Homemade Gluten/Starch Free Dog Diet Help!?

[rockonxox]

I have three dogs. One of them, Ace, has a very bad yeast issue. After trying multiple kibbles, and researching even more, it has become apparent that I’m going to have to start cooking his food myself. I’ve been researching home cooked and raw diets and I can not do raw. I barely eat meat myself so my stomach just isn’t strong enough for all of that. Does anyone have experience cooking for your own dogs and (hopefully) have experience with specialty diets? For example, Ace can’t have ANY of the following:
No carbohydrates
No corn
No potato (including sweet)
No wheat/gluten
No white/brewers rice
No tapioca
No byproducts
No rice
No carrots
No onions
No yams
No soy flour
No peas

Every time I bring up a home cooked diet to my vet I don’t really get an answer. It is more like he tells me I can do research and figure what I like best for him. That doesn’t help in any way because I have no idea where to start, especially with so many restrictions.

Ace is 63lb, Lola is 61lb, and Zeus is 15lb. All are moderately active and the 15lb Zeus has a high metabolism. They will all get the same home cooked meal just to be safe (don’t need him licking their bowl and getting a yeast flare up). If you can suggest how much food to serve each day that would be very helpful too! I can’t cook for myself every day so cooking for the dogs daily is near impossible. If I can make extra and store it that would be fabulous.

Any help, or pointing me in the right direction, is very much appreciated. I am completely lost and sick of trips to the vet.

[arapaloosa_lady]

Have you considered making an appt with a vet nutritionist?
http://www.acvn.org/directory/1/?sort=8.4&dir=ASC

[VFT]

Hi rockonxox,

My dog has struggled with candida yeast and I have found cooking for him is the best option as well. I give him boiled chicken breast with steamed green veggies (usually a combo of broccoli, green beans and kale) that have then been put through the food processor to make the veggies into mush ( dogs can get the nutrients out of the veggies better if the are “predigested” which the steaming and mushing mimics). I make enough for 10 days at a time portion it out and freeze in disposable tupperwear containers that I wash and reuse. It takes about 1 1/2 hours for me to make that much, my dog is just shy of 90 lbs.

I put the portions in the fridge to thaw 24-48 hours before I feed them, and just before feeding I add his whole food supplements which include.

Biostar k-9 optimum (multivitamin / mineral)
Biostar k-9 flexwell ( joint supplement)
Biostar bovine colostrum ( immune support)
Biostar terra biota k-9 ( probiotics)
Biostar Hemp oil (omegas!)

Coconut oil ( good fat, will kill yeasts, to many good things to list!)
Aloevera juice ( digestive health, regularity, joint health)
Nzymes granules ( candida treatment)
Nzymes blackleaf tincture (candida treatment)

Then a few times a week he gets a raw freeze dried turkey neck as treat.

These two sites have some good info on yeast in dogs in case you haven’t found them in research.
http://www.greatdanelady.com/articles/systemic_yeast_mini_course.htm

http://www.nzymes.com/store/pc/Yeast-Candida-and-Leaky-gut-in-pets_Information-and-help

[VFT]

http://www.biostarus.com/Articles.asp?ID=268

This page has some good info on dog nutrition that will help you as you figure out the home cooked diet that will work best for you and your dog.

[rockonxox]

@arapaloosa_lady - I have never heard of that profession for dogs so I didn’t even think of it. Thank you for the resource! Unfortunately the only two within an hour of me are no longer in business. Maybe I can reach a different one via phone and do a conference (if my vet faxes info). Worth a try to call around.

@VFT - Thank you so much. That gives me something to go off of for what I can do for my dog. I’ve seen the nzymes before in some other recipes as well.

[VFT]

Also, I give him this commercially available food as a bedtime snack / keep it on hand in case I run out of homemade stuff, but it could be fed as an entire diet. The chicken formula is the only one without peas.
You can read the ingredients on this site too.

http://www.chewy.com/dog/real-meat-company-90-chicken-air/dp/110464

[wendy]

have you considered doing a commercial raw diet? There are many excellent freeze-dried products on the market that are just like kibble.
With that list of things to not feed the dog, a raw diet makes a lot more sense than a cooked diet.
If you’re doing the home-prepared route, make sure you get a balanced recipe from an actual nutritionist. Some study I saw somewhere reported that 90% or so of home-prepared dog diets tested as being extremely incomplete and unbalanced (can’t remember the exact numbers).

