All the dog lovers treat their furry friend as a member of their family. It is your duty to ensure that your dog is perfectly healthy and happy. Setting up a balanced diet for your dog is one of the critical steps towards making sure that your dog is healthy. However, does all canned food for dogs contain what it really claims to be? Is canned or packaged food really good for their dog or does it literally meet your nutritional requirements? On some occasions, certain conditions can demand that your dog needs specific nutrition in a specific quantity. Any one or all these concerns can lead to the idea of preparing dog meals from scratch.
Preparing homemade food for your dog can be a bit overwhelming and time-consuming, follow these tips make the task much easier.
Raw food for your dog
Most of the dog owners feed their dog with raw meat; however, it is not advised to feed your dog raw meat all the time. By feeding their dog with raw meat on a regular basis, Dog owners risk subjecting them to Salmonella poisoning. Similarly, raw milk can induce taxoplasmosis and raw vegetables can cause listeria and staph. Ensure that the dog meal that you prepare at home is well cooked is an ideal means to keep these concerns at bay.
Evaluate your dog’s nutritional needs
You can get different homemade dog food recipes from books and the internet. Prior to setting out a diet plan for your dog based on such recipes, it is important that you evaluate your dog’s nutritional needs. This is where you might want to seek the assistance of a veterinarian. A veterinarian can help you set a homemade diet for your dog by providing recommendations based on different factors like his breed, age, health etc.
Ingredients to use and avoid
Most of the dog owners are unaware of what to use and more importantly, what not to use while preparing homemade meal for their dogs. Be aware of the fact that your dog needs both meat and vegetables in mixed proportion. While it would be safe to prepare a homemade meal for your dog that is dominated by meat items like chicken, turkey, beef and vegetables like peas, spinach, carrots and pumpkins there are some items that you should never feed your dog. Some of these are listed below:
- Grapes
- Avocados
- Alcohol
- Milk and dairy products
- Macadamia nuts
- Chocolate
Learn more about the consequences of each of these here.
No salt or seasoning
It is advised that you limit the usage of salt and seasoning while cooking dog food. If you are using canned food for preparing homemade food for your dog, we recommend reviewing the salt content. The same rule applies when you use leftover food for preparing a meal for your dog, filter the leftover for excessive seasoning, salt and pepper.
Do not try a variety of homemade diet for your dog at once. It is important that you stick with what your veterinarian suggest and consult with him prior to changing the diet.