Countless dog owners have witnessed the benefits of feeding their dogs a nutritious home-prepared raw dog food diet, such as cleaner teeth, brighter eyes, thicker and glossier coats, more lean muscle and less body fat, and better energy level – hyper dogsoften become calmer, while couch potatoes may become more energetic.

In last month’s article, “Have Dinner In,” we discussed those benefits at length and introduced the fact that there are many different styles of homemade dog food diets. In this article, we’ll explain how to create a raw dog food diet that includes bones -perhaps the most commonly used “evolutionary” diet for dogs. In a later installment, we’ll discuss cooked diets.

When I first began to consider feeding my dogs a homemade diet, one of my biggest concerns was the fact that I am not comfortable in the kitchen. I don’t really cook for myself, so the thought of preparing meals for my dogs was overwhelming. Once I started, though, I was happy to discover that it was not as much trouble as I had feared – in fact, it was quite rewarding. Dogs are usually so appreciative of everything we offer that it makes meal time a real joy. I feed a great deal of variety, yet my dog Piglet tells me that each and every meal I put in front of her is her absolute favorite, and she devours it, practically licking the finish off the bowl (I call it “checking for molecules”). How can you resist something that makes your dog so happy?

Raw meaty bones
Most of us who feed a raw diet to our dogs include whole raw meaty bones (RMBs), animal parts that are at least half meat but also include bone that is fully (or mostly) consumed. This is in contrast to recreational bones, such as knuckle and marrow bones, which usually have little meat and where the bone itself is not eaten.

RMBs that are commonly fed include chicken necks, backs, and leg quarters; turkey necks; lamb breast and necks; pork breast (riblets) and necks; and canned fish with bones, such as jack mackerel, pink salmon, and sardines (preferably packed in water rather than oil). Raw fish can also be fed, though some may harbor parasites (freshwater fish are more likely to have problems than saltwater fish). Never feed raw salmon or trout from the Pacific Northwest (California to Alaska), as this can cause a fatal disease called salmon poisoning in dogs. Cooking makes salmon safe to eat; canned fish is cooked, so there’s no concern about salmon poisoning from canned salmon.

It’s not always easy to find RMBs. Ask your local meat manager or butcher; they can often order them for you, though you may have to buy a case at a time. (Most of us who feed our dogs a raw diet have purchased a separate freezer to help store the food!) Ethnic markets often have a wider selection than grocery stores do. There are a number of raw food co-ops and groups who share information and buy in quantity directly from vendors, both to lower the cost and to gain access to a wider variety of foods. If there is no group in your area, consider starting one.

You can keep costs down by buying in bulk, looking for sales, and buying meat that is close to its expiration date and marked down. It helps to develop a relationship with your suppliers, who may be willing to save bargain-priced meats for you.

RMBs should make up 30 to 50 percent (one third to one half) of the total diet, or possibly a little more if the parts you feed have a great deal more meat than bone (e.g., whole chickens or rabbits). The natural diet of the wolf in the wild contains 15 percent bone or less, based on the amount of edible bone in the large prey animals they feed upon. While a reasonable amount of raw bone won’t harm an adult dog, more than 15 percent is not needed and reduces the amount of other valuable foods that can be fed.

Too much bone can also cause constipation, and the excess calcium can block the absorption of certain minerals. The stools of raw fed dogs are naturally smaller and harder than those fed commercial foods, and often turn white and crumble to dust after a few days. If the stools come out white and crumbly, or if your dog has to strain to eliminate feces, you should reduce the amount of bone in his diet.

Most dogs do fine with raw meaty bones, but a few may have problems, including choking and (rarely) broken teeth on the hardest bones. In my experience, turkey parts are associated with the most problems, though many dogs eat them regularly with no trouble.

If you are concerned about feeding whole RMBs, you can buy them in ground form or grind them yourself. You can buy a grinder for $100 to $150 that can handle most chicken parts and possibly a few other kinds of bones. More expensive grinders may be able to handle bones that are somewhat harder, but they all have a similar chute size, which makes it difficult to fit in larger parts. Note that none of the makers of these grinders claim their products have the ability to grind bones.

Another option that I use for my older dogs, whose teeth are too worn to be able to chew bones properly, is to cut up the parts into bite-sized pieces using Joyce Chen kitchen scissors. These scissors handle chicken parts and lamb breast easily (except for the hardest end of the ribs).

For harder bones, such as turkey, pork, and lamb bones, you can use a hatchet or a cleaver that you hit with a mallet (which is safer than swinging the cleaver). While ground and cut up RMBs will not provide the same chewing pleasure or dental benefits, many people who feed ground RMBs report that their dogs’ teeth stay cleaner than when they fed packaged foods.

