Give your dog balanced homemade food, that also boosts their health, in three easy steps (and 60 seconds).

If you’d asked me 10 years ago whether I’d be making homemade food for my dogs, I would have laughed hysterically and peed my pants. Truly.

I mean, I class myself as a foodie, but that’s in the eating department. I cook for my human family about once a quarter, and that’s enough for me. (And my partner. When I offer to cook, he’ll often say no. According to him, my cooking has no ‘love’ in it.)

However, when I feed our dogs now, I do it with homemade dog food, that does have love in it. And we got there, because of our little dog Mondoe.

Mondoe just wanted homemade – preferably, ours!

Over 10 years or so, as our little dog Mondoe inched closer to 22 years old, we moved further and further away from processed food. In fact, Mondoe loved nothing more than the chicken soup my partner Michael makes for me when I have a cold – the broth, the chicken, the veges.

As time went on, we made more and more homemade food. But was it balanced? Not entirely. And that led to a quest to feed my dogs the fresh and balanced meals they needed...

In a nutshell, here’s what lots of research (and discussions with a nutritionist) told me dogs need in their diet:

• Fat, which delivers most of the energy a dog needs, as well as essential fatty acids.
• Protein, which provides essential amino acids.
• Essential minerals, vitamins and water, from the rest of the diet.

It’s also worth pointing out that dogs are also omnivores, which means their system is designed to mostly eat meat with a little bit of veg. Dogs also have no nutritional need for dietary carbohydrates. So those recipes with lots of rice? Not a great idea.

Here’s our homemade food for dogs recipe

This recipe puts a meat-based protein source front and centre. That’s because proteins from animal sources provide the highest quality protein; plant proteins don’t provide all the amino acids a dog needs in the right proportions. (You can read more about that, in the 3-Step Guide to Homemade Dog Food.)

However, a diet solely of meat, doesn’t give your dog all the vitamins, macro and micro minerals and fatty acids they need.

Now, you can, if you really want to spend a lot of time researching, and then a lot of time with a calculator, and then a lot of time in the kitchen on a Sunday, work out how much of each veg or supplement you need to include, to give your dog those missing vitamins, minerals and fatty acids.*

OR, you could add a supplement that does all of that for you.

The reason bestie supplements even exist, is because I do want to make sure my dogs get everything they need, and I also know that the majority of homemade dog food diets, aren’t balanced. (You can find out more in: What’s missing in your homemade food for dogs?)

So, drum roll, the recipe is:

95% fresh protein
5% bestie supplement

And it looks like this:

Now if you can’t do that in less than 60 seconds, there’s something wrong! So go ahead and get the bestie supplement. Let us know how you go!

The right amount

By the way, you’ll see I referred to the right amount of protein and bestie supplement above. But how do you work out what that right amount is? We explain this further in our post on How much should I feed my dog? But our free bestie appjust gives you the answer for your dog!

Interested in a little more info? Get our 3 Easy Steps to HomeMade Dog Food.