Dog food. Yes, food for your mutts.

Sam

I have an old shepherd-labrador mix, Sam.  He is 14 years old and nearly as hyper as he was as a puppy, but well.. he is old. He now has an obesity issue and really bad arthritis, where sometimes he cannot get out of bed, literally. We took him into the vets, heavy hearted and ready for bad news (such as: put him to sleep) and my husband came out smiling...with Sam in tow. He handed me a prescription and I said, "What, Rite-Aid doesn't fill pet prescriptions" and my husband told me to read the prescription.

Coconut oil, Omega 3s, fatty fish, lean meats, vegetables, vitamins, turmeric, pepper or cayenne, cinnamon, ginger. Anti-inflammatory. Add to rice or other grain.

Well then.

This sounded much cheaper and more humane than putting him to sleep or on heavy medication doses. so....

I make dog food. Not daily, as I supplement it with "regular" dog food as instructed, but he gets fed his special concoction at least once a week, usually more.

Today, for example, we had salmon for lunch (we as in the humans). The skins were left, so I boiled them in water and added rice (I was out of oats which are much better for dogs) and some diced carrot and parsley stems. I added some turmeric (maybe a teaspoon or so) and a few shakes of cinnamon and a grind of pepper.


Sometimes I mix it up with some barley, or other meats (whatever meat is going bad or has freezer burn works), and a little spinach or sweet potato or peas.  I mix up my spice mixtures too, always some form of cinnamon, pepper, turmeric, ginger. And if I am using a lean meat, I add coconut oil.

My dog loves it.

He is getting cranky in his old age, and I'm sure the pain of arthritis is adding to it. When our friends come over though, they can tell if Sam had his "special happy food"or not as he is a lot friendlier and less of an anxiety case.

We've yet to get him to lose the excess weight but we just bought a ramp so he can get up into the car to go for walks. He doesn't like playing in his own yard (no strange dog pee on trees to sniff!) and where I live is not walk-friendly so we have to take him places, but now with the ramp and his special dog food, we can!

So see, making dog food is probably more of an old-fashioned thing. And it has benefits.