Your Best Homemade Pet Food

My two year old standard poodle loves bananas. She will steal them off the counter and bring them to me while hanging her head since she knows she is not supposed to counter surf. My dogs eat a half raw (veggies & fruit mix) and half grain free kibble (Fromm's). I am always adding scraps to the bowl - fruit s especially strawberry tops, mangoes, and bananas. They also love sweet potatoes and cucumbers.

It's possible that my 9 yr old yellow lab mix eats better than any one in the family. She adores veggies(everything except greens) and gets lots of organic, grass-fed table scraps. I'm careful about her treats and often make them. Friends think I'm crazy but I want my baby to live a long, healthy life. When it's hot outside, I'll mix good peanut butter or almond butter with organic fat free plain yogurt and freeze as doggie ice cream. The best source I've found for terrific recipes is the Three Dog Bakery Cookbook. I bake often, but I swear the dog knows when I'm baking for her. She adores everything I've made from the book. I make this most often since I always have shredded zucchini in the freezer.

Zippity Zucchini Terrier Tortes
2 c whole wheat flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 c canola oil
1/4 c honey
1 c skim milk
2 large eggs
2 c shredded zucchini

Preheat oven to 375. Grease a 12-cup pan(I prefer to use mini muffin pans instead and give 1/3 to 1/2 for a treat).

Stir together dry ingred and set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk together the oil, honey, milk and 1/2 c water until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, and then the zucchini. Add the wet ingred to the dry ingred and stir until just moistened.

Fill the muffin cups 2/3 full and bale for 20-25 minutes(less for mini muffins).

This is really timely- I've been looking for some new treat ideas for my sweet wolfy-dog, Dante. He is 14, but as silly, happy, and active as neighbour dogs half his age. But, he's always had digestive issues, easily set off by many things.
He adores veggies- he will steal zucchini off the vine, asparagus from your plate, and he loves broccoli stems. I make him food with porridge cereal, cooked with ground meat and veggies, and also treats of the same mix, dried like crackers. Lately, he is so into the slices of liver I dehydrated for him, he jumps and dances when the bag comes out! He is so joyous, full of life and playing daily pranks that only he finds funny.
I look forward to trying some of the treats here!

BTW-for everyone cooking for your dogs-please check out the raw diet. You can feed them the same things you're feeding them, but the food will be full of enzymes and the bones will be soft enough for them to eat. Raw meat isn't complete, and they need the bones and the skin and organs to have a balanced diet, along with the small amount of added nuts, seeds, veg, and oils.
Don't mean to preach, but think about the kind of diet that wild dogs, coyotes, and wolves eat, and that is what your dog should eat. I didn't include fruit in my previous post, but I give my dogs a treat of berries, bananas, and apples when they're in season here. They love them! I wouldn't have believed the wide range of foods that my dogs love to eat.

I also prepare food for my dogs. It's all raw, based on nutritionist Kymythy Schultze's studies. They get whole coarse ground chicken (skin, bones, fat, meat, any organs clinging to the backbone), organ meat (hearts are necessary for their health, and I also put beef kidneys through the blender, freeze in a sheet, then hack it into pieces to thaw ahead of time), dried alfalfa powder, blended quinoa and sunflower seeds, blended vegetables, fish oil, vit C, non-dairy probiotic, flax seed oil, and whole eggs a couple times a week. Almost every day they get meaty bones, either chicken parts or a knuckle bone or lamb ribs. Our old dog had such a bad coat and was suffering from degenerative diseases, so when I got two young dogs (one almost at birth), the other 10 months old (who had also had only commercial dog food and also had a bad looking coat), I started the raw food diet with them. They look fantastic, have great energy, clean teeth, and don't smell or fart. The dog who came to us at 10 months old had really bad plaque on his teeth, and from the bones and diet, his teeth are positively sparkling now! Schultz asks her readers to imagine that they are designing a small prey animal that the dogs will eat each day, including the contents of the stomach. We don't give them hair, however. : )

My grandma would always feed the dogs powdered eggs during the winter. She would also warm up their scraps in the winter too. After she passed away, my stepdad started feeding them real food and they got used to it. Whenever they get the chance, they love to have our leftovers. My grandma always said that feeding animals wasn't a waste.

llulu, my Sealyham Terrier also eats home cooking
This is a recipe for a weeks worth =14 cups
1 pound Organic bison
4 large carrots, sliced
1 large sweet potato, diced
16 oz frozen organic green beans
16 oz frozen organic peas
1 bunch of fresh parsley, chopped
1 cup dried organic blueberries
2 cloves fresh garlic, crushed
4 cups organic brown rice.
16 cups of water
Boil for 1 hour.
I often freeze serving size portions to have on hand........
The above is supplemented with any left over veggies from our meal
sometimes an egg, or yogurt, or fruit or a bit of cheese.