You can also feed larger, harder bones with a lot of meat on them; just take the bone away when your dog is done removing the meat. I have done this with beef rib and neck bones; people with large dogs use bigger bones. There is still some danger of broken teeth, but less than if you allow the dog to continue to chew on the bone after he’s eaten the meat (bones dry out and become harder over time).

Remember that if you feed a diet that includes 30 to 50 percent RMBs, there is no need to add calcium supplements.

Organ meat
Organs are an important part of a raw diet. Liver and kidneyin particular are nutrient-dense and provide a great deal of nutritional value. These foods should make up 5 to 10 percent of the total diet. Note that they may cause loose stools if too much is fed at one time. It’s better to feed smaller amounts daily or every other day than to feed larger amounts once or twice a week.

Heartis nutritionally more like muscle meat than organ meat, but it is rich in taurine and other nutrients. If possible, make heart another 5 to 10 percent of the diet. More can be fed; just remember that too much can lead to loose stools in some dogs.

Other organs, such as spleen, eyeballs, sweetbreads (pancreas and thymus glands), brain, etc. are nutritious and can be added to the diet in small amounts.

Muscle meat, eggs, and moreThe rest of the diet will be made up of muscle meat and eggs, along with dairy products and other healthy foods.

Muscle meatconsists of all meat that is not considered organ meat. Feed muscle meat from a variety of sources, such as beef, lamb, pork, chicken, and turkey. Muscle meat can be fed ground or in chunks. If you have difficulty feeding much variety in your raw meaty bones, you can make up for it in this category. For example, if your raw meaty bones are mostly poultry, then you can feed beef, lamb, and pork muscle meat. Never feed more than half the total diet from a single protein source, such as chicken.

Eggsare an excellent source of nutrition. They can be fed raw or cooked; cooking actually makes the whites more digestible. You can feed as many eggs as you want, as long as you still feed lots of variety.

Dairy products, such as yogurt, kefir, and cottage cheese, are well tolerated by most dogs and offer good nutritional value. Yogurt and kefir have the added advantage of providing beneficial bacteria (probiotics). Dairy fat is a source of medium-chain triglycerides, a form of fat that is easier to digest for dogs with pancreatic disorders and other forms of fat intolerance.

Green tripe, which is the stomach lining from cows and other animals, is an excellent food for dogs, but be warned that it smells awful – at least to us; dogs love it. Nutritionally, it is similar to muscle meat. Green tripe can be purchased only from sources that sell food for dogs; it cannot be sold for human consumption. The tripe that you find in your grocery store has been bleached and treated and does not provide the same nutritional value as green tripe.

It is also fine to feed healthy leftovers (food you would eat yourself, not the scraps you would throw away) to your dog as long as they are not too great a percentage of the diet – 10 to 20 percent of the diet should be okay.

Vegetables, fruits, and grains
Feeding vegetables, fruits, and grains is optional, as dogs do not require carbohydrates in their diet. Even though these foods would make up a tiny percentage of the natural diet, they provide some nutritional value, especially trace minerals and phytonutrients from leafy green vegetables.

If you feed veggies, they need to be either cooked or pureed in a food processor, juicer, or blender. Whole, raw veggies are not harmful, but their cell walls are not broken down during digestion so they provide little nutritional value to dogs. Most veggies have few calories, so they should be added on top of the amount of food you feed, rather than calculating them as a percentage of the diet.

Good veggies to feed include broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, all kinds of leafy greens, celery, cucumber, bell peppers, zucchini and other summer squashes, carrots, and more. You can mix up a large batch and then freeze them in ice cube trays or muffin tins for easy meal-sized portions.

Steaming is the best method to cook fresh or frozen veggies. You can add the water used to steam veggies to the meal, as it will contain the minerals that were leached out during cooking. Small amounts of leftover meat juices, drippings, sauces, and gravy will make this into a savory soup.

Some dogs enjoy vegetables, but others refuse to eat them no matter how they’re prepared. If your dog won’t eat vegetables, or you prefer not to feed them, you may want to add a blend of kelp and alfalfa, or a green food supplement (more on this below).

Fruitssuch as apples, bananas, papayas, mangoes, berries, and melon can be added to the diet in small amounts. Don’t feed grapes or raisins, which can cause kidney damage in some dogs.

Grains, legumes, and starchy veggies, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, and winter squashes, are a source of inexpensive calories but don’t provide as much nutritional value to dogs as foods from animal sources do. These starchy foods need to be cooked in order to be properly digested by dogs.

Many health problems can be caused or exacerbated by grains and other starchy carbohydrates. If your dog is overweight or suffers from allergies, arthritis, seizures, IBD, or other digestive disorders, you may want to try feeding a diet without these foods to see if your dog improves. If you decide to feed them, it’s best if they make up no more than 20 percent of the diet.

Potatoes (not sweet potatoes), tomatoes, peppers (all kinds), and eggplant may aggravate arthritis pain, but are otherwise fine to feed. Grains and starchy veggies may also aggravate arthritis and other forms of inflammation.

