(Raw) feeding the dogs

New dog Zak is settling in well and seems to be adjusting to life in landlocked rural Oxfordshire. We can't entice him into any puddles on his walks but I'm guessing there aren't that many cold brown muddy pools of water on Zakynthos. Can't think what might be putting him off?

Walking on a lead and recall both need some practice but he's stopped flinching when you stroke him and he's decided he loves our old dog Mabel. She's so laid back she tolerates him bouncing around and then falling asleep lying on her but you can sense the eye rolling when he licks the side of her face.

He came on a raw food diet as he hadn't been maintaining his weight in kennels. I have looked into this before; it's much closer to their natural diet than highly processed dog kibble but as usual there's a trade off between the ideal and the affordable. Commercial raw food diets are pretty pricey. I also found that you can feed your children a diet of Turkey Twizzlers, Potato Faces and Alphabetti Spaghetti every day pleading exhaustion and you raise a few mild tuts. Get the ratio of lean meat to offal wrong in your dog food, feed them too fatty a cut of meat, fail to include the right proportion of calcium or phosphorus, or even -heaven help you- omit wild salmon oil (or not omit it, according to the website) and you discover that your dog will suffer from malnutrition, get pancreatitis or develop a bone or nerve disorder and it will be All Your Fault.
Zak was clearly benefiting from the diet he was on but we found the commercial mixes prohibitively expensive, especially for two dogs as we'd like to swap Mabel onto it as well.

 I gritted my teeth and did some more online research, got past the forums with posts declaring doom if your dog so much as licked a white potato, and found a couple of sensible articles here and here which for a start say it all balances out in the end, which I totally agree with. The content of each meal doesn't matter so much as the balance overall and that goes for humans and dogs.

There is a basic ratio to remember, which essentially mimics eating a whole animal. There needs to be some bone, some offal (secreting organ meat) and some vegetables to provide some fibre that in a wild animal would be provided by non-digestible parts of the prey in addition to muscle meat. 5:1:1 seems to be about right- 5 parts meat on the bone or mince with 10% bone in it, 1 part organ meat, 1 part vegetables.


So, with our old cast iron mincer we have been mincing whole chickens (bones and all), lamb ribs, reduced meat from the supermarket clearance shelves, poultry hearts from our local farm butcher plus various vegetables- carrots, celery, leftover cranberries, squash and sweet potato so far. There's even been a bit of rosemary and some turmeric.My eldest was very pleased with her chicken, cranberry and rosemary combination.
I think we've probably not added enough vegetable so far and I think that we will also add some 'filler' in the form of brown rice, cooked red lentils or oats, or potato. This way of feeding has got to be affordable and adding a little will eke the meat out a bit without being detrimental nutritionally. Who doesn't eat a bit of filler? We certainly don't eat only the most nutritious foods ALL the time. I may have considered a slice of Christmas cake, maybe with some cheese, and perhaps an apple as a gesture towards healthy eating, a perfectly acceptable breakfast or lunch over Christmas or possibly-ahem- both. Looking at the commercial raw foods, all but the very most expensive have some carbohydrate filler in them.

Reducing the cost means we can use more ethical meats, which is an equally important reason to do this for me. Why would you sacrifice the quality of life of one animal to feed another? We are using some supermarket meat but the higher welfare ranges. The meat from the local farm butcher is free range. I'm aiming to use the butcher more as that potentially reduces the packaging we use as well as all the other benefits of buying local and we should be able to cheaply acquire meat 'waste' not normally available- lights (lung), poultry necks and feet and other trimmings.

A whole raw mackerel went down very well

They've had some raw bones from the butcher too. Dinner one night was lamb ribs that wouldn't go through the mincer and some beef bones have provided hours of entertainment (and teeth cleaning).

When the chickens start laying again we can add an egg (plus shell) which has the right ratio of calcium and phosphorus.

We've long made the dog treats. I dehydrate sweet potato and carrot and occasionally liver and we make some biscuits.
When my youngest was two she wanted to write Christmas cards like her older brother and sister. When I asked her who to, she said Sophie and Norman. Sophie and Norman were the dogs that watched out of the window by the school bus stop! We decided they'd rather have treats than a card and a tight budget and the fact I always want to make everything meant we found a recipe and made them some dog biscuits. We also made some for our dogs and friend's dogs and ended up with an annual tradition of making biscuits for half the dogs in the village. It's a great activity for children as you don't have to be quite so vigilant when it comes to hygiene as you might if they were making biscuits for people!

Dog Biscuits
There's no recipe per se, instead I start with some meat stock (usually chicken if we're making it for other dogs, whatever I have if it's for ours) and add any or all of the following to make it into a dough:

plain flour (whatever you have) For grain-free coconut flour is recommended but I haven't tried it     
oatmeal (I blitz porridge oats)
porridge oats
polenta or cornmeal (good for teeth cleaning)
ground rice

Optional extras:
finely chopped rosemary, parsley, mint, thyme
dried nettle or any other local herbs, wild or otherwise
turmeric
finely chopped or grated garlic (fine in small amounts even though it's an allium)
finely grated or cooked mashed carrot, sweet potato, squash, apple etc
cranberries or blueberries
pureed liver
hemp oil/fish oil
egg (and ground shell)
peanut butter
natural yoghurt
whey
powdered kelp/seaweed

You can add lard or dripping for flavour, or coconut oil. I sometimes add a bit as the biscuits are a treat and so won't form a large part of the diet.

Combine chosen ingredients to a fairly firm dough, roll thinly and cut either into small squares with a knife or use cookie cutters.
Bake in medium oven until beginning to turn golden. They should also be beginning to crisp but they'll harden more as they cool.

Variations:
Instead of just using up what you have you could tailor the biscuits to your dog's needs-

Digestion: use more oats and ground (brown) rice, no added fat, live yoghurt, activated charcoal
Oral health and bad breath: use more cornmeal and add chopped herbs
Bedtime: add yoghurt and chamomile/passion flower
Coat health: add fish or hemp oil, rosemary, seaweed, nettle

The possibilities are endless. Look at ingredients lists for posh dog treats for inspiration.

Treats and recall training

Waiting for her turn!

Next will be raw food for cats, but that seems to be more complicated. George is keen though...