My Labs are my joy, so I started baking special 'cookies' for them several years ago. They were such a hit with the pets of friends and family that I started the Brown Hound Bakery. I have 12 original varieties, each made with human-food-grade, certified organic ingredients and NO wheat, corn, soy, sweeteners, salt or preservatives. It's a happy day 'round here when 'Momma' is testing new recipes! :-)

Our dog loves fruit especially. We give him apples, clementine pieces, cranberries, blueberries. On normal days, we feed him Orijen dry food. But on special occasions, he will sometimes get scrambled eggs over brown rice or turkey and pumpkin pieces. He also loves acorn squash- both raw and cooked. I often give him the leftover squash scraps- mainly skins. He is always thrilled. Our dog is unfortunately allergic to wheat and corn, so making treats for him is difficult. A lot of times, I will give him unsweetened yogurt with peanut butter, frozen in ice cube trays. He goes crazy for that, especially in the summer. Our cats love anchovy pieces, canned salmon or canned tuna.

This is awesome! We don't make our own pet food, but I am so adding a "recipe" about our kitties and their favorite treats :)

To keep our 3-year old lab mix happy at dinner, we give her a marrow bone as we sit down to eat. You can buy marrow bones from your butcher. For directions on how to cook them, check out http://romeocucina.blogspot.com/2009/10/happy-italian-dog.html. No more begging at the table, and clean doggie teeth! You might even decide to make some for yourself...

My younger kitties, Sergio and Mindy G., go for Weruva wet food. Middle East Feast with grilled tilapia is a favorite. They also get Orijen dry food. My old cat (17.5!), Windham, has some kidney issues, so he gets the k/d science diet stuff.

My aunt's old kitty, Lena, used to eat asparagus. An old stray we had growing up, Woody, used to go crazy for pizza. I think he either get fed pizza with his original owners, or munched on it when he was a street kitty.

Our family's 110lb golden retriever loves all things peanut butter. So I make simple biscuits with whole wheat flour, milk, peanut butter and a little baking powder. He can't get enough!

Rosie the (rescue) Bichon and Lulu the (rescue) Shi Tzu are raw veggie FREAKS. As soon as I pull out the chopping block and knife they are right there. They absolutely scarf down cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, cucumbers, carrots, celery, bell peppers, radishes, jicima, sugar snap/snow peas and bean sprouts. They also like apples, pears and stone fruits. Occasionally I'll give them leftover rice mixed in with their wet dog food, and of course they love cheese, raw beef, cooked chicken and pork.

I see above people feeding their doggies raw chicken....is that safe? I never have, I'd assumed that the salmonella risk was the same for the fur people as it is for us. Same reason they've never gotten raw pork.

But these girls totally think raw veggies are the best treat of all times, ever. About the only veg I've seen them shun is lettuce.

well, my cats are pretty happy with the dry food and the nightly tin of wet. what they really love are houseplants, which of course make them sick. they'll munch on one, proceed to sh** all over the place and then happily come back for more. they're morons.
anybody want some cats? special price, just for you.

luckily, my beloved love-bug of a chocolate lab is primarily a raw foodist and eats many veggies and fruits, so for treats we toss some of the poultry offal in his bowl and he's got a 10 hour smile on his face. but a daily fall/winter ration of carrots, apples, kale for snacks are all the concocting i have to do!! but during the summer he's helpless against the power of melon.

Lucy, my pug, will eat anything. I will occasionally feed her meat scraps, but little else other than Science Diet; she loves the crust off toast (I'm 55 and still won't eat the crust on toast), and to lick out the bowl when I've had my usual yogurt and granola for breakfast. In the past week, she's snacked on a tube of OraJel, a chapstick, the lid to an empty ibuprofen container, one of my socks (shredded beyond repair). And she loves to chew on the plastic wine "corks" that many mid-priced wines are coming with these days.

Our two labradors think they are hip and up to date. They are very into the forage movement. In the summer they become obsessed with apples at the base of our tree. Then it's the blackberries from our bushes. Presently, it's fallen crab apples and I think they are confused by the roselike camellias. These blossoms are new, thus a challenge to harvest. Picture a beautiful, shiny leafed bush coming right out of the ground in the game of tug of war!

Thanks for sharing all your great stories! Feel free to add your recipes and photos here: http://www.food52.com/recipes -- no need to enter them in an active contest.

My cat Bear relishes in hunting down his own prey outdoors, especially chipmunks and squirrels as big as he is.....but he is under quarantine until January, much to his chagrin. I do need to find some healthy treats for him....