How To Make Premium Dog Food From The Less Expensive Stuff - Page 1

With the price of dog food soaring higher each month and what it costs to feed your hungry canines, I have come up with a solution that works pretty well, atleast for my dogs.  

Okay, we all look at that inexpensive bag of dog food and even though the mfgr brags about how healthy it may be, we look at the ingredients to see if ground corn is the primary ingredient.  Some may check to see if it is even 3rd or 4th on the list.  Somewhere down the list, it's probably going to show up unless your spending a fortune on super premium dog foods, which maybe as high as $50+ per 35lb bag.  Of course you want your dog to eat well, and of course you want them to eat food that has meat in it and good ingredients that your vet would approve of.  By the way, when I say less expensive dog food, I am referring to the 3 star brands. Below that, your taking your chances with inert ingredients from China.

For a while, I too was buying those expensive bags of dog food that my dogs didn't always like either.  For some reason, they tend to like the less expensive dog foods better? Okay, so I have this $38 bag of dog food that has meat as the 1st two ingredients, but it smelled like crap and the dogs would just eat enough of it so they wouldn't starve to death.  By the way, you have to be careful about what the mfgr calls meat too. I don't call ground up bone meal alone anything near adaquate, if this is the primary ingredient, but people buy it because they are told it's a good source of calcium and protein.  So we started adding stuff like beef broth or some tuna to get them interested in eating it.  Then they would pick out the good stuff with their teeth and leave the rest behind;  a very clever trick I must say.  

Okay, now to the point of this message, which is how to simply enhance your dog food, make it higher in protein, and give them REAL meat off YOUR butcher block that they will do back flips for. You can turn a bag of dog food that may cost under $20 into a bag that may cost over $50.  This is how:

1-Buy yourself a heavy duty meat grinder.  I bought a nice one online made by Nesco for under a $100, including S&H.

2- When you are cutting up chicken, pork, or turkey, take out the neck & organs, wings, meaty bones, and whatever meat you can spare for your dogs. Throw them in a pot of water to boil for 20  minutes or so. Add a teaspoon of salt to the water also, which helps preserve this bone meal later.  I always throw away the skin and excess fat. This is very bad for your pets and can lead to artery plaquing and excess weight gain. Let it boil on low while you finish cutting up the poultry. After getting all the prime cuts off the turkey or chicken for yourself, cut up the carcus into small pieces and boil them. This will soften up the bone and help tenderize the meats. Yes, I did say carcus.

3- Put the boiling hot pieces of dog meat & bone, using thongs, into the meat grinder and press down, using your plunger tool that came with the grinder. Use the plate with the widest holes. Feed them in one by one until they get ground up. Don't over stuff the grinder with too much boney meat at once or it will jam up. Once you feed everything through, slowly pour the meat liquid into the grinder too. This will clear out the excess debris inside the auger tube. Once you finish doing this, turn off grinder and change out the plate with the widest holes to the plate with smaller holes, about 1/8" thick.  Put everthing through the grinder again slowly until it all clears the auger. Then add some water to clean out the grinder.  You now have rich mixture of ground up meat and bone meal.

4- Take soupy mixture and reboil it.  You may want to add some seasonings that your dogs like, such as a little garlic, onion powder, etc., but no more salt as you already added this and nothing spicey or hot. Keep it fairy bland.  Let it boil about 10-15 minutes, while your cleaning up the grinder.

5- Now, let is cool for about an hour.  Then put most of it in gallon sized bags to freeze. Keep about a quart of it for the refrigerator. Be sure to use a thoroughly clean and dry jar.

6- Add a couple of tablespoons per bowl of dog food and thoroughly mix it in. You have just added about 15-25% protein to the dog food and made it the primary ingredient.  Your dogs will never again argue with you about eating the dog food, even the most finicky dogs.

Notes- The bonemeal will last up to a couple of weeks in the frig. If it starts to smell tainted, take it out and reboil it for 20 minutes to kill any bacterias in the bone meal. Be sure to thoroughly sterilize the jar too with bleach, water, and a thorough rinsing. I have done this myself a few times and believe me, your dogs will be fine. Just be sure that you boil it long enough and use a clean jar. It will last a couple more weeks.

