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Human-grade dog food: “It’s too good for the dogs” edition

By Kim Campbell Thornton

January 29, 2009

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I’m procrastinating today, so at lunch I decided to go ahead and prepare dinner for the dogs, freely adapting from Susan Fox’s recipe that she described earlier in the comments. I chopped up some dandelion greens, asparagus and garlic in the Cuisinart, sauteed them in olive oil, added a can of organic sweet potatoes, a couple of chopped chicken breasts, a handful of thick rolled oats, some thyme and sage from the farmer’s market and a little water, put a lid on the skillet and let it all simmer for about 20 minutes.

It smelled great. And I don’t have much of a sense of smell.

By the time it was done, my husband was off his conference call and ready to eat. He wandered into the kitchen. Sniffed. “That looks really good.”

“That’s what the dogs are having for dinner. You can try it; it’s all human-grade food.”

He tasted. Got a bowl down and filled it up. “That’s too good for the dogs to have–first.”

I think the girls are going to like it.

Filed under: animals: pets,Life,Pet-lover life — Kim Campbell Thornton @ 2:09 pm

30 Comments »

  1. I love cooking “shareable” meals. I do it fairly often, especially with the one pot meals. It’s just. so. easy. Last night we (dog and I) had salmon, stir fry veggies and country rice. I had wine, Dot, water ;) Cats enjoyed salmon and some veggies. Different cats like different veggies, so a mixed veggie dish works well for them. {grin} Today is a raw day for them as I haven’t thought far enough in advance as to what I’m eating (aka as it’s 5PM and I still don’t know!) Tomorrow will be a one pot day with beef and veggies. Prob a soup for the extra liquid. Indoor heating and all . . .

    Comment by straybaby — January 29, 2009 @ 3:09 pm

  2. The second and third books I ever wrote were dog and cat treat cookbooks with recipes that both could eat. I used to make Jerry taste-test those, too.

    Comment by Kim Thornton — January 29, 2009 @ 3:19 pm

  3. Sounds awesome. I can’t wait to get started, but I’m nervous about making sure my pup gets all the vitamins that the kibble is supposedly fortified with.

    Comment by Lori — January 29, 2009 @ 3:21 pm

  4. Hey, Lori … let me blow your mind.

    Do you need to eat processed people kibble to get all your nutrients? Or do you get them all from eating a varied diet of good stuff, balanced over time?

    My brother was nervous about shifting his dog over, and his vet — who had advised he start preparing meals for the dog at home — said if he wanted to feel better, to just feed commercial oen day a week.

    He did that for a while, but doesn’t feel he has to anymore.

    Dogs are very forgiving, diet-wise. You need to be more careful with cats, though. :)

    My guys eat about half home-prepared and half commercial, and that changes depending on how crazy my life is. Right now, they’re almost fully home-prepared. Last spring (when I was on deadline for three books), they ate a lot of Honest Kitchen.

    Comment by Gina Spadafori — January 29, 2009 @ 3:32 pm

  5. I do the same thing as Gina. The girls have been eating only Honest Kitchen the past few weeks, so this will be a nice change for them.

    Comment by Kim Thornton — January 29, 2009 @ 3:51 pm

  6. Kim, I used to make treats we could all eat, but somewhere along the line I stopped. Now I just use “people” food for treats. I should prob whip us up some veggie and cheese crackers just for fun and a change of pace.

    I did buy some round cookie cutters so my snacks didn’t consist of dog bone and fish shapes . . . :)

    Comment by straybaby — January 29, 2009 @ 3:53 pm

  7. I’m surprised someone hasn’t had a fit about dogs and garlic yet… they certainly clobbered Rachel Ray for a pet recipe with garlic.

    I love the stuff myself and have never seen the dogs have a reaction to it (they get steak scraps, and garlic is in the marinade), but then again, you can’t “see” liver or kidney (or whatever it’s supposed to hurt) damage until the dog gets sick.

    I wonder if it’s a concentration issue like chocolate or a only hurts some breeds issue like MDR-1.

