Today, I re-began making my pups food at home. I relied primarily on my memories of doing this in the past, but I also looked around at a few sites, like Dog Aware and Christie Keith’s Pet Connection (sorry, I’m on vacation – I’m too lazy to get the link).
Although Dog Aware and Christie Keith were somewhat more informative than other sites, I didn’t find much of anything particularly useful. For one, I don’t cook in huge batches, and I find it ridiculous to devote one entire day a week to making the pups’ food when I don’t even do that for myself. In addition, Christie Keith is whole hog raw food diet and, I’m sorry, I really like most of Christie Keith’s work, but I’m just not going that road.
I mean, really — purists schmurists!
What I did do was this: I made stock with a stewing chicken, adding nothing but dehydrated carrots and peas. The stock is cooling now and will be divided into two batches: one for me and one for the dogs.
After it’s defatted, the stock for me will be cooked some more with tons of bay, garlic and thyme.
The stock for the pups will also be defatted, then used to pour over lentils, sweet potatoes, potato potatoes, whatever moves me at the moment. For the next few weeks, I’ll also add eggs, yogurt, nutritional yeast, leftover veggies, flaxseed oil, sardines, some of their kibble and whatever else is on hand that they might like (The Large Lab is hoping that’ll be cheese!).
I’ll continue doing this til the kibble is gone, at which point they’ll be completely transitioned over.
Meanwhile, I’m mulling over what people food to make with my portion of the stock. A tortilla soup sans tortillas or a pozole is sounding good to me.
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Why no tortillas? If you don’t have Masa Harina, here is a recipe for white (flour) tortillas: (from texasrollingpins.com)
Ingredients
3 cups unbleached flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
4-6 Tbsp. vegetable shortening or lard
about 1 1/4 cups warm water
Instructions
Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Add vegetable shortening or lard. Or use a combination of half lard, half shortening.
Use a fork or a pastry cutter to cut in the shortening or just do it the old fashioned
way and use your hands.
Next add warm water a little at a time until your dough is soft and not sticky. You do
not need very hot water.
Knead the dough for a few minutes.
Now you will pull off pieces of dough to form about 12 small dough balls. Let them
rest for at least 10 minutes, longer if you like.
This is a good time to heat up the griddle or skillet. You will want to set it at medium to high
heat. If it is too hot the tortillas will cook too fast.
Now you can roll out the dough with your rolling pin It is a good
idea to dust each ball with a little flour just before you roll them out. Lay the rolling in
in the center of the dough ball and roll up, center and roll down. It is good to lift the
dough and turn it. Again, rolling pin in the center and roll. Roll them out fairly thin.
Lay your tortilla on the hot comal. It takes just a few seconds to cook. Flip to the other
side. When they are done it should have lots of nice brown speckles. Place them in a tea towel, and keep warm.
Oh gawd, that looks good.
My problem: no flour in the house, and I’m refusing to go into public because I’m putzing and look it.
I do have corn meal, however, and I think I have some hominy.
One of my dear friends from an Internet Dog Group has been feeding her dogs home cooking for years – here is her recipe (reproduced with her permission) for how she feeds her four dogs (a Schipperke, a Rotteweiler, a Chow mix and a Mix/Mix:
Home-Made Dog Food a la Jan B.
“I’ve had several members email me for my recipe on home cooking for my girls – I just took some out of the oven and decided to take a picture – so here it is – ingredients – deboned, skinless chicken breasts, 96/4 hamburger, cans of low sodium low fat chicken and beef broth for liquid, carrots, broccoli, green beans, brown rice, pasta and oatmeal all cooked in the oven in my big turkey roaster pan – - after it’s cooled for awhile, I put this in freezer bags and then into the freezer”
Yes, that looks about right.
The Large Lab (aka Moose Boy) was virtually raised on homemade, as I began doing it right before he came to live with me. i was doing it for the benefit of my old houndie’s anal glands. And maybe it’s just the luck of genetics, but he’s unbelievably healthy. He’s getting to be an oldster – probably around 11-12 now? – but still plays like a pup.
His age is my motivation for going back to homemade. He’s such a lovey bear, and I want him to have a happy and healthy old age.
You All Out There,
Guess I have to say as a cat owner, that is is A LOT harder to prepare food for cats. I had two bouts of really sick kitties and fixing homemade was a trick. They need a lot of natural RAW wild things (taurine, anyone?) Here’s a little info for cat owners:
Preformed Taurine is only available from animal tissue, and high concentrations of Taurine are found in the heart muscle, skeletal muscles, brain and eyes of mammals, as well as the meat from clams and oysters.
Taurine is very sensitive to heat, and Taurine content in meat is greatly reduced after cooking.
Animals need meat and some need raw at that.
Just sayin’
Dogs are much more omnivorous than cats. Cats need huge amounts of meat, while dogs don’t need nearly as much, although they need a lot of meat. And dogs aren’t quite as delicate.
The info about taurine is good to know, though.
Edited to add: It’s been almost ten years since I had a cat. I always had them growing up, but I became a backyard birdy enthusiast and, somehow, the two don’t mix.
I just feed Taste of the Wild (grain-free) and the occasional tablespoonful of canned pumpkin (for the anal glands) and the Furry Monster Brigade seems to love it, as long as there is yogurt on top!
The thing I like about ToTW is that the stool volume is WAY less than with any other commercial kibble, and with four dogs to scoop up after, it makes keeping things hygeinic much easier. They also seem to thrive on the stuff, with shiny coats and less stinky toots.
Ah, the things we do for our pets.
Taste of the Wild? ::runs to Google::
Ohhh, do they have it for cats???? Google is our friend!!!
They do!
And it’s not that expensive. Now if I can just find free shipping …
Plus – one of the formulations of ToTW is made from bison! They have a salmon formula and a wild bird formula.
You should see the Furry Monster Brigade Doo-Dah Dance when I dish the stuff up in the mornings! They practically spin, and that is before I even put the yogurt on top of it.
(pretend the emoticons below are dancing Furry Monters doing the Doo-Dah Dance…)
:purple: :puff: :dots: :purple: :puff: :dots:
I can’t find free shipping. But they *might* carry at the evil
Petco 
just a mile or so from me. I just hate them, but I’ll check there tomorrow.
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