Let me start by saying: I am not a vet. I am not a nutritionist. My background qualifies me to correct grammar. That’s about it.
I am, however, an obsessive researcher, and I’m neurotic about solving problems. I’ve gotten many messages about home cooking for Cooper since I mentioned it a few weeks ago. I’ll try to address them the best I can, but if you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to leave them in the comments!
If you’re interested in home cooking for your dog, I’m going to share our journey over a few posts. Today is all about how we got started.
Cooper suffers from a range of allergies and intolerances. His fur has fallen out. He’s broken out into pimples, and he’s developed hives. He’s had head tremors. And he’s had constant diarrhea (like, five or six days a week) that had recently become bloody. Over four years, we spoke with several vets and strove to manage or treat each symptom as it arose. We put him on limited ingredient and prescription diets, which didn’t work. We did an elimination diet, which showed us that he couldn’t have chicken (the main ingredient in those prescription diets…) or beef. After we eliminated those proteins, we settled on fish as his main protein and chalked up the rest of his symptoms to seasonal allergies.
I do think the drastic change in climate – from Indiana to Louisiana to Indiana again – messed with his system, too, because the bloody stools started only after we got back. So, we talked to our vet, and she suggested that he had maybe developed an intolerance to fish. We switched him to lamb. He did okay for a couple days, then back to an upset stomach. Then pork. Same thing. Meanwhile, we had been noticing that his training treats weren’t working for his stomach either. Cooper goes to doggy daycare on Mondays, and one Monday a few weeks ago, they had a note for us at pickup: Cooper has bloody stool.
That was the last straw for us.
We looked at his ream of vet records tracking four years of symptoms. We looked at all the foods he could no longer eat, including treats. Looking at all the data at once, I started to suspect that it isn’t one particular thing that upsets his system, but rather processed food in general or some sort of additive that’s aggravating his system. This is sort of happening in human health right now with all the developing digestive disorders that might be linked to GMOs and processed food. It seemed likely that could be the case for Coop, too.
Once we came to that realization/decision, we immediately stopped feeding him kibble and started cooking his meals. (There are a range of reasons we’re not considering raw an option, so this has been the perfect solution for us so far!)
For the first couple days, we were winging it, then I dove into the research, and we took him in to chat with his vet. We have a rough outline of a plan that we’re refining. This is getting pretty long already – thanks for sticking with me this far! – so tomorrow I’ll share what we’re feeding, including treats and supplements, plus some helpful resources!
Have you tried home cooking for your dog? Any favorite resources or recipes? I’ll have more to share in the coming days, but I’d love to hear your experiences or your questions in the comments!
Thanks for putting this together! My aunt only feeds her dog cooked food as well – mostly barley grains and bits of vegetables and chicken. He seems to really like it!
Thanks for sharing! What got your aunt started home cooking?
I’m so glad Cooper is doing better on his home cooked diet. I’m looking forward to this segment, you know Cash has some sensitivities, similar but no where near as severe as Coopers. He has been doing well on his fish/grain free diet, fur as grown in, ears are no longer bugging him but his tremors have recently returned, he’s had a few every week for the last few weeks *sigh* I’m not sure if he has built up an intolerance to his his fish based kibble or if it was his heartworm meds or he is reacting to something different. For now our focus is tracking the tremors and making adjustments to see if they decrease.
Hmm… Our vet thought that Cooper’s bloody stool was that he developed an intolerance to the food he had been on for so long. However, the heartworm meds could be it, too! We switched Cooper to Revolution (topical) because the pill form all had chicken or liver in it, which he couldn’t tolerate!
We’re glad it is working out well. We can’t get our mom to cook anything for anyone!
Your Pals,
Murphy & Stanley
HAAH! The truth is… we’re spending way more time cooking for him than we ever do for ourselves! 🙂
I cooked a homemade diet for my last dog, Shadow, on the recommendation of my vet. Shadow had osteosarcoma in her jaw and her prognosis was only a few months at most.
I cooked for her for two years. So I’m a big believer in home cooked, whole meals.
