What human foods can my dog safely eat or use in homemade treats?

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!

Yes, homemade treats are fine. There are plenty of recipes you can find online on how to make homemade treats. All the ingredients you list are OK and there are MANY more. Just google some homemade treat recipes for dogs and go from there. Just be sure you are not feeding too many calories. A lot of treats are not good especially for small breed dogs. Here is one website for you to look at: https://www.cesarsway.com/dog-care/nutrition/recipes-for-quick-and-healthy-dog-treats Hope this helps!

A few general recommendations: stick with well known brands with a good reputation. Look for products made in the USA. Kibble works great for treats and I use Purina Pro Plan chicken or lamb and rice. Dry biscuit type treats usually have less calories and salt. The jerky or moist type treats are fine in moderation (they have more calories and salt usually). Lastly, many dogs really like dehydrated chicken livers and chicken jerky. 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/

Hello and welcome to Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. In terms of diet, a well balanced kibble is best as it will have all of the nutrients needed for a dog. If you need to make a home cooked diet, boiled/boneless/skinless chicken breasts with boiled rice along with added cooked vegetables is a good idea (pumpkin, carrots, broccoli, etc.). You can add in vegetables to make it more balanced. Avoid raw food and bones as they cause many dietary issues. Also, avoid onions, garlic, chocolate, grapes and raisins because these are very toxic to dogs. Best of luck with Jessi!

Absolutely! There are some commercial diets, such as Dick van Patten's Natural Balance, the have salmon based diets. If you prefer home cooking Mary's food, balanceit.com is based out of UC-Davis and has a number of customizable recipes and vitamin supplements. Make sure to supplement her diet with any missing vitamins and minerals if you choose to cook for her!

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!