Dog Food

[gertbysea]

 I am going to the airport on Monday to collect a 6 year old Jack Russell who needs a new home due to a change in his family's circumstances.  I usually make the occasional meal for visiting dogs in the neighbourhood but want to make  healthy dog biscuits or treats. The thermomix will do the job I am sure but I need some recipes.

Thanks,
Gretchen

[faffa_70]

Gretchen, we had a discussion on this a while back, not sure if there were any recipes posted in the end or not. This is the link for it...I haven't had a look at it today though 

http://www.forumthermomix.com/index.php?topic=1332.0

[Very Happy Jan]

Hi Gretchen,
I made the recipe that Nay-Nay posted in the link Kathryn posted above and our dog loved them. (Thanks Nay-Nay)
Jan

[gertbysea]

Thank you so much. Should have "searched" first before asking. Should have known we leave no food untouched!

Gretchen

[cookie1]

I think I would leave dog food untouched................yech!

[gertbysea]

No cookie. It is really ok. Broke up a whole small chicken  put it in the basket with a few veg and whatnot. Removed it and kept the stock for me. Cooled the chicken, chopped the cooked veggies, added some fresh raw chopped veggies including some raw beetroot and there you have it....dog food. Tastes great. Now to the biscuits with peanut butter that was already in the old thread. Cost about 80cents a meal and all good. I would love to know how to make a dry dog food,

Gretchen

[cathy79]

Here is a recipe - Woofer's Dog Stew - From Your Mortgage and How to Pay it Off in 5 Years by Anita Bell

2 kg offuts, offal or pet mince
2 kg cheap vegetables eg aged vegies from your fridge or kitchen scraps (except onion or potato peel)
Some garlic & Parsley
1 egg
Tablespoon Oil
1 or 2 kilo rolled oats, barley, rice or pasta
4 tsp salt
Bread Crusts or bread ends
Broccoli & cauliflower stems or trimmings
Any scraps from vegie garden

Boil it up on the BBQ out back, in a boiler or the clean half of an old oil drum until it looks like stew, store in meal portions in old ice-cream containers friends have saved for you and refrigerate or freeze until needed.  This feeds our two happy hounds for about six weeks.

PS - This is a good reminder to re-read this book now that we have a mortgage.

[gertbysea]

Oh good one. Next batch I will do that with some meat and barley or oats. Not sure about the rice and pasta but it sounds like good doggie eating. Thanks for that Cathy. 

Gretchen

[cookie1]

I'm glad we only have a weiro and a budgie.

[Thermoconvert]

I posted this in a similar thread, but in case you didn't see it.

DOG FOOD

Ingredients
400g long grain rice
1200g water
300g pasta
250g vegetable/fruit scraps appropriate for dogs (carrots, broccoli, apple etc. NO onion, potato skins or garlic)
2000g pet mince

Method
Weigh rice in basket.
Place water into TM bowl.   Insert basket with rice and cook for 13 minutes at 100c on speed 1.
Remove basket of rice.  Add pasta and vegetable/fruit scraps to water and replace rice basket in TM.
Cook for 10 minutes on 100c on reverse and speed 1.
Place cooked rice, vegetable/fruit scraps and pasta in TM and grind on speed 8 until desired consistency.
Allow to cool and mix through the raw pet mince.

General Tips
Makes a large amount, which is easily portioned and frozen.  Ensure dog food is labeled as such.  Feel free to add your dog’s favourite foods (sardines etc) to adjust the flavour.

[Nay-nay]

Hi Gretchen,
I made the recipe that Nay-Nay posted in the link Kathryn posted above and our dog loved them. (Thanks Nay-Nay)
Jan

Glad to hear someone liked that recipe 

[CarolineW]

You could also try the BARF diet for your dog - we don't use it exclusively, but we do use it a lot for our Staffie, and she is in disgustingly good health, so she obviously thrives on it    Best of all, it's almost free (as most butchers need to pay to get rid of their chicken carcasses, so are only too happy to give them away).  Here's a link to learn about it if you aren't already familiar http://www.ukbarfclub.co.uk/index.php?_a=viewDoc&docId=10

I bought a book on it from Amazon, and followed it carefully until we got a feel for it.  I was a bit anxious to begin with, as it was such a new idea to me (although it made sense).  However, we were warmly encouraged by the local dog training club, who had seen many dogs with excellent results from it.

We don't use it exclusively as we can't get enough variety in, because our dog gets TOO full of energy if she has any red meat or red meat offal.  So we have the vegetable section, and the chickens, and give 'normal' dog food for the red meat days.   It works for us.

It would be interesting to know what Thermomixer thinks?

[Thermomixer]

Hi CarolineW.  Basically, what Dr Billingshurst (?) is saying is that humans should be eating a raw diet because any cooked food won't be digested, because that is what we ate billions of years ago. 

Oh sorry, that should have been dogs.  Guess if you believe that dogs can't digest cooked food, then humans can't either.

Sort of hard to believe??  I think most people eat cooked foods (Elisabeth and some Raw Food followers excepted) and many get to well over 100 years. 

A balanced diet for people and animals is what I would recommend.

[CarolineW]

    In fairness to him, he advocates a balanced diet too.  As I understand it, his point is that we tend to make food for them as if they're humans, which stops them getting the full range of nutrients as they are dogs - not human.

Presumably any sensible diet is fine, as none of my previous 3 dogs were fed anything other than 'normal' dog food, and they were fine and lived long, healthy lives.  I do have to admit that Kaila seems to be healthier still, but perhaps that's coincidence.  In our case, we adopted (a non-purist version of) the BARF diet because we were only able to afford very cheap dog food, and I was concerned that wasn't good enough.  So I looked into more frugal ways to feed her more healthily.  And the non-stinky breath is a nice side effect, too 

[Thermomixer]

Balanced is good - originally the Raw Meaty Bones diet was very unbalanced.   The BARF diet is much better, but dogs don't die from cooking food.

I make lots of money from slab fractures of the fourth premolar of dogs given inappropriately large, hard raw bones. 

Cats are harder to feed - they are obligate carnivores and vegetarian diets cause serious problems.