Raw Dog Food

I just mixed up the dog's food for the next month. I feed the smaller dogs raw food, the bigger one gets a mixture of kibble and raw. I have had a few people ask how I mix up the dog's food. I don't have an exact recipe but I will give a general overview of how I make the food. I am by no means an animal nutritionist and this mixture works for my pets, If you use this, you are responsible for making sure your animals are getting the vitamins and other nutrition that they need.



I have 2 dogs that eat 1/4 a cup of raw a day each so these number s work for me. I don't really measure, I just kind of eyeball.

Container of Chicken Livers

A bag of dog greensBag of UPCO Bone Meal
Container of Plain yogurtCan of Crushed Pineapple

mixed vegitablesA carton of eggs



Pictures above are a basic ingredient list and not an endorsement of a brand

Notes:

  • I often will find cheap steaks and or chicken pieces and will grind them up in place of the ground version below. 
  • Veggies Try different veggies. Frozen is good, fresh is better but a pain to work with. canned lose a lot of nutrients. I use frozen. Check online to make sure the veggies you pick are ok for your dogs. Do not go veggie heavy or the dog may not eat it. 
  • For the stock, any kind works but dogs naturally prefer meat flavor.
  • Read here on nutritional needs for dogs


Pre-setup


Prepare about 3 cups of plain white rice and allow to cool. do NOT use minute rice or anything like it. you want real rice.

Step 1

1 Can of real pumpkin
8 oz of salt-free stock beef/chicken/vegetable
½ to 1 pound chicken livers hearts and giblets (You can also use beef liver)
2 12 oz packages of frozen veggies (Research to ensure the veggies are safe for dogs.)
1 container plain yogurt
4-6 eggs
2 cans of crushed pineapple Optional
Bone Meal
Dog Greens

I put the vegetables into my Vitamix and blend them to a fine grind then add them to a decent sized mixing bowl. Note I do this because my dogs sort out the vegetables and won't eat them if this is not a problem for you, just add them whole or in larger chunks, I then add the eggs, shells and all, into the Vitamix and blend them till the shells are crushed. Not too long, just keep an eye on it to see the shells are broken up. I will add this to the bowl of fine ground vegetables. I will add my yogurt,broth and pumpkin to this mixture. With smaller dogs, I blend the chicken livers, hearts, and giblets but larger dogs won't need this, you can just cut them to a nice size and add it to the meat mixture below. I will add 2x 20 oz crushed pineapple to this mixture. I do this because my dog has coprophagia which means he basically eats dog poop. The pineapple helps to prevent this.I will add my bonemeal and Dog Greens at this time also. I don't really measure them I just add maybe a 1/4 cup of bonemeal and a splash of dog greens. The dog greens will turn everything super green in color if you add too much, it won't hurt the dog but it will remind you not to do it again. Give this a good stir or use a mixer with a dough or meat hook. It may be watery that is fine.


Step 2


2 lbs Higher fat ground beef
2-3 pounds ground chicken or turkey or both
2 pounds ground pork
2-3 cups cooked plain white rice


Pour all the meat into a large bowl and using a mixer with a dough or meat hook stir the meats together until they are well mixed. If you did not blend your hearts and livers etc in the above step, add it now, Add the rice and allow it to mix in really well. you should not see clumps of any one type of meat or rice. When it is well mixed pour the vegetable mixture you prepared previously into the meat mixture while continuing to stir. You want your meat mixture wet but not sopping. you should be able to make a very loose meatball with the meat, it won't hold it's shape but it will form the meatball. that is the perfect texture. Fill your Containers and place in the freezer, keep one out to feed your pooch When thawing the mixture please do so in the refrigerator to ensure that the meat does not start growing bacteria. This means you will need to take the food out to thaw at the very least one day before its needed. If you are taking out more than one container do not stack them or some may not thaw.

A large bowl of raw dog food


Storage

Glad Freezerware disposable containers size small. We use 8 of these but again the container and size will depend on how much you make and how quickly you use the food. We find that the food starts to get 'ripe' after 3 days so we never take out more than a 3 day supply at once. One of these containers is exactly 3 days for my two dogs. The containers can be washed and reused. we are still using the first ones we got, which was about 10 to 15 uses ago as of this update, and they are still going strong.  I can not say for sure how long they will last.

Packaged raw dog food being frozen

Category: 3 comments

Seeing Eye Guide Dog School

Today's post it was written by my husband and deals with his thoughts on being a blind handler of a guide dog. Please take a moment to read this and maybe consider donating $5 or $10 to an amazing cause.

The Seeing Eye gets most of their money from Donations. A very small portion of the cost of a dog (About $40,000-$50,000 per dog from breeding to the dog going home with a blind handler) comes from the actual student/blind handler

From their faq:

Each student is asked to pay $150 for his or her first visit to The Seeing Eye and $50 for each subsequent visit. Those who served in the armed forces pay $1. This fee, unchanged since 1934, includes the cost of the dog and its initial equipment; the student's instruction with the dog; room and board during the 18 to 25 days the student spends at the school; round-trip transportation from anywhere in the United States or Canada; and lifetime follow-up services. This payment, which may be made in installments, covers a fraction of the actual cost. To the student, however, it represents dignity and self-respect. No one has ever been denied a Seeing Eye dog for lack of funds.