Fresh food supplements
Healthy dogs that are fed a wide variety of appropriate foods should have no need of supplements, but there are several fresh food supplements that may provide additional benefits when added in small amounts:

• Fish body oil, such as salmon oil, provides beneficial omega-3 fatty acids that help to reduce inflammation and regulate the immune system. However, you must add vitamin E to the dog’s diet whenever you supplement with oils; otherwise fish oils can induce a relative deficiency of vitamin E.

• Sea blend, green blend, or kelp/alfalfa mixture supplies trace minerals. These are especially good to add if you don’t feed green veggies.

• Organic (unpasteurized) apple cider vinegar provides some trace minerals.

• Raw honey has antibacterial properties and offers a variety of nutritional benefits.

• Fresh crushed garlic has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties, as well as other benefits, and may help to repel fleas. Give no more than 1 small clove (one small portion of the bulb) per 20 pounds of body weight daily, as high doses can cause anemia.

• Ginger is good for digestion and may help with inflammation.

• Nutritional yeast is an excellent source of B vitamins, along with trace minerals.

• Dark molasses can also be used in small amounts as a source of trace minerals.

More information on supplements will be provided in the upcoming article on cooked diets.

Prey model
There is a style of raw feeding called “prey model,” that advocates feeding a diet based on whole prey and excludes anything else, such as dairy, vegetables, fruit, or supplements. This is based on a desire to mimic the diet of the wolf in the wild. The true prey model involves feeding large chunks of meat along with small amounts of bone, organs, and eggs. It is certainly possible to feed a good diet using this model, but there are some factors that should be taken into consideration.

Feeding parts is not the same as feeding whole prey. When wolves in the wild eat a deer, they consume almost everything except the stomach contents and some of the hardest bones from the skull and legs. That includes not only the muscle meat, bones, liver, and heart, but the eyes, tongue, brain, blood, intestines, kidneys, lungs, and various other organs. If you are not feeding actual whole prey, you may be missing parts of the diet that include important nutrients.

In addition, whole, large, grass-fed prey such as deer, moose, and bison have different nutrient profiles than animals that are farm-raised, and smaller animals such as chickens. The nutrient content of animals raised in various ways (wild animals, grain-fed animals, animals raised on grass from depleted soils) also varies widely. Even if you feed whole rabbits or chickens, the nutrition will not match that of the large ruminants that our dogs evolved to eat.

While some people swear by prey model diets, I believe there is no benefit to be gained by leaving healthy foods such as dairy and vegetables out of the diet. The more restrictions you place on a diet and the less variety you feed, the higher the likelihood that something may be missing. I believe that adding foods and supplements not found in the natural diet of the wolf can help our dogs live the longest, healthiest lives possible.

Commercial raw diets
There are two types of commercial raw, frozen diets currently available. The first type is a complete diet, formulated to meet the nutrient levels suggested by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO). Examples include Prairie from Nature’s Variety, Home Made 4 Life, and Steve’s Real Food for Dogs.

These foods can be used just as you would commercial dry or canned foods, with no need to add anything else (though just as with other commercial diets, it’s best to rotate between different brands and protein sources, and it’s fine to add some fresh food as well). Complete commercial raw diets are generally quite expensive; they’re usually not an option for those who have large dogs or limited funds.

The second type of commercial raw, frozen diets provide a variety of different parts that can be combined, along with other foods, to create a complete diet. These parts may include meat, bone, organs, and vegetables, but generally nothing else. Examples of companies that offer these types of diets include Bravo!, Oma’s Pride, and an increasing number of small, independent local companies. These are great foods to include in the diet you feed your dogs, but you cannot feed them alone, without adding anything else.

When you compare the ingredients of the complete diets to those of the incomplete blends, you will notice that the complete diets add a number of foods in addition to meat, bone, and organs, including such things as eggs, kefir, tripe, kelp, alfalfa (sprouts or dried), garlic, raw honey, organic apple cider vinegar, ginger, oils (fish, flaxseed, olive, coconut, cod liver), seeds (sprouted or ground), nuts, and a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. They also sometimes add specific vitamin and mineral supplements, such as vitamin E, manganese, zinc, iron, and copper, or a natural source of minerals, such as montmorillonite clay. Note that complete diets usually include more muscle and organ meat and less bone than the meat/bone/organ/veggie blends.

If you want to use incomplete blends as the basis for the diet you feed, most often you’ll want to add a bit more organ meat (particularly liver), some additional muscle meat that does not include bone, and a variety of other healthy foods, including eggs, dairy, canned fish with bones, green tripe, healthy leftovers, and some fresh food supplements. Fish oil and vitamin E would also be good additions to the diet. The fewer foods you add, the more important supplements will be.

