Homemade dog food doesn’t have to be hard. What you need is to establish a basic checklist that you use repeatedly, where the only thinking left to do is what ingredients to use in your next batch of food.
It’s worth taking the time upfront to establish your checklist of what you need to create a base meal for your dog that you can just vary daily by putting different toppers at each meal to keep it fresh.
In the end, it’s quite simple. The checklist below is for creating a 10lb output that will meet the basic needs for an adult dog or older puppy without specific dietary restrictions:
✅ 7 lb protein , mainly lean meat and some organ muscle meat (max half a pound) like heart, lung. Use one or two at a time and rotate each recipe;
✅ 3 lb mixed veggies, stick to one starchy veg, and have at least one leafy green. Use two or three at a time and rotate each recipe. You can add grain, but limit to 1 lb and reduce the veggies to 2 lb.
✅ 8 oz or half pound fresh liver – eg chicken , beef , lamb , pork. Use one at a time and rotate each recipe . You can use a liver substitute like liver powder or ground dehydrated liver but that’s concentrated so use only 1.5 oz;
✅ Optionally 8 oz or half a pound another secreting organ like kidney or pancreas. These are nutrient dense and the source of high quality protein. You can also use organ powder to substitute.
✅ Add calcium: use 7 tbsp of NOW Bonemeal powder or 7 tsp of Eggshell powder
✅ Add nutritional yeast: use 8 3/4 tsp of Nutritional yeast
✅ Add vitamin E: use 7 tsp of NOW Wheat germ oil or 14tbsp ground sunflower seeds
✅ Add omegas: For white meat, use 3 1/2 tsp of Grizzly salmon oil or 4 oz canned sardines in water. For red meat, use 5 1/4 tbsp hemp seed oil
✅ Add iodine: use less than 1/2 tsp of Kelp powder
Daily toppers to always include:
✅ a probiotic like kefir or yogurt or cottage cheese
From the batch that you cook, feed your dog 2-3% of its ideal weight. So for example if your dog weighs 72 lbs like mine, you would feed him between 1.5 lb – 2 lb
You can get fancier and experiment different toppers and such but the base meal rarely would have to change.
Note: The above checklist is for adult dogs in generally good health. It would need to be customised for puppies, senior dogs and dogs with medical conditions.
– Ange , Goose and Sharky 20250215
• • •
Gourmet Goose 