You can also add other ingredients that your dogs will like, such as vegetables, supplements, and herbs. Be sure to add these during your 1st grinding.

                                                                FAQs:

Question- How does Adding meat and other ingredients to less expensive dog food make it premium dog food?  I thought the idea was to eliminate the corn meal and the other crap that is added in?

Answer- Mfgs biggest expense is the cost of the meat they add. That is why the cheaper brands tend to skimp and give people soy bean and bone meal products with little protein. The rest is ground corn meal, rice, or some other grain and vitamins. Even some of the so called premium brands don't put a lot of protein into the dog food.  Your basically adding 15-25% more protein to their food and dogs should have at least 30-35% protein in their food, if they are very active, like mines. Less active dogs should get less protein added.  Your dog will also need carbohydrates added to their diet- kind of like meat and potatoes for us. If your concerned about weight issues, just use less dry dog food and more protein. Other than that, they may add a few extra vitamins and minerals for condition enhancements. 

As for inert ingredients, even the premium brand dog foods have this. Unless your going to spend the money to buy all natural, you can count on inert ingredients of some sort.

Question- All this trouble you go through and the expense of a grinder, how much are you really saving here?

Answer- Like I said, the best bags of dog food these days can cost $50+ per bag as opposed to a bag of the same weight that maybe cheaper at $25-30. Just for argument sake, lets say you save $20 per bag.  So lets do the math here:

  $30.00  1 Bag of Dog Food x12 (assuming a bag last 1 month)= $360
  $50.00 x12 (the premium stuff)                                             =$600
                                                                           Difference  =$240
                                                                        Meat Grinder =$100
                                                                    1st Year Savings=$140
                                                                   2nd Year Savings=$240

I think an hour of my time per month is worth $240 a year. I can put the savings towards yearly shots.

Question- My dog has special medical needs. Should I do this?

Answer- Of course, consult with your vet and follow their advice first, if you have any doubts. This is just an idea to help save pet owners money for their active dogs.

Question- I prefer to feed my dog raw meat, so why should I boil it?

Answer- US Food & Drug Administration discourages raw meat diets for your pets. You can read about this here:

http://www.fda.gov/AnimalVeterinary/NewsEvents/FDAVeterinarianNewsletter/ucm093853.htm

Of course there are those who will vehmenantly oppose this idea and that is fine, but read this article and get the facts before you do it.  You have to do what you feel is most safe for your pets once you have all the facts.

Question- Will ground up bone and carcus hurt my dogs?

Answer- That is why I suggested you do two grindings. The first is to chunk up the bones, but the second grinding, using the plate with smaller holes will finely grind the bone down into tiny bits that will easily pass through your dogs intestines. The bone marrow is full of protein and nutrients and is great for them.

Question- Raw bones will not hurt your dog, so why should I grind them up? 

Answer- The point here isn't whether or not your canine can digest raw bones vs cook bones. The point in grinding them up to make the bones more digestable for your dogs in order to prevent choking, blockages, and infections in the intestinal walls, which does happen from time to time.  If your one of those people that believe this is BS, then you do what you feel is best and take your chances later. As for me, I want to do everything I can to protect my pet's health and prevent expensive vet bills.

Question- How long have you been doing this? How has it worked for your dogs?

Answer- A few months now and my dogs look better than ever and are more active. My German Shepherd puppy, who is now 7 months old looks like an adult and is very healthy and active. Previous to this, they all acted kind of sluggish and my oldest lab never had any energy. Now I take them out on the turnpike bike trail and the two younger ones leave me in the dust for miles. The two older ones are starting to loose weight too because they are getting the exercise they need and more protein.  Absolutely no adverse effects.

Now I am not saying that I have scientific studies of any kind published on this idea for you skeptics out there. I have just noticed a big improvement in my dogs, since I started doing this. 