From the mind of Ken.

I grew up a middle son of two loving parents. I have a younger brother that I have never quite been as smart as, and an older brother that I was never as cool as. I was deep into sports and girls and knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. That was simple. I wanted to follow my father into the Air Force and that is exactly what I did.
I never had much patience and thinking things through were never my strong points. I actually liked to do things on the spur of the moment rather than having to plan things out. So let me just tell you that when I very abruptly lost my sight in the military things came to a grinding stop.
Don’t get me wrong. I was never one of those people who sat and cried and thought I would die. I had a deep faith in God that told me there are bigger better things. Not only that but there was little in this world that I thought could beat me. Maybe it was the way my parents raised me. Maybe it was the fact that I followed my older brother into wrestling just to see if the chubby guy could do as good as the skinny guy. Maybe it was that when they told me I was too small to play football it just ticked me off.
Whatever it was I have it in spades and blindness just didn’t scare me. With that all said. There was one problem. The slow pace of a cane just ticked me off. I have stepped off two-foot drops because I am in too much of a hurry to check. I have ended up in places where I should not be because I am in too much of a hurry to listen. I had trouble crossing streets because of the vehicles on the parallel streets just sound way too close so I would end up veering too much away from the main street as I crossed a side street and believe me there are amazing things that can happen when you do diagonal cane travel when you think you’re going straight. I have ended up flat on my back because the cane didn’t see something chest high. So I knew I had to fix the speed and safety of travel.
The other thing I knew from the first day my Mom walked into the ICU and told me that I was going to be blind the rest of my life, bar any technical advances. I knew I wanted a guide dog. Don’t ask me where I had heard of Guide Dogs. It could have been a high school class. It could have been anywhere. I know that I wrestled a blind guy once in High school but he didn’t have one. From those first months in the hospital though I could not wait to get out and try my luck at a guide dog. Unfortunately, rehab was long because of all the surgeries. Then I of course had to learn cane skills first because to be a good guide dog handler, you really need to know how to travel on your own.
With that, all said things really changed two days after I stepped into Seeing Eye and sat and called my first guide dog to me. His name was Aztec and when I called him he raced across the floor and jumped into my lap on the chair. Now judging by the reactions of the trainers this was neither totally unheard of nor was it something that he was supposed to do.
From that point on it felt like some giant hand reached down and started pulling my derailed life back on track. Sure I was no longer in the military and unless they started some top secret blind Air Academy I probably wouldn’t be going down that path again. That said though Aztec made me feel free again. There is just something about being behind a guide dog that can travel at the same speed as sighted people.
It takes a bit of faith and a lot of trust to follow at the speeds these dogs move at. Not only that but judging by the 2 Guides I have had since him and all the guides I have met. There was something special about Aztec. They tell me he was extra young to be going out at 18 months old and from what they said he was pulled out of the class early because his personality fit me so well and he was ready. That was an understatement.
Aztec understood English probably better than some 3-year-old kids. He could learn a route in one take which was perfect for a guy that was going to college and who had to change classes every quarter. Heck one time I lost my shoe and was going to be late for a bus. I was so angry when he came up and poked me I shouted stop if you want to help go get my shoe. He did. I never yelled at him for bugging me again.
Aztec took me through my first years of college. He even made it possible for me to feel brave enough to go by myself a good 3000 miles on a flight to meet a young lady that I had to that point only known on the internet. He walked down the aisle with me before I married that young lady. He went through the long sessions of paperwork and court while I adopted my 3 children. He was with me through getting my Bachelors. He was with me through 3 moves. He gave me the ability not have to leave hours early to get somewhere and the confidence to know I would get there.
My only wish is that Seeing eye could come up with a way to make guide dogs live as long as we live. Aztec was my first but I went back to get another. Armory which I named Aiden because Armory was just too long for me was a totally different beast. He was smart. He was an amazing guide but he was a brat. He made me watch him like a hawk but when he worked he worked like a champ. He had his things he did better than Aztec but there was never that soul wrenching bond between me and Aiden like there was between Aztec and I. I think I must have been blessed to have Aztec first he taught me a lot about Guide dogs and I use those lessons to this day with my current guide Sirus.
I could write a book on all the events with Aztec, Aiden, and Sirus. My wife, however, is reading over my shoulder and said something about me already writing a book. That was not my intention, though. I mainly just wanted to give you a feel of what these dogs, these amazing dogs, do for us. They don’t just lead us around obstacles, that is just their job. What they do is give us the speed, freedom, and confidence, some of us have lost and some of us never knew we could have. So I want to say thanks to Seeing Eye and thanks to anyone who will put some money down to help them continue to train these amazing friends and companions.
Thanks, Ken