Am I feeding my pup right?

[Shashank S]

Hello people and bow wow to their furry babies. I have a 1.5 year old male Golden Retriever and I’d been contemplating feeding him only home cooked meals since kibble has a lot of processed materials that are harmful to dogs in the long run.

I’ve been feeding him the following recipe and I would be much obliged if someone could comment on whether I’m on the right track/need to add something more. This is per meal. I feed him twice a day.

200 gms White Rice, cooked
250 gms Chicken, usually one whole chicken breast
1 egg, cooked white and raw yolk
1 tsp Olive oil
100ml yogurt
Handful cooked peas
1 cup cooked spinach

Any feedback would be extremely helpful. Thanks in advance. Cheers.

[crazy4cats]

I would check with a board certified veterinarian nutritionist. Feeding a complete and balanced food to your pup is extremely important!

Most home made diets are found to be lacking in some way or another, especially for a young large breed pup.

BalanceIt.com is a site run by experts that will help formulate a diet for your dog. Check it out!

[aimee]

Hi Shawshank S,

I’d agree with Crazy4cats.
I home cook part of my dog’s diet and I use the balanceit supplement.

I calculated out the following for you. Making some assumptions.

NRC recommends .13 grams calcium /body weight in kg to the .75 power If your Golden weighs 70 lbs that calculates out to about 1740 mg calcium/day.

Your major calcium containing ingredients are
200 mls yogurt provide about 350 mg calcium
2 cups cooked spinach about 500 mg calcium

So using my assumptions you are providing about 1/2 of the NRC recommended daily amount of calcium and close to the NRC min amount of calcium, which my understanding assumes a high level of absorption, something that may not be achieved using spinach. Spinach is high in oxalates, which binds calcium. Cooking spinach does decrease oxalate, but personally I wouldn’t feel comfortable relying on spinach to meet my dog’s calcium needs because of variable calcium absorption and the high oxalate content.

Looking at Vit D, NRC recommended amount for a 70 lb dog is ~240 IU/day, your major source is egg yolk. 2 yolks are~ 80 IU If you use vit D fortified yogurt that may be making up the difference depending on level of fortification.

I think you need a nutritionist to evaluate this diet for you.

[MichaelFlanagan]

I completely agree with the previous commenter. I think the best solution would be a consultation with a nutritionist to make sure that the diet is adequate for a growing body.

[Ana W]

I recommend asking a vet if those portions are okay, but I think they are okay.

[Author]

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