[Hound Dog Mom]

Hi Kelly T –

I’m a little shocked that your vet didn’t provide you with a balanced recipe to go along with this recommendation and I’m equally shocked at the ratio of lentils to meat recommended. The general rule of thumb is to use between 15% and 25% fruits/veggies/starches – with a ratio of about 50:50 being he highest I’ve seen recommended. But since this is what your vet suggested we’ll go with it!

What I would do is as follows:
1/2 C. Horse Meat
1 1/2 C. Lentils
1 Multivitamin Crushed*
1,000 mg. Calcium
1 tsp. Fish Oil
1 tsp. Hempseed or Walnut Oil or 2 tsp. Canola Oil

*My multivitamin of choice is Twinlab Daily One. I’m not sure if this is available in Canada. If not you want something designed as a “one a day” type multivitamin for humans. Look for one with under 10% DV calcium so it doesn’t skew the calcium to phosphorus ratio. If you do choose a multi that has a significant amount of calcium that’s okay but you need to account for it by reducing the amount of added calcium. For example, Centrum brand would be acceptable but contains 200 mg. calcium per capsule so you would only want to add 800 mg of calcium.

This recipe will provide roughly 300 calories per cup (will vary slightly depending on how lean the meat you’re using is).

The oil shouldn’t bother her – it’s generally the protein in an item that causes the reaction not the fat (although it’s possible). Getting the fats balanced should help out her coat issues as well.

By the way, nice name! My grandmother has a yorkipoo named Phoebe. 🙂

• This reply was modified 11 years, 4 months ago by Hound Dog Mom.