Do Dogs Live Longer on Homemade Food?

Last Updated on February 22, 2023 by Amanda P. Brown

Yes, dogs live longer on homemade food. According to numerous research, your dog may expect to live 10.4 years on a commercially processed diet, while they may expect to live up to 13.1 years on a home-cooked diet. Meanwhile, homemade food can incorporate all the nutrients allocated for your dogs that are specific to them. And this will enable your pet to live a long life with improved physical strength and good health.

You can know more about Do Dogs Live Longer on Homemade food by reading the following article, which also covers other aspects of homemade dog food.

Do Dogs Live Longer on Homemade Food? 

Store-bought food generally lacks the nutritional balance seen in meals prepared at home. If you’re thinking about making your dog some homemade food, it’s essential to consider its overall health. 

Due to the potential for bacterial contamination during preparation, many veterinarians advise against feeding your dog raw food prepared at home. Thus, if you want to ensure your dog is getting a well-rounded diet from the homemade food you’ve been preparing, it’s best to get some advice from a nutritionist or vet.

7 Benefits of Homemade Dog Food

When you make your dog food at home, you can include any nutritiously beneficial components you like. Some advantages of making one’s dog food are listed below:

1. Least Processed Food

While cooking homemade food for your dogs, you can provide baked, broiled, raw, and steamed ingredients to suit your dog’s palate or as per your cooking preferences. Therefore, the method you apply in the cooking will be significantly less invasive than those required toturn ingredients into dry kibble or canned dog food.

2. Whole Food Selection

Whole foods that you would consume yourself are acceptable in home-prepared dog food. Not only do you not have to worry about food recalls or unusual cooking techniques, but you also get to choose where the ingredients come from.

3. Providing Customizable Recipe

Your dog’s physical characteristics, such as weight, age, health issues, and diet preferences, completely different from human characteristics. As a result, when you make your dog’s food at home, you can customize its diet to its exact needs in terms of quantity and quality of ingredients.

 4. Added Various Fresh Ingredients

If you feed your dog the same highly processed food daily, he or she will soon lose interest and develop food intolerances. In this scenario, you can provide your dog with homemade food with a wide range of nutritious ingredients. It keeps the food tasty and balanced for your dog’s nutritional needs.

5.  Allergy Alternative Solutions

Food allergies are a common problem for dogs. As a result, as an alternative to professionally produced food, homemade dog food is the optimal combination. This makes it simple to identify the specific elements in dog food that are sensitive to their health. 

6. Preservative-Free Food Supply

No artificial flavors or preservatives are used to prepare the homemade meal. Because of this, it can be a healthy addition to your dog’s usual diet.

7. Intolerance Control

Most commercially available dog foods contain ingredients that are bad for dogs. Therefore, food intolerances can be managed by decreasing your dog’s exposure to potentially harmful components by cooking at home.

Read More: DIY Homemade Dog Food Recipes Vet Approved

What You Need to Know Before You Switch to Homemade Dog Food?

Homemade food meals are better than store-bought dog food. But keep in mind that dogs have very different nutritional needs than humans before implementing the option.

As a result, before making any changes to your dog’s diet, it’s best to discuss it with your vet, who can analyze your dog’s current and future health needs. In addition, before switching from store-bought to homemade dog food, consider the following.

 1. Follow the Recipe Precisely

The key to making a healthy meal for your dog is paying attention to the proportions specified in the recipe. The culinary ingredients and processes must be used in precise ratios. 

2. Recipes Should Be Verified and Reliable

Too often, recipes lack key ingredients or essential proportions. Therefore, ensuring your dog has a balanced diet won’t cause any deficiencies or excesses is vital. In this case, you can use trustworthy online sources to find healthy dog food recipes to prepare at home.

 So you should consult a veterinarian or veterinary nutritionist to ensure that your recipes are nutritionally balanced before feeding them to your dog. Moreover, you can also avail of the consultation service of an online site managed by expert veterinary nutritionists.

3. Provide a Balanced Diet of Nutrients

Dogs have nutritional needs unrelated to those of humans in terms of essential nutrients. A dog can suffer from malnutrition, obesity, disease, and even death if given the wrong amount or type of food. If you want to see an improvement in their health, you should provide them with food that meets all of their nutritional needs.

4. Avoiding the Use of Toxic Substances

Ingredients we use in our cooking are often suitable for our canine companions. That is harmful or poisonous to your dogs and is therefore useless to them due to inherent differences between canine and human digestive systems.

Garlic, onions, chard, raisins, almonds, and some dairy products are toxic to dogs and should be avoided when preparing homemade food for canines at home. So, exercise extreme caution when shopping for and utilizing these components.

