Should I rotate carbs like rice and potato in my dog's homemade food?

If you are looking at formulating your own homemade diet there is a great resource for that that I recommend to clients that cook for their pets. The website is www . Balanceit.com Here you can use a tool called the free autobalancer and input the ingredients you wish to use. It will tell you if your diet is sufficient or not. Also, you will need to add a vitamin and mineral supplement to the food and this website sells the powdered supplement to mix in with the food. I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any further questions or are having difficulties using that website. Have a great weekend!

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! This is actually not accurate. The reason is that most dogs are very sensitive to diet changes and it is best to stick with one good high quality balanced diet longterm instead of switching them frequently. Some examples of high quality balanced diets include Purina Pro Plan and Science Diet foods. Once you are feeding a balanced and complete diet, there is no need to add other ones or switching them. This will avoid the gastrointestinal issues that would come with changing diets on a regular basis. Good luck and have a great day!

It's actually not a bad idea to feed variety of food if she tolerates it well. The most important thing to do is transition the food slowly. This means that you add the new food into the old food slowly. You can do this over the course of a wee; where you increase the amount of new food until it is 100% by the end of the week. It may also be beneficial to add probiotics to the food while transitioning. This can be found at most pet stores. If you notice diarrhea and vomiting while transitioning food, then stop the new food and only feed the old one. You can attempt the transition again when the diarrhea stops. If she gets diarrhea or vomiting again, then it's best to avoid that particular food. It's up to you how often you want to do this (6wks vs every 3 months), because I don't know of any strong reason to do it more or less frequently. I've included a link below to a short article that may help you in selecting the best foods and gives good advice about feeding your dog. https://www.petcoach.co/article/what-to-look-for-when-choosing-your-pet-s-food/ I hope that helps.

The word "filler" is not exactly accurate and has been perpetuated by a great deal of false information spread about dog food lately. The truth is that these ingredients actually have a great deal of nutrients and properties that make them an important part of the diet. Dogs are actually omnivores (similar to humans) and are not meant to eat an all meat diet, so it's expected that some degree of carbohydrates are in the diet and all the packaged dog foods are formulated to meet the known nutritional demand of dogs. Additionally, carbohydrates such as rice and potatoes are good for promoting a healthy digestive system. For these reasons, all the mentioned ingredients are good ingredients to have in dog food. The benefit of brown vs white rice is not well known and any claims that one is better than the other are usually not well supported by the facts. Same goes for different types of potatoes. The easiest way to sift through the vast amount of information about dog food is to always check the source of the information. If the information is coming from a veterinary nutritionist, then it can be trusted. Veterinarians are also good sources of information, but be wary if the veterinarian is speaking on behalf of a certain company. If the source of the information is coming from someone without these qualifications, then it's best to be very skeptical. I hope that helps.

This would not be a complete diet for Peanut and would not meet all her nutritional needs. I'd recommend a high quality dog food like Hill's Science Diet or Royal Canin. If you really want to home cook for Peanut you can look into balanceit.com for nutritionally balanced home cooked options. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach!

Good for you for committing to make Sweetpea's food in order to help manage her food allergies! It can be tricky to assure that home cooked diets for dogs are properly balanced with all necessary vitamins, minerals, and nutrients. I always recommend utilizing recipes formulated by veterinary nutritionists, such as those available on www.balanceit.com. These recipes can be tailored for dogs with food allergies to avoid certain ingredients (or even just use the ingredients currently being used), but will also have the vitamin and mineral supplements available to assure that the diet is balanced. I hope this helps and that all goes well for Sweetpea!

That is an uncommon allergy, anyway rice can be substituted easily with another source of carbohydrates like potatoes or peas. Please do not hesitate to contact us again on the forum or by requesting a consultation if you have any more questions or to discuss it any further.