Welcome to Home Cooked Guidelines

Basic Recipe - feeds a 50lb dog for about one day - increase or decrease amount prepared according to your dog's size

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• 10 ounces of cooked meat

• 6 to 7 ounces of steamed grated vegetables

• 1/2 tsp of salt

• 750  mg of bone meal (NOT the plant kind) or calcium citrate (available from drug or health food stores)

• Missing Link - using an amount appropriate for the dog's weight

Vary the type of meat and vegetables used, to guard against food sensitivities or nutritional deficiencies arising from always using the same ingredients

Lightly cooked meats have a higher nutrient content than fully cooked meats

Try to use organ meats at least a few days a week

Avoid carbohydrates, unless your pet has trouble gaining weight

Carbohydrates include:

• wheat

• corn

• rice

• oats

• grains

• potatoes

• peas

Vegetables are used to supply the right amount of carbohydrates. Any vegetable is okay. Grate and/or steam vegetables to make them digestible.

Good vegetables to use are apples, lettuce, broccoli, beans, yams, carrots, squash, parsnips, spinach, kale, parsley and garlic.

Prepared frozen meat and vegetable diets, sold to be fed raw, can be instead lightly stir-fried and fed as a home-cooked diet. Do not cook raw food diets that contain bone fragments.

A raw quartered "knuckle bone" or other rounded bone can be given daily to help maintain dental health. Never feed poultry or pork bones, and never feed cooked bones.