I talk about making dog food a lot.. honestly because A. I am proud of it B. It really does take a lot of dedication and C. I hear others are interested in it.

I get asked a lot of questions about what I put in my dog food, why I make it in the first place, and my favorite: “How much money do you save by doing this.” Well folks.. this may be a shock but – we don’t save any money by doing this. Not a dollar, not a dime, not a penny. Making dog food {for us at least} takes up more time AND it actually costs more money. So if you are looking to save time and save money- this isn’t the route to take. However if you are one of the many who are concerned about the chemicals and poor food that your animals are consuming – then you have come to the right place! We have made our dog food for a full year now, and this post will walk you through what finally works for us.

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, visit my Disclosure page

Our original reason for switching to making our own dog food was mainly due to allergies. We had been trying for years to save our German Shephard from just eating herself to death. My holistic vet insisted that it was her diet and I needed to get away from all dog foods because unfortunately she has so many allergies that my vet couldn’t even recommend a food to me. All of them had something that she was bothered by. Corn, Carrots, wheat, tapioca.. the list goes on. Even the most expensive foods were not making the cut.

Starting out wasn’t easy – There is so much information out there, so many recipes, I just wanted it to be easier. After many questions we were able to boil down recipe to be 50% meat 50% veggies. This was specifically suggested for my dog- and the reason why I use that makeup. It is possible that your dog has a different requirement.

Now that I had my overall recipe makeup- I needed to hunt for the right foods.

50% Meat:

Originally I thought chicken was the best route, but my vet confirmed that many dogs are bothered by chicken and that pork was a safer route to start out with. Ok. Sounds good to me- usually pork is going to be sold in bigger packages and can be cheaper! We found these large pork roasts sold at my local Winn-Dixie. They are about 20lbs of meat and my store does a ‘weekend sale’ once a month where they mark them down to $1.29 a pound. Can’t be that price. So we typically will buy 4 of them each time the sale comes around which usually lasts us the whole month. (Remember I have a large dog- yours might not eat as much!)

To prepare the meat- Derrick cuts them up into large chunks and we simply boil them. It may be an option to do it in the oven but honestly, this just seems to work for us.

Tip: We have frozen them bagged as below, so if you are getting a good deal on meat- go for it! But if not, just cook it all right away. It takes a lot longer to thaw out the meat in large chunks than it does to thaw out cooked dogfood each day.

Like I mentioned above, cooking the meat for us just simply means that we are boiling it. Now.. there are only so many times that you are going to feel like boiling a pot of meat until you realize you just need to buy the largest pot ever made! We got our 24 QT pot that has a glass lid. Here is a similar one – but its only 20QT. We simply cook it until its done. Depending on how much meat is in there- it could take longer but usually an hour or 2 of boiling gets the job done for our large amount.

Our next step is to get the meat cooled down and shredded. After the water has cooled enough I use a handheld strainer to start straining it out and putting it in a large roasting pan that I can mash it up in.

Now I don’t want my dogfood to be too dry, so I like to keep the meat broth to cook my veggies in as well as mix in the meat to give me a food & broth type meal. This keeps my fur baby interested. However, I do not want all of the oil that comes with it mixed in. So I take the extra step to use a cup (or mason jar) to patiently skim off the oil that is on top.

Tip: Before trying to gather the oil, make sure you have allowed the pot to sit long enough for the oil to separate and rise to the top.

Time to mash up the meat! Now I have done this so many ways over the last year that I finally found my favorite and you will find yours too. I found a fancy little kitchen gadget that I believe was intended to mash up potatoes (A Potato Masher), that I have used to mash up my pork and it seems to work really well! Once all of your meat is in nice chunk/shredded sizes you can set it aside while you work on the veggies.

50% Veggies:

The veggies were a challenge for my pup. She didn’t really like green things and definitely didn’t like them in large chunks. So over the year we have determined that using a food processor to break it all down helps us disguise it so that she has no problem eating it.

Tip: Don’t get too caught up in the 50:50 ratio, if you have 4 bags of shredded meat, do 4 bags of cut up veggies. If you get caught up in the measurements – you are just wasting your time, no diet is perfect. I am sure you don’t cook dinner with the food pyramid in your hand ensuring your ratios are perfect.

The veggies that we have chosen that seem to work fine with my girl are:

3 Bags of spinach
2 Cauliflower heads
2 Broccoli heads
Large bunch of Kale (as much as I can grab from my garden)
3 of the largest cans of green beans I can find

I have also used sweet potatoes, and spaghetti squash in my veggie mix before. After processing it all up- I can fit in bags to either freeze, or use right away.

Now that my meat is cooled off, mashed up, and the oil has been removed from my broth we can move to the mixing stage. I throw in some veggies, then some meat, then veggies, then meat.. you get the idea. Layering it helps me mix it together in such a large pot – which is a work out, let me tell ya!

I let it cook for a bit together just to get the veggies nice and soft. The next step is my favorite- THE LAST ONE!

Putting the food away. Originally when we started this journey we were cooking every 3 days cause our portions were big and our pots were small. We were storing it in the fridge for the next couple of days. Well let me just tell you- it gets old.. really fast! I have looked for different efficiencies that I could find. Now, as you know, we cook in very large portions which last up to 15-17 days and we are down to only doing it twice a month.

Since we are doing it in such large quantities we needed a good way to store the food so that we could easily feed the dogs twice a day without effort. We landed on these freezer safe, microwave safe meal prep containers. They were perfect for the job! I simply scoop out my portions, throw a couple of days in the fridge, and the rest go in the freezer.

Finding the correct portion size:

I put WAY too much thought into this question early in the process and just couldn’t seem to find someone to tell me exactly how much to give my dog. Well that is because there is no magic answer. It takes some trial and error. You determine what seems right, then try it- if your dog is still hungry and not gaining weight- give them a little more. If they are gaining unnecessary weight – reduce what you are giving them. Another tip my vet gave me was if I was trying to bring them down from a higher portion because of unnecessary weight gain just reduce the overall food but add a cup of green beans as a filler. The dogs wont gain weight from it but will get a sense of “more food”.

Just to give an example. My dog is a German Shephard. She is a big girl and likes to eat- but doesn’t seem to gain a ton of weight. She is closer to 70 pounds right now and I feed her 2.5 cups of the mixture I make, twice a day. This works for her.

Don’t forget your doggie vitamins: Something that I would not have known anything about were the necessary vitamins that you dog needs. Although mainstream kibble dog food has added chemicals and fillers which have been proven to be unhealthy- it does include a large amount of necessary vitamins that your pup needs. My vet provided me with this super vitamin to add to my pups food, called Catalyn. I simply throw in 3 tablets a day (based off of her weight) and feel comfortable that she is getting all she needs.

Do you cook for your fur baby? Feel free to share tips in the comments for others to read!

Enjoyed this read? Check out these other related posts:
Homeopathic Heartworm Treatment
Our Rescue PawPrint