Our recipes came from Dr. Pitcairn’s Natural Health or Dogs and Cats. I can’t recommend it enough for good nutritional advice that’s easy to follow.
I hope Cooper improves on the home cooked diet. If your experience is like mine, you may be creating a super dog. 😉
I’m SO GLAD you recommended that book! I actually have it on my shelf but didn’t even think to reference it. It’s on my weekend reading list. And I’m thrilled to hear about your experience cooking for Shadow. I think we’re on the right path, and that makes me feel even more confident!
I too an a heavy duty believer in Dr. Pitcairn’s books! It has helped our various different years of dogs’ health more than I could even detail here, and my husband would heartily agree. It just all makes SENSE. We humans shouldn’t be eating anything with strange additives, nor should our dogs. (or cats or horses, etc. for that matter)
If I don’t have time to make food (we do do raw, as cooking can take out nutrients), we also feed Aunt Jeni’s raw food. Comes freezer packed. It is so healthy (check out the list of ingredients!) that I wish *I* could eat it (humans could, but BLAH!) Comes in different meat flavors. Is obviously a bit pricey tho.
I have dabbled in cooking for our dawgs too. We do raw meat but I make a veggie stew every now and then (or more often use a freeze-dried premix when I don’t have the time). I don’t follow any recipes per se because variation is the key and as long as I hit the right amount of meat, dairy and omega’s, I don’t worry too much about how much of this or that vitamin the vegetables provide. I DO recommend making and freezing a couple weeks at a time so it’s less work on a daily basis. I usually will make 3 stews with different ingredients that will last our crew for 2 weeks and spend a couple hours in the kitchen one day rather than making food daily.
I love the idea of having big batches done in advance. I think once we’ve figured out his list of “approved” ingredients, I’m absolutely going to do that!! The one thing we’ve been missing, I think, is the dairy component. He has never done well with eggs, so we’ve shied away from all dairy. I think we’re going to add yogurt and cottage cheese into the testing queue.
Eggs are more a protein than dairy nutritionally so he may be fine though it is Cooper we’re talking about! I rotate between greek yogurt, cottage cheese and raw goat’s milk with my 3. If Cooper has an issue with cow-based dairy, the goat’s milk may work for him.
Oooh, gotcha! Thank you SO MUCH for sharing your wisdom. We will definitely give those a whirl, especially the goat’s milk!
I can’t wait to read more about this, and how it works for Cooper. I would love to do home cooking for all of the dogs but just don’t feel like I have the time or energy right now. If one of them had a health issue that it might help, I would definitely do it then though. Maybe you will inspire me!
It is definitely taking way more time than I anticipated. Hopefully when we get a bunch of ingredients/recipes nailed down, we can cook in bulk and freeze!
I have made dog food for years. Since we had 2 pets die of Chinese food poisoning (didn’t know about it at the time). It’s usually chicken and some kind of vegetable with rice, oatmeal or barley, etc. depending on whatever is handy. I’ll add fish or beef from time to time as well. I also add a freeze-dried dog food. Can’t wait to see what you have come up with.
Oh, Kathy. I’m so sorry to hear about your loss. That was such a horrible tragedy, and I think it definitely propelled many people to consider alternatives for feeding their pets. I love your suggestions of oatmeal and barley – we haven’t tried either of those, so I’m adding them to my list of ingredients to test. Thank you for sharing your experience!
We’re coming to the end of a bad patch for Charlie’s stomach. For one week now it’s been solid (sometimes soft, but not diarreah) but before ther was blood, mucus and it was practically water. He had to be out on a gastro intestinal diet that did nothing but make him worse, only to find that having his normal food again made him better (mostly) as long as we cut out everything else, and then adding them again, slowly. We’ve also discovered an intolerance to ALL red meat, and that his favourite food, cheese, can only be eaten in extreme moderation. Also, most veggies give him the runs as well.
So I understand in a way (although maybe your baby has had a harder time) how frustrating it is to have to find something they can eat! I’m really unfortunate to not be able to home cook him good, but his NatureDiet and Eden pet food combo seem to be doing well! I’m glad you and Cooper have found a solution!