I don't have recipes, but I have a recommended commercial food. It's called Weruva, and I swear it is so normal looking I would eat it if I were hungry enough. There's one called chicken soup (or something) - it's shredded chicken with cooked peas and carrots in a gravy. I mean, really normal looking and it's smells good too! I've only seen the cat food, I bet the dog food is similarly normal looking. It's all wet food, so it should work for your dog's teeth issues. I just said goodbye to a senior kitty with skin issues, and this food (combined with no-grain dry food) worked really well for him.

If that's not an option, there are doggie cookbooks and tons of recipes on the internet. The recipes usually involve brown rice, chicken (or some other protein), and vegetables. Years ago I had a dog and made food for him a couple times. All I remember is that he wasn't too fond of the vegetables. :-) I also remember that many of the recipes involved dairy products, and that just doesn't seem like a good idea to me. (As much as I love cheese and other dairy products, I question whether humans should be consuming cow's milk either, but I digress.)

Good luck and let us know how it turns out!

-Anne

I had an issue with my lab - horribly itchy skin, gunk in his eyes, etc. After a vet visit (no infections, mange, fleas, etc.), we decided to try an elimination diet to see if there was a specific ingredient that *could* be causing all those different symptoms.

First week, he got nothing but venison (we harvest our own, so there was plenty of bones, scraps and trimmings). You might try beef or lamb, but that gets pricey.

By the way, raw bones are fine (I really wasn't comfortable with that at first. I had to hold it, and teach him to eat it slowly, not scarf the whole thing down in two bites.) It also helped to teach him to eat raw food over a towel - otherwise, he would have taken his high value food into his bed and eat it there. I wasn't about to wash his dog bed every day. An old towel was much easier :-)

Then I added fish - canned jack mackerel (it's cheap and good for their coat), frozen smelts (pretty cheap and the cats loved them, too) and fresh bass/bluegills/trout/whatever the catch of the day was (DH is an avid fisherman). Freshwater fish are not as good as far as oils for his coat, but he loved the fish trimmings.

Then added some canned Merrick food for other protein sources (96% beef, lamb, and buffalo - that one didn't have eggs in it.)

Next up was turkey - I found a good deal on turkey necks, so that was pretty inexpensive, too. You can grind the bones in with the meat if your little guy has a problem chewing.

We left chicken until last, as *supposedly* a lot of dogs are sensitive to chicken and egg products, and it is in EVERYTHING.

By that time, my Lab's skin had stopped itching (took about 4-5 weeks total IIRC), so we went back to small amounts of kibble in addition to the raw meat and canned toppings. I was lucky that the feed store had a lot of sample bags from different manufacturers, so I could try a bunch of different flavors and formulas without spending lots of $ on numerous 5 lb. bags.

The key (for us, anyway) was adding one unique protein source/brand and formula of kibble at a time back into his diet, so we could isolate what was causing his symptoms.

If you want to go that route, your Chihuahua should eat about 2-3% of his ideal body weight in raw food. Note: that's not his current weight - if he's a little heavy, feed slightly less; if he's thin, feed slightly more until he reaches a good weight.

Also, all of my pets (2 dogs and just 1 cat now) do much better on grain free food. I'm one of those folks that thinks dogs and cats don't need corn and wheat in their diet. But that's just my opinion. My guys also get fruits and vegetables as treats. Dogs really don't digest them well and they don't get a bunch of nutrition from them (unless they are ground to break the cell walls and the cellulose, and I don't usually have time for that), but they love them as treats. My two won't go to bed until they get a small hunk of carrot.

Other vitamins I gave him (started slowly after the first week to see if any of those were a problem) was a Vitamin E capsule per day and a cranberry capsule per day (Vitamin C and acidifies the urine to prevent UTI's). When I went back to dry kibble, I stopped the supplementary Vitamin E, but I still give my two guys cranberry capsules either when I remember or when they need to go out in the middle of night (not normal).

You do have to be careful with a raw or home-cooked diet long term. There are lots of nutrionalists out there spouting different theories, and it can be confusing, expensive, and potentially harmful to your pet. But a short term elimination diet might just work to find out why your dog has skin problems.

