What we feed our dogs – Homemade Dog Food Recipe

Our homemade dog food recipe all started with Annie of course. My husband’s little lab mix who moved out here even before he did. Annie was utterly thrilled to become a farm dog after serving for years in the city as a service dog. She got her name (little orphan Annie) as she was found on the side of the road at just a few weeks old. She was rescued and then trained by the Wounded Warrior Project as a service dog for Lodi specifically. When she got out here she pretty much just threw herself into retirement with utter abandon lol. But despite my best efforts (Frontline) she also immediately got Lymes disease and broke two teeth on only God knows what.

The Vet asked me if she was having any trouble eating and we both just laughed. No, our Lab (even with two broken teeth) has never missed a meal in her life! We had NO idea.

The Lymes disease was obvious to me though and we got her into the vet ASAP.

Every single dog and horse I’ve owned up here in north country has caught some kind of tick disease and a lot of humans I know too…. It isn’t inevitable but it is very common.

After her recovery I opted for the next generation of tick fighting with the monthly Nexguard pill from our vet. It isn’t cheap but it works and, frankly, I don’t miss a dog covered in whatever the hell is on those tick collars or that awful stuff that’s in Frontline. (Of course that does mean she’s ingesting it which can’t be good for her… the alternative though is the literal, long suffering horror of a tick disease.)

With Annie all fixed up what happened to her is what happens to all of us.

She started acting old.

When Lodi brought her out here I switched her to Taste of the Wild dry dog food. (I don’t remember what she was eating before which doesn’t actually matter because none of it worked for her.)

I took her back to the vet because I was pretty certain she had Cushings but I firstly wanted to rule out everything else.

Cushings is common in dogs though rarely diagnosed usually because they start showing symptoms after they get so old that people just think the symptoms are because they’re old. Pot belly. Insatiable appetite. Weight gain on literal air. Rickety. Sore. Tired all the time.

Most dogs with Cushings die within a year of their diagnosis.

Its rarely treated because the treatment is (I’m not kidding) a very expensive chemotherapy pill that was initially created for humans that may or may not work.

ON TOP OF ALL OF THAT Cushings is also very expensive to diagnose!

So, in a senior dog – what would be the point?

So we ruled out everything BUT Cushings with blood tests and even an ultrasound.

Me and my very common-sensible vet decided together that doing anything else was silly at Annie’s age. So my vet gave our 11 year old Annie a hug and sent her home.

It really seemed like that was that.

Watching our best friends get old, not be able to keep up with us anymore or do the things they used to love, is one of the utter travesties that exists. I already did it with my own soul dog and it broke my heart to see Lodi’s dog going down hill.

Our saving grace came to me in a Facebook ad (lol) but it wasn’t like I had anything to lose so I ordered a box of The Farmer’s Dog Food for Annie.

This is not an ad for that kind of dog food but its going to sound like it. I have nothing to gain by telling you how well it worked for Annie.

Honestly, four years ago, I wouldn’t have given her more than another year to live.

The change in her was remarkable.

It was like she threw her old age out the window over night. A dog who was barely able to get around got her zoomies back almost obnoxiously – it was unbelievable.

Now, don’t get me wrong, she’s slowed down now at 15, but she’s still got her zoomies!

I will never feed a dog “dog food” again in my life I just wish I could go back to all my doggos over the years and be able to do this for them too. Old age is inevitable for all of us but giving them the best shot at a long, pain-free, happy life is pretty much what we all want to do for our dogs right?

Not surprisingly though The Farmer’s dog food is NOT cheap.

Its $8.24 a day to feed Annie who is only about 50 pounds.

I don’t think we spend that much to feed ourselves!

I had already started making some of her food but when we got Link I took it a lot more seriously.

(He’s little and eats less than half a day what Annie eats but it still adds up.)

Though he’s close to Annie’s age Link being a small breed (Pomeranian/chiwauawa) meant he wasn’t yet feeling the senior pains as badly so his transformation from the new food wasn’t quite as miraculous.

He absolutely came from Lodi’s Grandma in exactly how you can imagine though lol. There was no doubt she really worried he wasn’t getting enough to eat!

He shucked the weight on the new food quickly and we often call him Prancer with how he dances around now.

My recipe for dog food is very basic and absolutely based on cost while still doing the best we can for them.

It’s 1/4 each ground meat, beans, rice and veggies.

They eat about half our homemade food and half the farmers dog at around $150 a month.

What that looks like now is 4 pounds of ground beef, 2 pounds of dried black beans (soaked in water over night), 5 pounds of Jasmine rice and one 6 pound can of carrots.

Dogs need fat just like we do so I don’t hesitate to purchase the high fat percentage of ground beef which is also the least expensive option.

We’ve been doing this about a year now and it seems to be going well for them!