First things first: About five or six years ago, our previous dog was diagnosed with cancer. A few months later, she stopped eating her food, which was a kibble that we’d been feeding her since the end of her puppy days. So, we started making food for her, which at the time was just a basic mix of ground beef and rice. Suddenly, she had found her appetite again and that food kept her going for another two years until the cancer finally made it necessary for us to call an at-home euthanasia service. It was a heartbreaking loss, but in the process we learned that we could do better by feeding our next dog a home made food almost from the start. After a while we did get another dog—the sweetest puppy in the history of the Western world. We did feed her puppy food at first because we wanted to make sure she was getting what she needed at that age, but as she grew into adolescence we transitioned her to the recipe that is listed here. She loves it, and is incredibly fit. We’ve never had to concern ourselves over the kind of weight gain that can come from certain store-bought foods. Our hope is that with this kind of head start, she’ll be eating this food for many moons to come.
A caveat before we get started: Even though this recipe is packed with the nutrition she needs, we also give her a dog multivitamin just to make sure nothing is missing from her daily intake, as well as a splash of unsweetened cranberry juice when feeding her to aid with urinary tract health. She also gets fed twice a day, with a serving of roughly two cups per serving. All told, we make this recipe about twice per week.
Here’s what you’ll need:
80/20 Ground beef, about a pound
Organ meats, roughly a ½ cup
1 Sweet Potato, cut into chunks
1 Cup White Rice (this serves as a binder so she doesn’t shit soft serve)
2 Cups Brown Rice
1 Cup Lentils
Roughly a half bag of frozen kale
Roughly a half bag of frozen peas and carrots
About ⅓ Cup of canned pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie mix—pumpkin. This is also a binder.)
The thing that makes this recipe much easier to make as frequently as we do, is prep ahead of time. We buy two large packages of the beef and several packages of organ meats (typically chicken or beef livers, kidneys, etc). Then we cut up the packages of beef into roughly one-pound hunks, wrap them in plastic and put them in a freezer bag for freezing. For the organ meats, these also get chopped up, but they get placed in a greased muffin pan, which is then frozen. Once the freezing process is complete, the organ meats are popped out of the pan and placed in a freezer bag. We also freeze the pumpkin in heaps in an ice cube tray. So, when it’s time to make this, we just pull one of the beef, one of the organ meats and three cubes of pumpkin. We usually pull the beef a few hours before we plan to cook it so it can thaw.
When it’s time to make a batch, start by putting the white and brown rice, lentils, sweet potato, ground beef and organ meats in a large pot.
Add six cups of water, cover and bring to a boil. Then turn down to a simmer and cook until water is almost gone. Periodically, you will need to break up the organs so they don’t just stay together in one big clump.
When there is roughly a ½ inch of water left in the pot, turn off the heat and throw in your pumpkin cubes and frozen veggies. Give everything a thorough mixing and place the cover back on the pot. The rest of the water will still get absorbed in time. If you allow all the water to get absorbed before doing this step, it won’t hurt anything except perhaps your shoulder because it will make it much harder to mix everything together.
Let the pot sit for a few minutes while the pumpkin cubes thaw. Then give everything a stir again to mix the pumpkin thoroughly. Allow the entire thing to cool thoroughly before serving your drooling dog. Once everything is cool, place in the refrigerator. Pro tip: Do NOT place a hot pot full of hot food in your refrigerator. The temperature of the fridge will increase for at least a couple of hours and will place you at risk for food poisoning the next time you pour yourself a glass of milk.
If you think your dog loves you now, wait until you feed them this five star meal.
You are a good dog daddy. Is that your darling doggo?
I make super easy dog biscuits:
Indeed, that is our dog. She is not only very sweet and affectionate (not in an overbearing way–mostly she likes to have some kind of physical contact while we’re sitting down, usually in the form of lying down at our feet and putting her paw on one of our feet; or gazing into our eyes, which is not a typical dog trait. Also, her breed makeup has given her the softest fur ever. It’s like petting a chinchilla. She is, truly, irresistible.
She looks so sweet. Would you give her a message from me: Who’s a good girl?? Yes you are!
My dog used to gaze in our eyes too. Not a typical dog trait, but they’re so attuned to humans, I think a lot of them end up picking up human behaviors.
I’m going to try this. I like easy. In the summer I make pupsicles, also easy. I freeze a mixture of broth and unprocessed goats milk in an ice cube tray with a tiny dog treat sticking out to hold it for your dog to lick. Fanny loves them.
What a beautiful pupper! You looks very sweet.
As my corgi aged she stopped eating even though she was by all accounts healthy. I cooked chicken and rice for her, with a little sweet potato. Too much of it was hard on her tummy. I’m sure she would have loved this. As would the current canine. But I don’t know if I can bring myself to cook organ meats. 😬 Maybe I can leave them out.
Ugh, she looks sweet. I’m sure you look very sweet too @butcherbakertoiletrymaker but I was talking about your dog, lol.
“If you’re one of the people who thinks about tasting dog food, stop.”
I’m guessing I should order lunch because that does not look bad to me.
Seriously add a few bay leaves and some other seasonings while cooking and then throw in a casserole dish and make shepherd’s pie with !
I’m a terrible judge of what is and isn’t appetizing about meat, but I’ve always figured one of the main reasons dog food is gross is the total lack of seasoning. Salt is bad for dogs, but I’m pretty sure people like to heavily salt meat.
Don’t lie. This is the whole family’s meal.
Every once in a while our dog gets sick from eating rabbit poop or something and the vet’s standard advice was to give her plain rice first and then over time start adding chopped boiled chicken and then start mixing in regular dog food until she’s back on dog food.
Except now she associates rice and chicken and her old dog food with being sick and she won’t eat any of them. So we’ve had to switch brands of dog food to feed her, and as she’s gotten older gets fussy about different human foods we drop on the floor.
Our last 2 dogs had rice allergies of all things. That made finding dog food fun before all the Blue Buffalo and whatnot was popular and easily available.
Another option is to use hulled millet which can be found in a bird feeding store.
Yeah when Mr. Poopers had stomach issues, I did ground chicken or ground beef with mushed up baked potatos and canned pumpkin. Millet makes total sense, I will need to remember that for next time I have a doggo!
(Not his real name, just his most common nickname. Short for Horatio Poopers, esq. No, his name wasn’t Horatio, either.)