For example, the Bravo! blends are approximately 10 percent organ meats (equal parts heart, liver, and either kidney or gizzards), 15 percent vegetables, and the rest ground meat and bones. These blends should be used as one half to two thirds of the total diet, with a mixture of the other foods listed above making up the rest of the diet. You can get some of these other foods, including muscle meat and organ meat, from Bravo! or at your grocery store.

Puppies
For the most part, puppies can be fed the same diet as adult dogs, though young puppies will benefit from the addition of goat’s milk to the diet. It is even more crucial that you get the proportions correct and feed a wide variety of foods when feeding puppies. It is also imperative that you feed an appropriate amount of bone, neither too much nor too little, especially to large- and giant-breed puppies under the age of six months, when they have less ability to regulate their uptake of calcium, and both calcium deficiencies and excesses can lead to serious orthopedic problems.

Raw meaty bones should comprise around 30 to 50 percent of the diet. Be careful if you supplement with cod liver oil or another form of vitamin D. Vitamin D increases the absorption of calcium, so if you feed high amounts of bone and vitamin D, you increase the likelihood that too much calcium will be absorbed. Never add calcium to a diet that includes appropriate amounts of bone.

Remember that high-protein diets will not cause excessive growth or lead to orthopedic problems in puppies. These problems are caused by overfeeding and by improper calcium amounts (either too much or too little). In order to avoid orthopedic problems, keep your puppy lean and slow-growing by limiting the total amount fed.

Remember the rules
As a reminder, there are three basic rules to feeding a homemade diet: variety, balance over time, and calcium.

All homemade diets need to contain a variety of different foods, including different types of meat and raw meaty bones, different parts (especially organs), and different foods, such as eggs and dairy. A lot of people depend on chicken since it’s cheap, but if your dog gets nothing but chicken, even if you feed organs along with muscle meat and bone, he will not get all the nourishment that he needs. As a general rule, you should never feed one kind of food as more than half the diet, and preferably less.

When you feed a variety of different foods, every meal does not need to be “complete and balanced.” You should ensure that all of your dog’s nutritional needs are met over a period of a week or two, but that can be done by feeding different foods at different meals, and on different days; you don’t have to combine all the different foods into a single meal. It’s also fine to feed just beef, for example, for a couple of weeks, and then switch to another meat source for the next two weeks.

A raw diet that includes 30 to 50 percent raw meaty bones will supply the proper amount of calcium; there is no need to add more.

Amounts to feed
As a general rule of thumb, dogs will eat around 2 to 3 percent of their body weight in fresh food daily, but remember that each dog is an individual, and the amounts they eat can vary considerably. There will be more details on calculating amounts to feed in the article on cooked diets.

Making the switch
The first time we feed raw meaty bones to our dogs is always frightening. We’ve been told so many times to never feed bones to dogs that it’s hard to believe they won’t drop dead when we do. It’s important to remember that the warnings are about cooked bones, not raw, and that eating bones is natural for dogs.

Most raw feeders can empathize with my friend, Mindy Fenton, who says, “The first time I fed one of my dogs a raw chicken wing, I followed her around for three days, terrified that I was going to kill her, and waiting for that darned wing to come out whole because I was sure it would. Of course, she was perfectly fine, but it took some time before I became relaxed about feeding raw meaty bones.”

The choice of what to start with can vary according to your comfort level, and how likely you think your dogs are to gulp their food. Many people advocate feeding pieces that are too large to be swallowed, requiring the dog to chew on them first. This doesn’t always work, since large pieces become small pieces as the dog eats them, and he may still try to swallow pieces too large to go down easily.

I am most comfortable with feeding chicken necks and backs to my dogs; the bones are soft and easily chewed, and the pieces are small enough to be swallowed even if the dog does not chew them well (small dogs may have problems with chicken necks). Others feed chicken wings or leg quarters. If your dog is not protective of his food, you can try holding onto one end while she chews on the other, to help her learn to chew rather than gulp, but watch your fingers, and don’t try this if it makes your dog anxious.

Many people worry that their dogs may be too old to switch to a raw diet, but in my experience, older dogs do as well as younger ones with the change. My oldest dog was 13 years old when I switched him overnight to a raw diet, and he had no problems.

Most dogs do just fine when switched “cold turkey” from commercial food to a homemade diet, but a few will experience digestive upset. The longer a dog has been fed the same food with no variation, the more likely he is to have a problem if his diet is changed too quickly. Dogs that are prone to digestive upset may also benefit from a slower, more careful approach.

To make the change gradually, start by adding small amounts of fresh food to the current diet, then gradually increase. If problems develop, return to the prior diet and make the change more carefully once your dog’s digestive system is back to normal. That may include feeding the new food separately from the old (at least a few hours in between meals), or feeding only one new food at a time, to see if your dog reacts to any of the new ingredients.

