Homemade Dog Food Basics and a Sample 7-Day Plan

Cooking for your dog can feel like the most caring thing you can do. You control the ingredients, you can avoid foods your dog does not tolerate, and many dogs clearly enjoy it. But homemade dog food has one big catch: it is surprisingly easy to get wrong, and the problems rarely show up quickly. A diet that is missing a nutrient can look fine for months before a dog develops skin, bone, heart or other health problems.

This guide explains how a homemade dog diet is structured, what to watch out for, and shows a sample 7-day rotation you can use as a starting point for a conversation with a professional. It is not a finished recipe. Please read the nutritionist section carefully before you cook anything.

Important: get your recipe from a veterinary nutritionist

The single most important piece of advice in this article is to have your dog's recipe formulated or reviewed by a board-certified veterinary nutritionist, or by a veterinarian working with one. The American College of Veterinary Nutrition lists board-certified specialists, and many veterinary schools offer nutrition consultations. A widely cited 2013 analysis in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association looked at recipes for home-prepared dog diets from books and websites and found that the large majority were missing at least one essential nutrient. The WSAVA Global Nutrition Guidelines also recommend that home-prepared diets be formulated by a qualified nutritionist.

A recipe built for your specific dog (age, weight, activity level and any health conditions) will contain amounts in grams, a defined calcium source, and a vitamin and mineral supplement. That is what makes it nutritionally complete. Everything below is background for that conversation, not a replacement for it.

What a complete homemade diet contains

Dogs are omnivores and need around 40 essential nutrients: amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals. A well-built homemade recipe usually has these building blocks:

• A cooked protein source, such as chicken, turkey, lean beef, pork, fish or eggs. Protein supplies essential amino acids.
• A cooked carbohydrate source, such as rice, potato, sweet potato, oats or barley, for energy and fibre.
• Vegetables, such as carrots, green beans, pumpkin, spinach or broccoli, for fibre and some micronutrients.
• A fat or oil source, such as fish oil, for essential fatty acids and a healthy skin and coat.
• A calcium source. Meat is high in phosphorus and low in calcium, so a diet built mostly from meat and grains needs added calcium in a measured amount.
• A vitamin and mineral supplement designed for homemade diets, in the amount your recipe calls for. Ordinary human multivitamins are not a substitute.

The amounts are the part most people get wrong. Dogs do not need the same mix as people, and the right ratios depend on the dog. For example, large-breed puppies are particularly vulnerable to excess or shortage of calcium, which can affect bone development, so a puppy should never be fed an unreviewed homemade diet.

Safety basics

• Cook meat, eggs and fish thoroughly. Raw ingredients can carry bacteria, and raw salmon can carry a parasite that causes salmon poisoning disease in dogs.
• Remove all bones, including fish bones. Cooked bones can splinter.
• Never include onion, garlic, chives, leeks, grapes, raisins, macadamia nuts, chocolate, or anything sweetened with xylitol. See our guide to foods toxic to dogs and cats.
• Skip heavy seasoning, salt and cooking fats. Plain is best.
• Be careful with liver and other organ meats, which are rich in vitamin A and other nutrients. Use only the amounts in your recipe.
• Refrigerate cooked batches and use them within about three days, freezing the rest in meal-sized portions.

How much to cook

Portion size comes from your dog's daily calorie target. A resting energy estimate is 70 x body weight in kg to the power of 0.75, multiplied by a life-stage factor, which is about 1.6 for a neutered adult. Our feeding calculator works this out in kg or lb, and our guide to how much to feed a dog by weight has a chart. Your nutritionist's recipe will tell you the grams of each ingredient that supply that number of calories, so you will need a kitchen scale. Measuring in cups is not accurate enough for a homemade diet.

Sample 7-day rotation (a structure, not a recipe)

The table below shows how a week of meals might be organised, with one protein, one carbohydrate and one or two vegetables each day. Every meal also needs the oil, calcium source and vitamin and mineral supplement from your nutritionist's recipe, in the amounts they specify. Rotating ingredients adds variety, but note that each recipe must cover every required nutrient on its own. Mixing and matching ingredients from different days without checking can break the balance.

To turn this into a safe plan, bring the table to your veterinarian or nutritionist and ask them to build each day's recipe to your dog's calorie target, with the correct oil, calcium and supplement. Some owners decide to use a single balanced recipe all week instead and rotate commercial treats and toppers, which is simpler and just as valid.

Alternatives to cooking everything from scratch

If the amount of work or the risk puts you off, there are good middle roads. You can add small amounts of safe, cooked toppers to a commercial food that meets AAFCO nutrient standards, as long as the toppers stay small, usually under about 10 percent of daily calories. Commercial fresh and gently cooked diets formulated by veterinary nutritionists are also available. Look for a statement that the food meets AAFCO nutrient standards for your dog's life stage, and ideally that a qualified nutritionist is on staff.

Signs to watch for

Check in with your vet regularly if you feed a homemade diet, ideally with periodic weight, body condition and bloodwork checks. Contact them sooner if you notice a dull or thinning coat, skin problems, low energy, weight loss or gain, changes in stool, or stiffness and lameness.

Keeping a homemade diet on track

Cooking from scratch is a routine you have to maintain: weighing, batching, freezing, and remembering the supplements. PetKira helps by giving you a place to log each meal, set feeding reminders and share the routine with everyone in your household, so your dog gets the right portions at the right time. You can download PetKira for Android and start a free trial with no credit card. iPhone is coming soon.

This article is general information, not veterinary advice, and the sample rotation is not a nutritionally complete recipe. Please speak to your veterinarian before you change your dog's diet.