Homemade Canine Diet:

Making dog food at home is something that is gaining increasing popularity with pet owners. This is because of some of the criticisms of dog food that is created industrially as being too low on the nutritional charts and for having food additives that are toxic to dogs. Another reason is the growing movement towards a more wild diet that is believed, by proponents, to be the real natural dog diet. Whichever side of the debate one decides to be on, the fact of the matter is that there is a great deal that one needs to understand about canine nutrition before one ventures into feeding a dog naturally.

One of the biggest mistakes that people tend to make is in believing that what is good for humans must be good for dogs as well – albeit with the exclusion of some of the plant portions of the human diet. To a large extent this is correct because of the course of thousands of years of evolution, dogs have developed a digestive tract that is specialized in only eating meat. In fact, eating plant material is of no use to a dog as it will pass right through the digestive tract. This is because plant material requires time and the action of bacteria to be broken down. Having state the difference in digestion, there are some things that one needs to understand about even feeding meat to a dog. All mammals require the essential nutrients of carbohydrates, proteins, fat, vitamins, and water but dogs require a very different formulation of these essential elements. A dog in the wild would be completely used to a purely protein based diet. Whatever fat and carbohydrates are ingested are a result of eating meat and from the conversion of protein into sugars and glycogen.

Bearing this in mind, you should be feeding your dog fresh meat. The reason for fresh meat is that it is particularly difficult to store meat without losing taste and nutrients. Apart from this, methods like mashing up and baking to make homemade kibble would be fruitless without the use of additives and preservatives. These are not very good for the dog anyway. For dogs that are obese, boiling meat as a preparation to remove fat or cutting away fat from meat is a good practice. Some fiber is allowed and good for the dog and can be achieved by a few bran biscuits in the course of a day.