    Comment by Christopher — January 29, 2009 @ 5:54 pm

  8. I think with garlic the jury is out, so moderation, know your pet, etc. I have a 50lb dog and am not a heavy garlic user, so pretty easy for me and group meals. Cats I’m more careful with. Also anything in the onion family is a red flag with dogs and cats, so another area to pay attention to when “sharing” meals. With the cat, I tend to mostly do meat and veggie meal share. Simply cooked items. The dog gets some of the more “creative” dishes ;)

    Comment by straybaby — January 29, 2009 @ 7:44 pm

  9. Gina-you’re always blowing my mind. In a good way. :O)

    It’s probably silly to be nervous, but if I did the wrong thing and he ended up worse off than on kibble I’d feel guilty and awful. Also I have a tendency to make excuses to avoid starting out on something new. ::hangs head::

    But I see what you are saying. I do. I do. I learn so much from the writers and commenters; I probably would never have had a second thought about his diet if I hadn’t started coming here.

    Comment by Lori — January 29, 2009 @ 8:07 pm

  10. Oh, Gina- is it time for “Pet Homecooking for Dummies”? Or would it be quashed by the Publishing Powers That Be?

    The comments above suggest that an almost embarassingly simple application of common sense would get people on the right track, once they (and I include me) get past the pet food/vet industrial complex’s brainwashing.

    Comment by Susan Fox — January 29, 2009 @ 8:27 pm

  11. I remember asking a vet about garlic when I was doing the pet treat cookbooks and being assured that small amounts weren’t a problem. I did a little search tonight and here’s a link to what I found (PDF), a study by the National Research Council on the safety of three supplements, including garlic. I am a little suspicious of it because there’s a typo at the beginning calling it the Natural Research Council, but then I’m suspicious of just about anything with typos, so it could be perfectly legit: http://tinyurl.com/clmfff

    Comment by Kim Thornton — January 29, 2009 @ 8:35 pm

  12. I could see adding garlic to home cooked food, but why would a dog, cat or horse be given lutein, evening primrose oil or garlic as a dietary supplement?

    Comment by Susan Fox — January 29, 2009 @ 9:35 pm

  13. The attack on R Ray was about onions, not garlic, in a recipe.
    YesBiscuit wasn’t impressed with the danger: http://yesbiscuit.blogspot.com.....l-ray.html

    But it doesn’t seem very smart to include ANY onion in a recipe that people might think is intended for dogs…

    Comment by EmilyS — January 29, 2009 @ 9:38 pm

  14. My husband’s family lived in India when he was a child. No commercial dog foods there, of course. My father-in-law would come home from work in the evening and ask what smelled so good. My mother-in-law would reply that it was the dog’s dinner. The dog got a lot of antelope and goat with rice and vegetables.

    Comment by C.L.H. — January 29, 2009 @ 10:21 pm

  15. Susan, it helps to have a vet that also practices holistic. My vet gives nutrition handouts to all new “clients”(and continuing clients with new addition “patients”) and also discusses diet in all vet visits as part of the exam. When you have your vet in your corner, it makes logic/common sense, well, that much more logical. Obviously, you need to check your vets ed in the area of nutrition, but once you find one with a good background, it helps take away that bit of unease.

    I stressed over home feeding when I first started. I have a Dal and they have special diet needs. But all the label reading was stressing me out due to the fact there aren’t any specifics on the amount/ratio of ingredients and exactly what “body parts” are in chicken, etc. I’m trying to avoid the higher purine proteins in balance. It was just freakin’ easier to make it myself and “know”. After about a year, I moved the Feline Five to home prepared. Beforehand, I had moved them to grain free. Moving them to raw and some cooked was an easy transition for all of us. The first couple years with both species, I did research, and I think I “over researched” to the point of driving myself nuts. But bottom line, I realized, I had a very healthy diet and haven’t hazard my health. Yes, I can feed dogs and cats and not endanger them. Once you hit that realization, life goes into a cruise mode on making home prepared pet meals ;)