The one exception to mixing foods is when you feed raw meaty bones. I find that the consumption of kibble interferes with the digestion of bones; digestive problems are more likely if you mix the two together. If you are feeding whole raw meaty bones, feed them separately from kibble, at least a few hours apart.

It’s fine to start with limited variety until you see how your dog does, but don’t feed just one food for long periods of time. Sometimes people will start with just chicken parts, for example, but this may lead to constipation if there is too much bone in the diet. While you may want to feed just chicken at the beginning, be sure to feed plenty of meat as well as bone, and don’t feed such a limited diet for more than a week or two.

If your dog has any problems with the new diet, back up and start again, making the change more slowly this time. Do not blame problems on “detox.” If your dog develops diarrhea or other forms of digestive upset, it is because his diet was changed too quickly, or because he is reacting to one or more of the ingredients in the new diet.

In that case, again, go back to what you were feeding before (or what you know your dog can tolerate without a problem), then add new foods one at a time in order to identify which one(s) are causing problems. Also, while most dogs improve when fed raw foods, a few cannot tolerate it for some reason and may need a cooked diet instead. There will be information on cooked diets in next month’s article.

The rewards
Preparing your dog’s meals yourself is not as easy as simply opening a can or pouring kibble out of a bag. However, once you’ve done the initial work of devising the diet and finding sources for the products you will feed, it isn’t terribly time-consuming. The actual preparation is fairly simple; the hardest part is buying products in bulk and then splitting them up into meal-sized portions for feeding. But the rewards can make it all worthwhile.

Most people who switch their dogs to a raw diet notice improvements even in dogs who seemed to be perfectly healthy before. Feeding a homemade diet may cost a little more, but many people report a decline in vet bills. Best of all is watching the enjoyment our dogs get from their meals, and taking pride in knowing we are doing the best we can for our dogs.

Mary Straus does research on canine health and nutrition as an avocation, and is owner of the DogAware.com website.

For many years, I fed my dogs the finest kibble diets I could find and thought I was doing the best I could for them. Then, in 1997, a seminar at Wolf Park in Indiana changed my life, and my dogs’ lives. Watching wolves tear into a whole deer carcass, I was struck by how far we have come from the natural diet that our dogs evolved to eat, and it started me thinking that maybe there was a better way.

After a year of research, I began feeding my dogs a homemade raw diet in December 1998. At the time, I had two dogs who suffered from environmental allergies, and one dog (Piglet) on Rimadyl for arthritis. To my surprise, within three months one of my dogs became completely allergy-free, and Piglet no longer needed Rimadyl for arthritis pain. The third dog improved, but continued to have some problems with allergies.

Not every dog with health problems gets better when switched to a homemade diet, but throughout the years, I’ve heard many first-hand accounts of dogs with serious conditions who improved or even completely recovered following such a diet change. People whose dogs suffered from seizures, IBD and other digestive disorders, allergies (both food and environmental), skin problems, chronic ear infections, arthritis, and more have seen their dogs’ symptoms reduced or eliminated after they began feeding a homemade diet.

At first, it seems counterintuitive that a diet change would affect disorders like environmental allergies, seizures, or arthritis, but there are several factors involved. Poor-quality and overprocessed ingredients, artificial colors and preservatives, hormones, antibiotics, and other chemicals can contribute to overall ill-health and create or increase allergic sensitivity.

Carbohydrates that are often 50 percent or more of dry dog foods are harder to digest than animal proteins and can lead to inflammation in the body.

In contrast, homemade canine diets, particularly those that have few or no grains or starchy carbs, are higher in protein (which supports both the skin and the immune system) and are easier to digest (which can improve the health of the digestive tract and keep the body’s immune system from becoming overreactive).

Grains and other carbohydrates may cause problems due to allergic reactions, gluten intolerance, difficulty digesting carbs, or other factors. If your dog is overweight or suffers from any of the ailments listed above, you may want to try feeding a homemade diet without grains or starchy carbs to see if your dog improves.

Healthy dogs also benefit from a homemade diet. Fresh foods supply nutrients in their natural form, whole and complete. Processing causes foods to lose much of their nutritional value, which must then be added back in synthetic form (that long list of chemicals at the end of dog food ingredient lists). Processed foods can also contain potentially harmful substances, such as oxidized fats and acrylamide, a carcinogen formed when high-carbohydrate foods are cooked at high temperatures. When you prepare your dog’s food yourself, you control all of the ingredients, making it easy to avoid any foods your dog may react to, and to adjust the diet as needed based on weight, activity level, health conditions, and any other specific needs your dog may have.

There are many different types of homemade diets, including raw and cooked diets, with or without grains; diets that contain whole, raw, meaty bones or ground raw bone; diets without bone that use a different form of calcium supplement; and diets that add fresh raw or cooked foods to a commercial pre-mix.

