Is it healthy and safe to feed my dog homemade food regularly?

No, meat is not a balanced diet. Even raw meat is not balanced. Balancing a home made diet is difficult and is not recommended unless you work with a veterinary nutritionist. When online, home made recipes where tested, 97% were found to be unbalanced and lacking in 1 or more essential nutrients. Unless you plan on working with a nutritionist, I recommend to feed a normal commercial diet that is AAFCO certified. I hope this helps and please feel free to post any additional questions.

Hi, thanks for using PetCoach! No onions, garlic, raisins or grapes. I would be careful cooking for a young growing puppy. I don't like it for adult dogs because unless a veterinary nutritionist is balancing the food appropriately you are at risk of causing problems. You have to be sure the diet has the correct calcium/phosphorus ratio and has sufficient amounts of certain amino acids, for example taurine. A diet that doesn't have appropriate levels of taurine can cause heart disease and heart failure in animals. Commercial diets are the best thing to feed your pets. If you want to cook, pay to have someone help you. Refer to the link below. Good luck! https://secure.balanceit.com/

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! You absolutely can. However, this ends up being quite expensive and time consuming. If doing this you would have to make sure that you are feeding Izzy all the important and crucial nutrients. There are several books out there such as the "the whole pet diet". I suggest reading a book and more information on this subject before starting. Good luck on this journey!

Great question! The person who told you dairy products are not good for dogs is correct. It's never recommended to give dogs dairy products because it causes GI upset. As for home made foods, your friend is also correct they typically aren't good for dogs. That's because that many home made diets are not nutritionally balanced, and your dog won't be getting all the nutrients they need. I personally recommend feeding a dog formulated food, but if you want to feed a homemade diet, I will put links to two websites below that have recipes for homemade dog foods that are nutritionally balanced. I hope this helps :-) https://secure.balanceit.com https://www.petdiets.com

Hello. By homely, do you mean a homemade diet? If so, it is very difficult to prepare a diet that has all the vitamins, minerals, amino acids & proper balance of protein, carbohydrates & fats that meets a dogs nutritional needs. Royal Canin is an excellent food, so I would really try to maintain this. If you truly want to do a homemade diet, then I encourage you to visit this site that will help you to develop a nutritionally sound diet plan. Thanks for using PetCoach. https://securebalanceit.com/

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!

Homemade diets are usually unbalanced and lacking in appropriate amounts of nutrients. When diets found online were tested, 97% were found to be incomplete and this can cause adverse health effects long term. If you want to make a home made diet for Brinkley, you need to work with a board certified veterinary nutritionist. Many of these vets offer remote consultations but your own vet may have a recommendation. I hope this helps and please feel free to post any additional questions.