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Canine Nutrition

Homemade Dog Food: The Four Things Most Recipes Get Wrong

Home cooking for dogs is entirely workable when it is designed rather than improvised. The four failures I see most often are an unbalanced calcium to phosphorus ratio, missing essential fatty acids, guessed energy intake and unaddressed micronutrient gaps.

Muscle meat and rice are phosphorus-rich and calcium-poor. Without a deliberate calcium source, growing dogs are at real risk of skeletal disease. The target calcium to phosphorus ratio sits near 1.2 to 1 for adults and needs tighter control in large-breed puppies.

Energy should be estimated, not assumed. Resting energy requirement is approximately 70 multiplied by body weight in kilograms raised to the power 0.75, then multiplied by a life-stage factor. Body condition score, checked fortnightly, is the correction signal.

Rotate protein and vegetable sources, add a suitable omega-3 source, and review the plan whenever the dog is growing, ageing, pregnant or under treatment. Any dog with a diagnosed disease needs a therapeutic plan from the attending veterinarian.

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