My vet said no mixing dry and fresh food. Is that true for dogs?

Hello and welcome to Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. The topic of 'what to feed your dog' is complicated and very opinion orientated. This means that you will likely get a different answer from each person you ask. My recommendations are to get the best quality dry dog food you can, and feed that. As long as your dog is happy, eating, having normal poops, is a good weight and has a good hair coat, don't worry about other details. Raw meat of any kind is very dangerous and causes severe infections, and bones of any kind (cooked or raw) are very dangerous as well, so I would avoid those. If you would like to feed some meat or vegetables in addition to the dry food you can. Cook the meat as you would for yourself to eat, but without any spices or seasoning (garlic and onions are toxic to dogs), and vegetables like potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, pumpkin, are all good as well (cooked or raw). Best of luck with your little one!

If you want to cook for your dogs, the diet MUST be balanced correctly. The best way to do this is to have a recipe formulated through BalanceIt.com and purchase their supplements to use in order to balance the diet out with all the vitamins/minerals needed for your specific pet. I suggest you refer to their website. ( https://secure.balanceit.com/recipegenerator_ver4/index.php?rotator=EZ )

Yes, dogs can do very well on dry food only. It isn't that dry food is the most ideal food, simply that for most pet owners, it is the most convenient food to store, and the most affordable. There are some people that choose to feed raw dog food, or even cook all their dogs meals. In general, there are many options, what matters is that our dogs are feed a nutritionally balanced diet. If people choose to prepare their own food for their dogs, they should follow recipes from veterinarians, and not just recipes on blogs. I hope this information answers your question.

The dry food is more nutritionally balanced but you can add things to it to make it more exciting. You can add any of the above ingredients you use to feed her in her fresh diet. I would advise to only add one at a time (ie...one day its peas, another day chicken, another day carrots) so that she doesn't get use to it. You can also add warmed chicken broth, a table spoon of a canned dog food or the ground up loaf type dog foods like Fresh Pet. You can also feed diets like Fresh Pet as they are fortified to include all the micronutrients that Soska needs. I hope I have answered your questions. Please post again if you think of any more!

Ideally, a high-quality commercially-prepared diet should make up 90% of a dog’s diet, with nutritious treats making up no more than that last 10%. Commercially-prepared foods are formulated to provide proper balances of vitamins and minerals, fats, carbohydrates, and proteins. Nutritional deficiencies or imbalances can lead to a host of health conditions. There are some dogs or pet parents who prefer home cooked diets over the commercially available options. In these cases, the recipe for the home cooked food must be carefully balanced to account for any lacking nutrients, and are best formulated by specialists in veterinary nutrition. Examples of such recipes can be found at www.balanceit.com. However, occasional treats of people foods, such as boiled white meat chicken, cooked sweet potatoes, turkey, green beans, or carrots are perfectly fine!

It's fine to mix together wet food and dry food for Buddy. Each brand of food has a different daily recommended allotment, so read the instructions on his food to know how much to feed him. Best of luck.

It can be difficult to completely balance a diet when mixing and matching foods. Tuffts university provide an online support service for owners feeding home prepared food to ensure all the nutritional needs are met