Common Mistakes to Avoid When Making Homemade Dog Food

Does this ever happen to you? You figure out something GREAT! So great that you can’t help but get EXCITED! And the more excited you get, you find yourself getting a smidge… carried away?!?

Welp.

That’s what happened with home cooking for Cooper.

{{If you need to catch up, here’s why we decided to home cook, and here’s how Coop was doing at last check-in.}}

He was doing phenomenally well. His system was actually digesting his food (gasp!) and he had consistently solid poops. We wanted to take photos and frame them, they were so good. Better than being solid? There was no more blood!

Victory!

Well, for a little while anyway.

Because we had so much success with a range of grains, carb sources, and veggies AND he was doing well with a couple different proteins, we decided to mix things up.

All at once.

There’s the mistake: When you are trying your dog out on a totally home-cooked diet, especially if that dog has digestive problems, stick to one change at a time. One. For real.

Sigh.

We started him on pork, and it seemed to be going OK, so we switched out his veggies and his carbs. Then we decided to give oatmeal a whirl. Then, two of the supplements that I ordered came in, so we stirred those in, too. There were five new things in his bowl all at once. Here is where I have to smack my head and ask, “What were you thinking, lady?!?”

And then he got sick.

Like, really, really sick. Like, worse than before.

Back to having emergency accidents around the house. {{Incidentally, he had a big one directly in front of our CritterZone, and I didn’t smell it until it was already… dried… That thing is pretty sweet. I’ll have a post and coupon code about it soon.}}

The blood was back, and he actually dropped about three pounds. In a week.

The big problem, of course, was that we didn’t know what it was that he reacted to so violently. The pork? The oatmeal? The supplements? No clue.

We had to clear out his system, so he ate boiled potatoes and steamed apples – and literally nothing else because he couldn’t keep anything solid in him – mixed with water to keep him from dehydrating. He ate nothing but that for over a week.

Once we were clear that he was clear, we started adding items back in, one at a time.

It’s been several weeks, and we’ve shifted one bite at a time from the potatoes and apple to his current mix: salmon, quinoa, green beans, apples, and supplements. We’ve been slowly shifting out the salmon and adding in lamb, which has gone perfectly. So far. But I’m not going to push it. I learned my lesson.

Let this be my warning: If you’re home cooking for your dog, especially a dog as sensitive as Cooper, never ever add more than one ingredient at a time. Give that ingredient a few days (or even a week – our new plan) to settle, then add something new.

So that’s the update and our cautionary tale! As we work out other combinations, I’ll be sure to share. I’ve gotten tons of amazingly good questions via email and on Facebook, which I’m compiling into an FAQ-style post. My plan is to tackle the supplement piece in a post by itself first (that’s been the most-asked question), so look for that next week!

Thanks for sticking with us through this! Please join in with your insights in the comments or on Facebook! I’d LOVE to hear your experiences and ideas – the more info we can all get, the better we can serve our pups!