5. Dietary Balance

Homemade dog food supplements are necessary for a well-rounded diet, particularly vitamins, and minerals. That way, you can check with your vet to ensure that the diet you’re providing is adequate and that there aren’t any underlying health problems. They will also be able to propose specific brands and provide advice on the finest dog supplements to buy.

6. Homemade Dog Food Requires a Substantial Time

Time is a factor when preparing food for your dog every day. Therefore it’s hard to give the dog the attention it deserves when you also have to make meals for yourself and your family. For canine consumption, it’s better to prepare a large quantity and keep it frozen for a week or more. This will let you tailor their daily rations to their specific requirements.

But remember that the life span of meals stored in your freezer varies from four to seven days, depending on the protein level of the item. You can keep food fresh for longer if you store it in the freezer in individual amounts. Food should be removed from the freezer at least one hour before serving.

7. Transition to homemade dog food slowly.

It’s not good to suddenly convert your dog from commercial food to homemade alternatives because it can cause gastrointestinal discomfort. 

Start mixing in small amounts to make the transition from the old to the new diet easier for your dog. A trip to the vet is in order if they exhibit any signs of illness, including vomiting, loss of appetite, or any other symptoms.

8. Eliminate the Allergenic Food

It’s crucial to make sure your dog doesn’t have any food allergies before converting to homemade food. To do so, you will give them a small amount of a test substance along with their regular diet and look for any adverse effects.

9. Always Cook Starchy Vegetables 

Apples and blueberries, for example, are two examples of raw fruits and vegetables your dog can safely consume. You should always prepare starchy vegetables before including them in your diet. They include frozen peas, squash, sweet potatoes, and beets because they will aid in calming your dog’s stomach.

10. Ensure That the Diet is Done Properly

After moving your dog to a home-cooked diet, it’s important to keep an eye on him for at least a couple of weeks. Also, you should visit a vet if you notice any change in your pet’s weight, whether it’s a gain or decrease.

Read More: What Foods Are German Shepherds Allergic to?

What Nutrients Do Dogs Need in Homemade Dog Food?

Your dog needs essential fatty acids, frequently found in plant-based ingredients such as oatmeal, eggs, or oil, to help maintain nutritional balance in dogs. 

They also need protein from beef, duck, and chicken, fat obtained from oil or meat, and carbohydrates from grains or vegetables. Calcium can also be supplied by offering eggshells and various dairy products.

How Much Homemade Dog Food Should a Dog Eat a Day?

A dog’s daily requirement for homemade food depends entirely on the dog’s ideal weight, size, and current health. Your dog can safely consume 2 to 3 percent fresh daily food based on his ideal weight. 

Nonetheless, 11/2 percent is necessary if the canines are of a substantial breed. Also, a 4% intake is necessary for miniature breeds to meet nutritional needs.

Can I Feed My Dog Homemade Food Every Day? 

A daily diet of homemade dog food is completely acceptable. The vitamins, proteins, carbs, fats, and minerals recommended for dogs are all present in homemade food. You can give your dog a diet that is both fresh and nutritionally full because it has no preservatives or fillers.

Nonetheless, you should ensure that their nutritional ratio is consistent with veterinary or nutritionist recommendations.

What Are the Risks of Feeding Dogs Homemade Food?

• Some ingredients called for in dog food recipes may be hard to come by or impossible to store in a home kitchen. Your dog’s diet will be thrown off if you suddenly switch to a different ingredient.
• There are a lot of recipes out there, but many are either unhealthy for your dog or don’t provide enough nourishment.
• Homemade dog food often contains uncooked proteins like meat or eggs. This increases the danger of your dog getting salmonella or a parasite.
• Veterinarians and nutritionists are rarely involved in creating homemade dog food recipes. As a result, your cooking for your dog often contains too much or too little of a particular nutrient without realizing it.
• There are many ingredients in homemade food that are toxic to your dog or are not vet approved for feeding dogs, such as garlic, almonds, spinach, grapes, etc. So adding these to your dog’s diet can cause many physical ailments and digestive problems in their stomachs.

Read More: Can Dogs and Cats Eat the Same Homemade Food?

Is It Less Expensive to Make Your Dog Food or to Buy It?

Where you shop and whether or not you buy organic products will determine how much money you will spend on homemade dog food. It would cost you $3.52 per day to feed your 30-pound dog a home-cooked, balanced diet and $5.58 per day to feed it an organic diet.

Again, making your dog’s food at home can help you save money while giving him a healthy diet. It is possible to spend as little as $3 a day on this diet, which is significantly less than what you would spend on store-bought food.

FAQs

Final Verdict

Do Dogs Live Longer on Homemade Food? I hope the above information gives you all the necessary details about this question.

Remember, if you choose to cook for your dog at home, you should take extra care to ensure that the food has a healthy nutritional balance, with no excessive or insufficient amounts of any single nutrient. Consultation with a nutritionist or veterinarian may be required.

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