By the way, my Lab's problem turned out to be flaxseed. Of all things. Go figure. As long as I read all the ingredient labels and avoid food with flaxseed in it, he's happy, healthy, and looks great.

In fact, they are both so shiny, it's hard to get a good picture of them!

malna - What brand of food do you feed your cat? I'm trying to find a dry food for my cats that has neither grains nor potatoes. In other words, just meat and some veggies. Sorry to get off topic from the original post.

-Anne

Anne,
Dry cat food that doesn't contain one or the other is next to impossible to find. One brand you might look at is Halo. I don't have any stores near me that carry it, so I have no personal experience with it. It does contain sweet potatoes, but I'm assuming you were talking about white potatoes, potato starch, potato protein, etc.

Here's the ingredients for Dry Grain-Free Spot's Stew Hearty Chicken:
Chicken, Eggs, Pea Protein, Vegetable Broth, Chicken Fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols and citric acid), Whole Peas, Chicken Liver, Flax seed, Salmon Oil (preserved with mixed tocopherols), Pea Fiber, Sweet Potatoes, Apples, Green Beans, Carrots, Blueberries, Alfalfa, Cranberries, Zucchini, Calcium Sulfate, DL- Methionine, Potassium Chloride, Taurine, Inulin, Salt, Vitamins (Folic Acid, Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Vitamin E Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Choline Bitartrate, Niacin, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Ascorbic Acid, Riboflavin Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Biotin), Minerals (Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Cobalt Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Magnesium Proteniate, Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite), Dried Lactobacillus acidophilus Fermentation Product, Dried Bifidobacterium longum Fermentation Product, Dried Enterococcus faecium Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus plantarum Fermentation Product..

My soon-to-be 18 year old Miss Picky right now is eating Taste of the Wild Rocky Mountain Formula (likes it, affordable, readily available - does have sweet potatoes and potato starch), rotated with Blue Buffalo Wilderness Duck Formula (potatoes are down on the ingredient list but still in there - also it's pricy) and Merrick Purrfect Bistro Salmon (yep, potatoes in multiple forms).

Hope that helps.

I did a store locator search and they have Spot's Stew in my area. Thank you very much!

Well, before I came back here, I was given a simple recipe of 1 lb gr turkey boiled for 20 min, add 8 oz mixed veges, cook for 5 more min plus 1 tsp gr rosemary.
I ground this up and he gobbled it up! I also add some brewers yeast. I'm not sure how much fish oil to add. Should I add a bit each day, or add to the whole recipe?
We're talking about a 5 lb Chihuahua here! LOL Nancy

Thanks for the suggestion of weruva-- that looks amazing

My dogs all have GI issues (starved rescues) and I made their supplement dog food for years until they aged enough that they needed a prescription diet. Two of the dogs have suffered GI bleeds and a low fat, high fiber diet has kept that in check for the most part. We supplement this with lean chicken breast and the dogs do well with this (one is 16 years old and takes a two mile walk every day).

So one word of caution (and verify with your vet) is that many homemade dog food recipes call for brown rice. This is very hard for dogs to digest. Also high protein diets are very hard on old kidneys so watch the protein content.

Nancy:

In response to your question about fish oil, I would give it each day, not mixed into the whole recipe, which I'm assuming lasts for multiple meals.

The National Research Council has established a safe upper limit of EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids for dogs (fish oil). It has yet to establish one for cats. In light of that, it is probably safe to use the guidelines for dogs for both species. Translating the data suggests that a dose between 20-55mg combined EPA and DHA per pound of body weight is safe for dogs and cats. This dose is far less than those used to treat serious conditions where the risk of side effects is less important than the benefits of treatment.

One other thing you can do is alternate fish or salmon oil with coconut oil. I buy the organic stuff - it's not that expensive and doesn't go bad. My guys love coconut oil (they eat it off the spoon). Dr. Karen Becker recommends 1/4 teaspoon for every 10 pounds of body weight twice daily for basic MCT support. It works to assist in getting rid of ear mites, too. Mix some with witch hazel, and it soothes the irritation plus smothers the bugs. And they smell like a pina colada LOL!