    Kim, my vet didn’t have a prob with “small” amounts of garlic. I think people need to look at their use of garlic and see if they fall into a “gently used” category when cooking. Or if they have certain pet friendly dishes that are low in garlic. I plan my pets’ meals when I’m doing a dish that would otherwise be good for them except for the volume (and volume is the key, lil’ bit goes a long way with pets) of garlic. The dog may be able to handle a small amount, but not her normal full meal (good way to temper yourself in sharing with your pets) and in several meals a week. Adding some steak scraps to a meal that have a heavier garlic marinade are one thing. Daily consumption of meals with the same volume is another. Kinda similar to a human diet. Variety and moderation ;) Stir fry veggies with a bit of garlic (and I mean bit!) is fine for all in my crew. Cats eat so little veggies (and are only offered so many) and same with my spotty dawg. She gets a larger percentage of veggies than the cats, but still not enough to tip the scale. If I’m fixing a dish with garlic in the name (especially at the beginning!), pets are eating another home prepped meal or raw.

    * 2 things

    1. When I’m talking about garlic, note that I’m even more cautious with onions

    2. When I say I feed the cats or dog something, it’s in relation to the rest of their meal (or is their meal) based on species, weight and species appropriate feeding. When I say my cats get veggies with a hint of garlic, the percentage of their meal that is veggies is below the 25% amount. Prob around 10-15%. Even veggies without garlic, they only want so much no matter how much they like them. The meat is usually more appealing! If I used garlic liberally every day when cooking, my pets would be getting a heck of a lot less of my meals. Onions, same deal only stricter with me. I also make sure I’m sharing the right fruits and other good food for us items.

    Comment by straybaby — January 29, 2009 @ 11:51 pm

  16. A study I recently read concluded with “This study confirmed that onion poisoning in dogs causes hemolytic anemia.”

    I was curious how much onion they were claiming ; it says “six adult, clinically normal Pekingese dogs were fed cooked onions at 30 g/kg body weight/day for 2 days”

    That seems like a lot of onion for a little 8-10 pound dog. It’s too early in the morning for me, anybody care to do this math?

    Comment by Joy — January 30, 2009 @ 7:37 am

  17. Thanks, Straybaby. It’s not really a matter of unease. I just really wonder. Have those three items been clinically tested to do whatever it is they are supposed to do for dogs, cats, horses? What is the benefit?

    Comment by Susan Fox — January 30, 2009 @ 12:58 pm

  18. Susan, is this the recipe? http://www.thehonestkitchen.co....._stew.html

    It looks good but I’d worry about lack of calcium and zinc, specifically.

    I would really, really like a good stew recipe (or at least help formulating one) for my picky boy so I could do homecooked (he doesn’t do raw foods, period- not even hot dogs or freeze-dried liver!) but I want to make sure I’m doing it RIGHT.

    Comment by Cait — January 30, 2009 @ 3:21 pm

  19. Cait, have you considered the Spot’s Stew recipe? If you contact Halo Purely for Pets (http://www.halopets.com/) directly they will send you the recipe to make it yourself at home. It’s one I recommend.

    Comment by kasie — January 30, 2009 @ 4:29 pm

  20. It looks good but I’d worry about lack of calcium and zinc, specifically

    Comment by Cait

    Cait … the trick here is to feed VARIETY … of foods, recipes, etc. I mean c’mon, do YOU do the math on every meal you make for yourself and then worry that one particular meal is lacking in calcium and zinc? Or course you don’t.

    Every meal your dog has doesn’t have to be “complete and balanced” any more than every meal YOU eat. The idea that it does comes out of the same place that says you’re not competent to prepare a diet at home for an animal that is, after all, a scavenger.

    You want your dog to have all those nifty nutrients even as you want yourself to. But if you get everything in over the course of a few days — for you or your dog — you’re just fine.

    Comment by Gina Spadafori — January 30, 2009 @ 4:45 pm

  21. Yes, that’s it. I cut, pasted and printed just the recipe and forgot to write down the source. Good job, Cait!

    Comment by Susan Fox — January 30, 2009 @ 6:46 pm

  22. Gina, it’s interesting what a contrast your comments are to what I was told by more than one person when I got my collie puppy- “feed him the same thing every day or he’ll be spoiled”. Old Think, I suspect.

