Real Food for Your Dog

I have checked the prices of dog food at every store around.  The long and short of it is that dog food is expensive.  Even the "cheap" dog food is expensive.  I have done quite a bit of research on dog food and ingredients and it seems that most, if not all of it, has inferior ingredients in it.  Which only makes sense - ingredients that can be sold as human food bring more money so dog food gets the left overs - and you don't want to know what the commercial food industry considers left overs.  My dogs current diet consists of kibble and raw eggs.  They devour the egg and the kibbles that are covered in egg.  Then they leave the remainder of the kibble and will push it around with their noses.  They will only eat the kibble when they are sure that is the only option.  I thought that perhaps it was the Brand X dog food so I switched to Brand Y.  Same story.

What pushed me over the edge with commercial dog food?  Sadie, my two year old Border Collie - Australian Shepherd mix has been having ear problems.  She scratches and scratches and then whimpers.  It is so sad.  The first time this happened was in December.  I took her to the vet and he ran tests.  She had a yeast infection in her ears.  He gave us medicine and an ear wash to treat Sadie with for 10 days.  He also gave us a warning that if the yeast infection reared it's ugly head again we were most likely looking at a food allergy, probably to wheat.  $127 later we walked out of the vets.  We diligently followed the vet's 10 day schedule for medicine and ear wash.  Sadie started feeling better.  But then in February - the same thing.  We had enough of the medicine and ear wash left to treat this round of yeast infection.  I got to thinking about an earlier visit to the vet when he said that  Sadie had "hot spots".  After additional research, yeast infections on the skin are fairly common in dogs and could be the cause of the "hot spots".

My Beautiful Miss Sadie

So, why would I keep treating Sadie's problem rather than looking for a solution to the problem?  The simple answer is I am not going to treat the problem anymore.  I came to a solution after discussing the issue with my mom.  She had also noticed the rising cost of dog food and had decided to make her own.  Now why hadn't I thought of that?  I make all kinds of things instead of buying the commercial products - I really try to use real food as much as possible - but it had never occurred to me to make dog food.  I will be making dog food for Sadie and Stella.  This will allow me to know the ingredients in their food and thus I can manipulate the recipes to help with Sadie's yeast problems. 

My mom has been cooking a batch of dog food each weekend.  To gather the ingredients she places a container in the freezer and during the week any vegetable cuttings, meat scraps, left overs that are not consumed are added to the container (Please note:  These leftovers are not highly processed foods - they are made from scratch meals).  Then over the weekend she adds all of these ingredients to a dutch oven with the drippings from a roast she just cooked left in it.  She also adds frozen zucchini, eggs and rice or another starch and cooks.  Once the mixture cools it is placed in a large container in the fridge.  Each day the dogs get a scoop of this food along with their kibble (she is using up the kibble that she has on hand) and some cut up cow liver.  My dad reports that the dogs love it!  I am going to prepare my dog food very similarly except in my crock pot.  (I love my crock pot!)  I will use extra frozen vegetables from my garden last summer, extra fresh vegetables, extra eggs from hens, yogurt and beef.  Jerry is butchering right now and I asked that he save all the bones so I can boil the meat off of them for the dog food not to mention the fabulous beef broth.  I am going to use rolled oats as my grain ingredient.  My goal will be to stick within the general diet of 40% meat, 30% vegetables and 30% grains. I am so excited to start! 

If you are interested in learning more about making your own dog food, I would highly recommend the following posts on The Collie Farm Blog.  I felt that they really provided useful information for me in making my decision to make dog food.

Dog Food
More Thoughts on Homemade Dog Food

So, do you make your own dog food?  If so, I would love to hear your recipe/process.

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 Homestead Barn Hop
The Country Homemaker Hop 
Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways 

Bath Time!

For the last couple of days I have been meaning to give Stella a bath.  She got into who knows what and stunk!  This afternoon I finally had the energy to take on the task of a first bath.  I know, I know she should have had a bath already by now - but it has been summer and she really hasn't gotten stinky until this week.  So, I got her in the bath tub and she wasn't too sure what to think.  This is one of those times when a picture says a thousand words.

Stella's First Bath

Obviously, the safest place to be was down my shirt!