While feeding a homemade diet sounds like a good idea, it’s not easy to figure out what that entails, or how to ensure that you provide all the nutrition that your dog needs. Despite what some will try to tell you, there is no one “right” way to feed your dogs. Each dog is an individual, and what works for one may not work for another. The best way to feed your dog may also depend on how much time and effort you are able to devote to putting together a proper diet. While fresh foods are healthier than processed foods, a good commercial diet is better than a poorly designed homemade diet. If you don’t feel comfortable preparing a diet yourself, you can still improve the diet you feed by adding fresh foods.

You can consider this article and those that follow in the coming months as a “short course” on preparing your dog’s food yourself, but we also suggest that anyone who wants to feed their dogs a homemade diet read at least one book (preferably more) on the subject before beginning, in order to have a better understanding of your dog’s nutritional needs and how they are met by the foods we provide.

Don’t rely on recipes
One thing we will not do is provide specific recipes for you to follow. It is exceedingly difficult to ensure that your dog gets all the nutrients he needs if you feed the same food all the time. Even following a diet that has been evaluated using a spreadsheet and compared to the AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) or NRC (National Research Council) standards does not ensure the diet will be nutritionally complete, for several reasons.

Just as with our own diets, what’s considered “good,” “optimal,” or even “essential” is continually changing. The nutrtional levels established by AAFCO are based on older guidelines published by the NRC in 1985, and as yet, have not been updated following the release of newer NRC standards in 2006.

A good example of how these standards can change is the discovery in 1987 that cats were dying of heart failure due to a lack of adequate taurine in cat food. Previously, the NRC did not recognize taurine as an essential nutrient for cats, and no one knew how much cats required. Now, newer research shows that taurine may also be conditionally essential in the dog’s diet, though there are as yet no standards requiring it. Ongoing research reveals more all the time, but this is an endless task. There is simply no way to know for certain exactly what nutrients, in what combinations, our dogs need for optimal health.

In 1985, the NRC warned in its introduction to Nutrient Requirements of Dogs that “caution is advised in the use of these requirements without demonstration of nutrient availability, because in some cases requirements have been established on the basis of studies in which nutrients were supplied by highly purified ingredients where digestibility and availability were not compromised by the interaction of dietary constituents and effects of processing. Practical diets formulated from commonly used ingredients are not free of such interactions and effects, and therefore may provide less available nutrients than the amounts measured by chemical analysis.

“For this reason, such diets formulated to the chemically assayed nutrient levels expressed in Table 2 [Required Minimum Concentrations of Available Nutrients in Dog Food Formulated for Growth] may prove inadequate in meeting the nutritional needs of dogs”(our emphasis).

They add, “Finally, although data are unavailable for the dog, it should be recognized that inclusion of large amounts of fiber in the diet may adversely affect nutrient availability.” In the Overview section at the beginning of the 2006 edition, the authors admit, “An extensive amount of new research conducted since the previous National Research Council publications on dogs and cats was available for the NRC report, yet several gaps still exist in our knowledge of requirements for specific nutrients.”

In addition to not knowing for certain what dogs require, we also cannot know exactly what nutrients are contained in the foods we feed. A spreadsheet analysis of a diet, even if done by a veterinary nutritionist, does not guarantee that the diet actually supplies exactly those levels of nutrients. The figures in the USDA Nutrient Database that are used to determine nutritional value are averages. The source and handling of foods can have a considerable impact on their nutritional value, based on such factors as whether livestock are fed grains or grass, whether the plants fed to them were grown in soil that was depleted of minerals, how fresh the food is, and whether or not it was frozen.

Many recipes, including those recommended by veterinarians and nutritionists, make no effort to be nutritionally complete and simply tell you to add a “complete and balanced vitamin/mineral supplement,” with no further guidance. Since supplements vary widely, there is no way of knowing whether this would even come close to meeting your dog’s needs.

We simply cannot know enough about nutrition to say with certainty that any single recipe is sufficient to meet all nutritional requirements. Feeding your dog the same recipe every day is equivalent to feeding your child a diet of nothing but Total cereal. If it doesn’t make sense for a child, why would it make sense for our dogs?

Variety is the key
Just as with our own diets, the best way to ensure that our dogs receive all the nutrients they need is to feed a wide variety of fresh, healthy foods in appropriate proportions.

Dr. Mike Richards says on his VetInfo.com website, “I think the major problem with owner-prepared diets is an attempt to satisfy the needs of pets by making one recipe and not varying it. I strongly suspect that if pets were fed a variety of foods that approximates the food triangle suggested for humans, an adequate diet would be obtained. On the other hand, trying to formulate a single recipe that meets the needs of pets long term is very, very difficult to do.”

Variety is important no matter what type of diet you feed. Even if you use commercial foods, it is best to find at least two or three different brands, using different protein sources, and rotate between them, anywhere from daily to every few months.