    On the other hand, the positive reinforcement trainer I worked, with who also did SAR, encouraged me to rotate him through a variety of foods so that his system wouldn’t get too dependent on one thing, just in case he ended up in some circumstance where he had to eat something different. And that’s what we’ve done. One kibble, but a variety of canned and now home cooked.

    It’s ridiculous to think that we can really duplicate what a wild dog would eat, but appropriate regular, real food ought to be a no-brainer, which shows how thoroughly we’ve been brainwashed. I’d never had a dog or lived with a dog before I got Niki and I wasn’t going to take any chances with my precious collie boy.

    Ironic that I thought the safe responsible choice was commercial food, like so many people. Live (fortunately for my dog, although he did get mildly ill from a can of contaminated food) and learn.

    Comment by Susan Fox — January 30, 2009 @ 6:57 pm

  23. Joy:

    30g/kg means that your average Labrador (35kg) would have to eat 1050g of garlic for TWO days to cause anemia. Or at least to validate the study as per the numbers provided.

    This is 2.3 POUNDS of garlic.

    My retriever ate at least a clove of garlic at every meal when we switched him over to raw from kibble. He suffered from anemia, and it improved on his raw diet. There were days where he would get a few cloves at a time. The cats never got any, simply because they didn’t like it. They occasionally got a pinch of garlic powder (for some reason they liked this flavour) but we never once experienced any issues attributed to garlic use (all of our fur kids have full blood work performed regularly to ensure that their diets are optimal for each individual).

    Onion, however, is avoided at all costs in my home. That being said, a friend of mine had a dog who ate a whole raw onion once. He peeled a cooking onion, dropped it, and the Golden snarfed it down before he knew what happened. It wasn’t until a few days later when he was telling me the story that I informed him of the onion toxicity issue. The dog suffered no ill effects. However, we maintain an onion-free diet for all of our pets :O)

    Comment by Kim — January 30, 2009 @ 8:05 pm

  24. Gina - oh, I know about the variety thing- and I’m comfortable rotating veggies and protein sources. I’m just trying to figure out how to get enough calcium in overtim eif I was using that as a base for a diet. :P

    Comment by Cait — January 30, 2009 @ 10:42 pm

  25. Thanks Kim! But i wanted to point out that the study I was reading (for which you did the math) was actually for ONION poisoning.

    Comment by Joy — January 31, 2009 @ 7:57 am

  26. (And to add, because that other reply sounded whiny) it’s like with people food, I know more than one recipe. I’m not a great cook, but I know a variety of kinds of food to make. :P With dog food, I feel like I need some recipes to start with- or you know, a food pyramid/4 food groups! :P

    Comment by Cait — January 31, 2009 @ 8:35 am

  27. Gotcha!

    Comment by Gina Spadafori — January 31, 2009 @ 8:58 am

  28. What Cait said so coherently just above—that’s what I meant. I’m cooking for Kasey as I type this…including things I’ve never made for myself. I’ve got barley boiling on the stove right now.

    Comment by Lori — January 31, 2009 @ 2:16 pm

  29. I do not feed my cats garlic because I have heard that it has the potential of causing anemia.

    Comment by Colorado Transplant — January 31, 2009 @ 8:26 pm

  30. I just bought an online cookbook for dogs with pancreatitis (standard dachshund) I was very alarmed at the number of recipes that contained garlic..probably 60% of them. I believe the jury is still out on the garlic issue, but, it would seem to me, that is it worth the risk? Even if your dog is not “as sensitive” as another dog. Is it worth the risk to find out?

    And for a pancreatitis cookbook….obviously these dogs have very sensitive constitutions…to introduce a “potentially” hazardous ingredient?

    I will be omitting the garlic (and onion is some of the recipes!)

    Thanks for the Spot’s stew recipe suggestion : )

    Comment by Noelle — February 18, 2009 @ 8:35 am

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