                                                                Final Note

Again folks, if you have any doubts, consult with your vet about your particular situation and follow their advice. I am not a veteranian or a certified animal specialist.  I just know what has worked successfully for my dogs and they love it and it has helped them.

My dog food is now $23.00 for 50#,
a few eggs, some cheese, a can of salmon, some chicken broth, a bone, a few meat scraps, left overs.
No sweat.
Three dogs.
No health problems, strong active dogs, shiny coats and winter fat, no meat grinder.

  Well, like I said, my dogs were picking out the good stuff and leaving the rest behind.  Anyway, it's just some food for thought :)

If mine leave any behind they miss a meal.
They never do.
Sometimes all they get is dry kibble without any extra's.

If my chocolate female doesn't like the dog food, she just won't eat anything.  So I would try to force her by starving her out, but after a missing a couple of meals, I became concerned about her health.  None of this is a problem anymore. She is gobbling faster than I can give it to her and wanting more.

I guess what I'm trying to convey is enhancing a basic kibble doesn't need to be so complicated.
anyway,
good luck with that.

Why not just give one meal raw? Cooking the food destroys the enzymes.

As a sample: Our dogs get

AM  Nero,  78-80lbs male 1 c kibble    PM 2 chicken backs, 1 chicken leg quarter OR 2 chicken backs, 1 lb venison, tripe ect...

AM Deuce, 88lbs male 1.5 C kibble   PM 3 chicken backs 1 chicken leg quarter, 3 chicken backs 1lb venison, trip etc..

AM Geena 60lb female .75 c kibble, PM 1-2 chicken backs .25 lb some kind of meat


Etc... Some days they get more, some days less. I also use raw eggs, turkey, beef, offal

I don't like the idea of cooking OR grinding. I like to just toss it to them, makes food prep that much easier.

Melissa

Lots of work to "make" a dog food "good", why not just feed a good kibble or raw?
Way easier.

If your dog is "picky", it's either not a food oriented dog, or just spoiled

Trust me, the longest they will hold it for is about 3 days tops.
If you are really that worried the dog will starve to death,
give them a little Nutri-cal on their tongue for the days they turn their nose up.

Dogs won't starve to death, you will suffer more from guilt than the dog will.
Put the food in the dish, walk away for no more than 5 minutes, come back, remove the dish.
Offer the same food the next day if not eaten, by the third day, I bet Fluffy will eat when it's in front of her.

This may SOUND good BUT you are not taking into account all the bad stuff that is already in the cheap kibble and no matter what you add it is all still in there!!

Known cancer causing ingredients such as the terrible preservatives used and other known carcinogens are in ALL cheap food!!!

The color dyes are just as bad and do not cook out.

The listing of just "meat" as an ingredient means that it could be anything... including dogs, cats, horses etc. Also even listed meats can come from just as terrible sources such as diseased animals and animals that have been on medications before dying and being used for dog food. The medications DO NOT COOK OUT!

All that corn, wheat, and soy is STILL in there as cheap fillers and huge stool makers because dog's systems can not digest the grain properly to get all the nutrients out of it, so it comes out the back end as massive feces.

Also remember that they don't have to list ALL of the ingredients in the food and you can bet a cheap food is going to have many other bad ingredients also.

Massive amounts of sodium and "flavor" enhancers are added to cheap food so that the dogs will like the taste and smell.

After all is said and done you are still giving your dog terrible food, no matter what you add!!!!!!!! Terrible idea in my view!!!!
Only using this proposed diet for "a few months" does not constitute any kind of accurate analysis. The dog's improved energy and the other improvements listed are most likely ONLY from the good things that are now being given. Just the fact that the dogs were not acting normally before should be anyone's clue that the food is bad in the first place!  
  Debby

I think Costco now has a fairly decent grain free food for about $1 a lb. I agree with djc, it isn't what isn't in the premium foods it's what is in there that keeps me away. It's like giving your kids a Mcdonalds hamburger but also giving them some organic apples with the meal. The hamburger is still bad for them.