Also, even “complete and balanced” diets may contain quite different levels of nutrients. If you always feed the same food, any nutritional deficiencies or excesses present in that food will affect your dog over time. The same is true if you feed different varieties made by the same company, since they tend to use the same vitamin/mineral formulations in all of their foods.

Your dog is also more likely to develop food allergies if fed the same food all the time. It takes time for an allergy to develop, typically months to years. Dogs that are fed the same food for extended periods of time will often develop allergies to one or more of the ingredients in that food. Variety is particularly important for puppies, since puppyhood is when the immune system learns which foods are normal and not a cause for reaction.

The only restriction to consider in terms of feeding lots of variety is to reserve at least some of the exotic proteins in case a novel protein is needed to test for or treat food allergies. There’s no need to feed venison, duck, rabbit, ostrich, buffalo, kangaroo, and beaver to your dog. Save some of them in case they are needed in the future.

Three basic rules
Feeding a homemade diet is not as complicated as it might seem. There are only three rules:

1. Variety
2. Balance over time
3. Calcium

Variety means feeding lots of different foods, such as beef, lamb, chicken, turkey, pork, fish, eggs, and dairy. Vegetables, fruits, and grains can also be added in limited quantities. Variety also means feeding different parts, such as muscle meat, heart, liver, and other organs. Different types of meat and different cuts of meat all have different nutrient profiles, so you provide a wider nutritional range by varying what you feed. It’s fine to use a few staples but you should not feed just one or two foods to the exclusion of everything else.

Balance over time: When you feed a homemade diet, it is not necessary that every meal be “complete and balanced,” as the commercial dog foods are. Just as with our own diets, it’s only important that the diet be balanced over time, with nutritional needs being met over a period of days to weeks. It is only when you feed the same food every day that you need to be concerned about that food alone supplying everything that your dog needs.

It is imperative that all homemade diets provide the right amount of calcium. The bones included in most raw diets will supply all the calcium needed. If you feed a diet that does not include edible bones, you will need to add specific amounts of calcium supplements. Our upcoming article on cooked and raw diets that do not include bone will provide detailed information as to how much calcium you need to add to your dog’s home-prepared diet.

Raw feeding myths
Many questions arise when we consider the idea of feeding raw meat, eggs, and bones to our dogs. What about the bacteria in raw meat and eggs? Isn’t it dangerous to feed whole bones? Is too much protein harmful? We’ll address these issues briefly below; if you like, you can refer to entire articles we have devoted to each topic in the past.

• Bacteria

Dogs’ systems were designed to handle bacteria. It’s generally thought that their stomachs contain a stronger concentration of stomach acid than ours, making their digestive systems more efficient at killing most bacteria. Also, in relation to our digestive system, their digestive tracts are shorter and simpler, which helps move food through quickly, without giving bacteria a chance to proliferate.

Consider the fact that, in the wild, wolves eat carrion, and bury food to eat days or weeks later, with no harmful effect. Our own dogs even eat stool without becoming ill. While it is possible for dogs to be affected by bacteria found in raw food and elsewhere, it is unusual.

Many of the bacteria we worry about, such as salmonella and E. coli, are commonly found in the intestines of healthy dogs. Dogs who are stressed, ill, or immune-compromised may be more susceptible to problems from bacteria. While many dogs on chemotherapy and with other serious health problems have no problems with raw meat, you may want to cook their food instead. You can also soak raw meat in food-grade hydrogen peroxide, though this will not work for ground meat, which is also likely to have a higher bacterial load. Keep in mind that commercial foods are also often contaminated with bacteria.

Raw pork, which can be a source of trichinosis and Aujeszky’s Disease (pseudorabies), often causes particular anxiety. Both of these diseases, however, have been just about completely eradicated from USDA-inspected products in this country, though they may still be a concern elsewhere, or if you obtain meat from a local farm that has not been inspected. Freezing for three weeks should make the meat safe. Note that trichinosis is also found in carnivorous wild game, including bear and wild boar, and in that case, freezing will not kill it.

Freezing will also kill certain other parasites, such as tapeworms and toxoplasma, but it does not kill bacteria. See “What Evil Lurks Within?” WDJ August 2000, for information about bacteria and raw diets.

• Biotin deficiency

Another question that often comes up in discussions about home-prepared canine diets has to do with the avidin in raw egg whites causing a biotin deficiency, but there is no need to worry. Egg yolks contain biotin, which balances out the avidin in the egg whites when you feed whole eggs. Cooking, however, deactivates avidin and may make egg whites more digestible, so it’s also fine to feed eggs that are soft- or hard-boiled, or lightly scrambled.

• Bones

What about bones? Haven’t we heard from the time we were children that you should never give chicken bones to dogs? That’s true, if you’re talking about cooked bones. Cooking makes bones hard, dry, and splintery. There is no question that cooked bones are dangerous for dogs.

