I used to work for a woman who raised fox hounds. I needed an extra job for a $6000 horse surgery, so my vet hooked me up. Anyways, my first day, she told me wich kennel got wich bucket of food, and how much food went into each one. Then she introduced me to the food shed. There was not a bag of dog kibble in sight! I had to hand mix each dogs food to her specific instructions with ingredients such as oats, flax seed, bone meal and about 5 other things that i can not recall. Then add a certain amount of water to make a pasty slop. Can you imagine making food for 40 dogs? Anyways, I was wondering if anyone had ever done this, or have known anyone to do this? All her dogs were healthy with great weight, skin, coat, and eyes. They also seemed to love the food, not one of the dogs ever refused it!

I haven't done it personally but I have helped family members make their own homecooked diets by created meal plans for them. I wouldn't be opposed to the idea of homecooking for my dogs but why cook when you can feed raw?

As for raw, that should qualify as making your own dogs food in the sense that I think you are asking, Jill. I do feed raw 3-4 days a week for my dogs so in a sense I do make their food to a degree. The other 3-4 days of the week I feed prepared foods like The Honest Kitchen, Grandma Lucy's, Stella & Chewy's, Ziwipeak, Blue Buffalo, etc.

This wasnt cooked. It was a scoop of this, a scoop of that, a sprinkle of this, and a cup of that. All throwed into a bucket, and mixed with water to form slop, and lined up in the dogs kennels for them to eat. I wish I could remmeber all of the ingredients, but all that I can recall is the flax seed, oats, and bone meal. This lady swore by her dogs diet, and said she would never buy bagged kibble or canned dog food. I just dont see it being healthy for the dogs, as it contained no meat, unles there was some ground up in the bone meal. Can dogs live off of a vegetarian diet? Like I said, they all seemed healthy, but I just dont see how!

Would this be considered raw feeding even though it containes no meat? When I think of raw, nasty chicken and inerds come to mind, not flax seed and oats.

I know people that do this for their horses, but I wouldn't feed it to a dog without more meat content, like you said.

Dogs can survive on a vegetarian diet...I don't know how but it's possible. There's even vegetarian kibble on the market.

I'm all for making one's own food assuming it is better than commercial diets, but dogs should be primarily on meat...it's what their bodies are built for. The bone meal in that persons diet is excellent for supplying necessary calcium and nutrients but I would not feed that diet without meat. Otherwise it sounds decent, I would add some other supplements in there though. I would expect to see deficiencies on a diet like that long term.

i<3neo wrote:

Would this be considered raw feeding even though it containes no meat? When I think of raw, nasty chicken and inerds come to mind, not flax seed and oats.

Technically it would be raw if all the ingredients are raw. HOWEVER, in the traditional sense of raw feeding it would not. Typically raw feeding refers to Prey Model Raw (PMR) or BARF (Bones & Raw Food or Biologically Appropriate Raw Food). Both standard raw feeding models are based on feeding raw meat as the bulk of the diet.