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That Dirty Rotten Scoundrel

Jerry was at home yesterday afternoon working on sheeting the goat barn and thus the dogs were out and about, roaming the property.  They decided to go down over the hill.  And low and behold, what did they find - some type of something nasty that has been there for a while!  And what did they decide to do - they decided to roll in it!  Lovely!  Dogs will be dogs.... When I got home the dogs were still outside and I didn't notice the smell.  I went about with my evening routine, we had dinner and I went to bed.  Jerry let the dogs in and decided that Sadie needed a bath before bed because of the stench.  Sadie hates baths and as soon as she is done and out of the bathroom she rip roars around the house like nobody's business.  The rip roaring took place and then Jerry sent Sadie downstairs to go to bed.  Now I know what you're thinking - what in the world is a cattle dog doing sleeping in the house?  Let me put your mind at ease - she is a very ferocious cattle dog who just happens to like the comfort of a nice soft bed right next to me.  FEROCIOUS.  So she jumped up on my bed just like every night.  She likes to stay on the bed until Jerry comes downstairs.  (Don't judge my ferocious cattle dog - please let her continue with her illusion of ferociousness.)  The difference last night was that she had just had a bath and Jerry only towel dried her.  The good thing is that she sleeps on Jerry's side of the bed until he comes downstairs!!  (MWAAHAAAHAA!  Oops, did I laugh too hard?)  This morning when Jerry and I were having coffee I asked him how he slept last night.  Can you guess his response?? 

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The Dog Days of Summer

A couple of years ago, one of Jerry's friends gave us a boat (woohoo!).  We (being Jerry) have not had the time to work on a couple of small motor issues until just recently.  Jerry got the boat working over the weekend and wanted to take it to the lake to test it out.  I must admit that the idea of "testing out" a boat makes me a bit nervous but the 85 degree day (hot for us here in the Inland NW this year) swayed my mind.  (At this point I assume that all the people living under the heat dome are saying "give me a break - 85 - that reminds me of an icebox".)  So we went to a small lake near our house to try it out.  We decided to take the dogs with us.  Sadie has been to the ocean before and loved it so we thought she would most likely enjoy the lake.  Stella hasn't really been away from home as she is only about three months old - this was her first big outing.

We got to the lake and Jerry decided that I needed to help back him and the boat down the boat launch ramp.  I would like to take this opportunity to go over what Jerry expects when someone is assisting him while he is backing up the truck with anything behind it.  Jerry expects the person to know fancy hand signals - I'm not sure where he came across these and why he decided he liked them so much - but I sure as heck don't know them (side note:  these hand signals are the same hand signals he chooses to attempt to direct me when I drive the tractor).  My hand signals usually involve lots of arm waving and occasionally jumping if I feel the situation calls for it.  So Jerry stopped at the top of the boat launch and asked me to get out, to take the dogs with me and direct him down.  Sadie was on a leash and raring to get out of the truck - new territory to be explored.  Stella was scared to death and was pretty sure the only place she would be able to survive was climbing from my arms up towards my neck - very cat-like I promise you.

Sadie drug me down the dock next to the boat launch and after a good deal of begging - on my part - she stopped.  I was able to get her to sit and got Stella somewhat situated in my other arm.  About this time Jerry started backing down the ramp.  Oh crap!  I had no free hands to signal with!!  Jumping and hollering would just have to do this time around.  Here I was, screaming and jumping and nodding my head in different directions, all while attempting to balance and calm Stella and keep Sadie sitting.  The people who were fishing off the end of the dock must have thought I was nuts...  The good news is that Jerry doesn't really "need" to be backed anywhere... ever... as far as I have seen.  He is one of those people who could back a semi around a corn maze with one arm tied behind his back and not flatten any extra stocks of corn - it's ridiculous - that is why I don't understand his slight obsession with the hand signals - he doesn't really need them (hmm - maybe he thinks I need the hand signals when driving - nah).

In no time at all, Jerry had the boat launched, me and the dogs in the boat and we were off (I'll go ahead and take the credit for the wonderful launch - after all I did do some pretty amazing signaling!).  The boat ran like a dream and it was such a wonderful evening.  Sometimes I forget how beautiful the northwest is because I get so wrapped up in the everyday - this was a good reminder and I thank God for the time that he gave us together on the lake Saturday afternoon.

Here are the girls enjoying the boat - or at least Sadie is!!

Miss Sadie

Sadie playing First Mate!

Stella - still in my lap