Homemade Dog Food

Recently I started making dog food. We are dog lovers at our house. Currently we have three dogs. Lady is a Yellow Lab mix. She is the oldest at 11 years old. We picked her up at Petsmart when the animal shelter was doing adoptions. The youngest is a little Chijuajua mix named Zoey. She is 7 months old. We adopted her from my good friend Tanya. Her dog had three puppies who all look different. It looked as though she had gone all over town adopting puppies. Zoey was the cutest and the littlest. It was love at first sight. In the middle is our Basset Hound, Ozzie. We adopted him from a friend who is a breeder. No body wanted to buy him because he is a "lemon." He doesn't have the markings that most Basset Hounds have. He is all brown with white on his chest. We always get a lot of attention when we take him out because he is so cute. His personality is always happy and friendly. Because he is a pure breed he has a lot of allergies. He has spent his six years of live chewing and scratching. The vet recommended we put him on hypoallergenic dog food. It cost us $90 a bag! When I looked at the ingredient list the main ingredient was rice. I couldn't believe it! $90 for a bag of rice. Even premium dog food cost $50 a bag. I figured I could make it. It has helped Ozzie's allergies considerably. He also quit waking us up in the night to take him out. I only wish I had done it sooner. I buy the 5 pound chub of turkey at Winco for about $7.50. This lasts me a week. I buy the other ingredients once a month at Costco. The 20 pound bag of rice costs about $7. I also get a giant bag of carrots and a huge bag of spinach for another $8. You can see this is a considerable savings over buying the hypoallergenic or premium dog food. I make it twice a week. Here is my recipe.

Homemade Dog Food

5 pounds ground turkey, browned and chopped in the food processor
10 c. dry rice, cooked according to the directions
12 carrots, chopped in the food processor
6 c. spinach, chopped in the food processor

Directions: Cook and combine all ingredients. I cook all the rice in a large pot. Then I divide the rest of the ingredients and cook it in batches. Frozen, chopped spinach is good to use. Store or freeze in containers in the fridge.

I hope you have happier and healthier dogs. Don't forget your apron!