Raw bones are much softer and more flexible, and are easily digested by most dogs. Those of us who feed our dogs a raw diet commonly feed what are called “raw meaty bones” (RMBs), parts that include edible bone along with at least half meat, and that are fully (or mostly) consumed. In addition to the nutritional value they provide, RMBs are also a source of chewing pleasure and help to keep teeth clean and gums healthy. Examples include chicken necks, backs, and leg quarters; turkey necks; lamb breast and necks; and pork breast (riblets) and necks.

Most dogs do fine with raw meaty bones, but a few may have problems, especially if they try to swallow large chunks. While it is unusual, dogs have been known to choke, especially when fed pieces that are round and meaty. Turkey necks are the parts that most frequently cause choking in large dogs, while chicken necks can cause the same problem in small dogs.

You should always supervise your dogs while they are eating, and it’s a good idea to know how to do the Heimlich maneuver on dogs, just in case. Small dogs are also more susceptible to esophageal damage from bones. There are risks and benefits to feeding whole bones and the decision whether or not to feed them is a personal one. Keep in mind that choking or esophageal damage can also be caused by greenies, tennis balls, rawhides, sticks, and even kibble.

If you’re concerned about dangers from whole bones, you can grind the bones or cut them into bite-sized pieces. You can also cook bones to softness in a pressure cooker (the only kind of cooked bones that are safe to feed). You can still give your dogs recreational bones, ones that your dog cannot consume, for chewing pleasure and dental health.

People also worry about dogs breaking teeth on bones. This is more of a concern with recreational bones, particularly those that the dog can fit between his molars and crunch down on, such as marrow bones. These weight-bearing bones are much harder than the RMBs that are consumed. Knuckle bones are less likely to cause tooth damage because dogs can’t fit them into their mouths and bite down on them.

Most of the RMBs that are recommended for dogs are soft, at least to a dog’s jaws. Beef bones, in contrast, are quite hard. I know of dogs, including my own, who have broken teeth on beef ribs and neck bones. Many people give these to their dogs as recreational bones but large dogs may consume them. Teeth do become more brittle with age, so you may need to exercise more caution as your dogs age. For more information about feeding bone in the diet, see “Bones of Contention,” September 2000. For information about recreational chew bones, see “Dem Bones,” August 2003.

• Excessive protein

Lastly, there is no danger in feeding a high-protein diet to puppies or senior dogs (see “Diet and the Older Dog,” December 2006). Studies have proved that high protein does not cause orthopedic problems in puppies, nor kidney disease in older dogs.

Protein is highly beneficial; it supports the immune system and the central nervous system, contributes to healthy skin and coat and to wound healing, and helps to maintain lean body mass while lowering the percentage of body fat. Dogs fed a high-protein diet are often calmer and less hyper than dogs fed on high-carb diets. Higher protein is one of the major benefits of feeding a homemade diet to dogs, though you can also increase the protein level by adding fresh, high-protein foods to a commercial diet.

Adding fresh food to a commercial diet
If you are not ready to make the switch to a homemade diet, you can still improve your dog’s diet by adding fresh foods to his dry or canned food. Despite the warnings from pet food manufacturers, you will not unbalance the diet by adding a moderate percentage of fresh foods – you should be able to replace about 25 percent of the diet with fresh foods without concern. When you start to feed more than that, it becomes more important to feed variety and proper proportions. If you want to feed 50 percent or more as fresh food, then you should add organs along with other foods, and you should consider adding calcium if you are not feeding bones. The more fresh food you feed, the greater the importance of variety and proportions, as well as calcium, becomes. More information will be provided in future articles.

Good foods to add to a commercial diet include eggs and meat (raw or cooked), canned fish with bones (jack mackerel, salmon, sardines), yogurt or kefir, cottage cheese, and healthy leftovers. Raw meaty bones can also be fed, though it’s best if they’re not combined with kibble in the same meal. You can add veggies and fruit in small amounts, but remember that commercial foods are already high in carbohydrates, so there is little benefit in adding more. I would not recommend adding grains to a commercial diet at all.

Puppies and seniors will benefit from the addition of high-quality fresh foods as much or more than younger adult dogs will. A high-protein diet is good for almost all dogs and will not cause harm.

Norma Crawley of Ardmore, Oklahoma, reports, “Since I began incorporating raw with kibble, our three dogs do everything short of tucking their napkins in and clicking their silverware together at dinnertime. They dine as if they are at “21.” They seem happier, healthier, and they are my constant shadows from late afternoon through the evening. It’s made such a positive difference in three canine lives, and mine too. I’ve always fed a high quality kibble through the years, but who knew this raw business could be so much fun, and so good for them?”

Mary Straus does research on canine health and nutrition topics as an avocation. She is the owner of the DogAware.com website. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her dog Piglet, a 15-year-old Chinese Shar-Pei.