg,Rice,Meat), he lost some weight about a kilo but is fine now

Shadow is 33kg, I don’t want him to be overweight because of his hips so I started on 2,5 cups each so 7,5cups food but he looked hungry after feeding time so I upped him to 3cups each that’s 9cups food, he lost a bit of weight so I upped him to 3,5cups that’s 10,5cups food and he seems to be fine on that and picked the lost weight up again

Blaez weighed about 28kg, I also started on 3cups each but he was not picking up weight, so upped to 4 cups but he still didn’t pick up any weight so I added another cup to his daily food and now he is on 5cups that is about 15cups of food and he started picking up weight, he didn’t pick the weight up fast, it was slow progress but I think that is better and healthier, he is about 38kg now.

                                           typical bowl of food for Blaez, veggies vary of course

What is Satin balls you may ask, well after I Googled how to get your dog to pick up weight I landed on www.njboxers.com where they had a recipe for satin balls from a breeder, the recipe was as follows:

Ingredients

    10 pounds hamburger meat [the cheapest kind]
    1 lg. box of Total cereal
    1 lg. box oatmeal
    1 jar of wheat germ
    1 1/4 cup veg oil
    1 1/4 cup of unsulfured molasses
    10 raw eggs AND shells
    10 envelopes of unflavored gelatin
    pinch of salt

Mix all ingredients together, much like you would a meatloaf.
Divide into 10 quart freezer bags and freeze.
Thaw as needed and feed raw!

I incorporated it into my recipe but soon realized Blaez could not eat the oatmeal or wheat germ, so when the meat comes of the stove (I cook it so it is just not pink anymore) and it cooled off I add molasses and oil, or sometimes I leave it out and give it daily, 1 tablespoon to Shadow and Blaez each and 1 teaspoon to Menchi, then I also make them the Health powder recipe I found in Dr. Pitcairn’s book, which is Kelp, Lecithin, Vit C, eggshells or calcium and brewer’s yeast, so that is also a very great recipe, Dr. Pitcairns book “Complete guide to natural health for dogs and cats” is really a book worth to have and read for every pet owner especially if you are in to natural feeding and remedies.

I also put about 1 teaspoon of turmeric over Blaez’s food as that helps for inflammation for ore information on the benefits of tumeric this is a nice blog to visist http://ottawavalleydogwhisperer.blogspot.ca , I also sometimes a little bit of coconut oil over their food as well, I know it sounds like much but if you into the motion of things it really is not that bad and is much better than having the dog sick all the time and cheaper than going to the vet permanently and getting him antibiotics and other medication.