I work at The Farmer’s Dog and the homemade food question comes up constantly. The more I’ve dug into it, the more I understand why it trips people up.
Dogs need 38 essential nutrients in the right proportions for long-term health. Not just protein and fat and some vegetables but 38 specific things. A UC Davis study found that 95% of homemade dog food recipes were missing critical nutrients. More recently research from The Dog Aging Project, Virginia Tech, and Texas A&M found 94% of home-cooked diets falling short of what dogs actually need.
And these aren’t people being careless — even carefully made recipes with good ingredients tend to miss things. It’s genuinely hard to get right without a vet nutritionist actually looking at the recipe.
Has anyone gone the route of getting a homemade diet properly reviewed? Did you use a service, or find a vet who specializes in it?
submitted by /u/foundthehound
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