[alto]

@rockonxox;7862914

I have three dogs. One of them, Ace, has a very bad yeast issue. After trying multiple kibbles, and researching even more, it has become apparent that I’m going to have to start cooking his food myself. I’ve been researching home cooked and raw diets and I can not do raw. I barely eat meat myself so my stomach just isn’t strong enough for all of that. Does anyone have experience cooking for your own dogs and (hopefully) have experience with specialty diets?

For example, Ace can’t have ANY of the following:
No carbohydrates

I think you need to reconsider this one - it pretty much limits you/your dog to meat ONLY … which means you’re going to need to do a “whole prey” model raw food … which if you’re going to insist on cooking is going to be very much NOT fun.

Many reactive dogs do better on raw diets: cooking changes the nutrition profile but may also alter the allergenicity.

I don’t think your vet is stonewalling you, far more likely your vet just has no idea on how to formulate a nutritionally complete diet - as someone else mentioned, you need a vet nutritionist (specialist).

Note that once you’ve stated No Carbohydrates, the rest of your list is unnecessary, as all those listed items are carbohydrates.

I’d very much recommend that you start with allergy testing - this will give you a more precise identification of primary & secondary etc allergens … allergies are subject to a “cascade effect” - if you can eliminate the primary allergens, often there will be minimal or even no reactivity to many of the minor allergens.

[EKLay]

[QUOTE=alto;7863085]
I think you need to reconsider this one - it pretty much limits you/your dog to meat ONLY … which means you’re going to need to do a “whole prey” model raw food … which if you’re going to insist on cooking is going to be very much NOT fun.[/QUOTE]

I would agree with this. Both our dogs (adult and a puppy) and our 2 cats are on a prey model raw diet. Went with this over cooking for them as it’s much easier to portion out/freeze their food - I can portion/freeze a month’s worth of food for all four of them in 3-4 hours, vs. spending 15-30min per meal cooking.

They are kenneled for eating, and I wipe down the kennels with vinegar afterwards, so it’s all clean. No smell, the only ‘ick’ factor can be them crunching, so if you’re sensitive to that, I’d just sit in a different room while they eat. I don’t like the feel of raw meat, so I wear disposable gloves and process it while it’s partly frozen, which takes care of that issue for me. I’m not sure if there would be a similar way to handle your not liking meat?

Having to restrict various grain/carbs for multiple critters was why we started looking at doing this, and making it ourselves made it much cheaper price wise. Commercially made low carb/grain free food was just too cost prohibitive for us. When we started, we did get fairly regular blood work done, just to make sure everyone was doing well on the new diets. Everything always came back fine, so now we only do yearly bloodwork on the older dog as part of her senior checkups.

Our vet is thrilled with the condition all our critters are in - no one has ever needed a dental, all are in great health, perfect weights. When we were first getting started with this, someone gave me a spreadsheet that helps calculate portions - you put in your dog’s current weight, adjust if they need to gain/lose or just maintain, and it gives recommendations for how much to feed. It’s a good baseline, and we just tweak it from there as needed for everyone to maintain a good weight. I’d be happy to share if you’d like it, feel free to PM me.

[rockonxox]

The excessive list is more for me so I don’t screw up and add something into anything I make/give him

I suppose I could go the RAW way if that sounds better… but the sight and touch of meat makes me gag pretty bad. I can handle chicken breast but everything else is a no-go. I can attempt it for the dogs though. I asked around and was referred to a butcher that everyone likes who is friendly and helpful so that part is taken care of!

I don’t have 3 kennels so will have to figure out a different way to feed. Maybe I can do some trays/pans/bins or something in the garage that I can easily wipe out. They don’t tend to carry anything food wise around so hopefully that won’t become an issue with a raw diet. It will definitely be trial and error.

EKLay - I am going to PM you for more info on that spreadsheet and also how you freeze it all.

[alto]

@rockonxox;7866880

I suppose I could go the RAW way if that sounds better… but the sight and touch of meat makes me gag pretty bad. I can handle chicken breast but everything else is a no-go. I can attempt it for the dogs though. I asked around and was referred to a butcher that everyone likes who is friendly and helpful so that part is taken care of!

Ask the butcher to prepare & package meal sizes for you (especially while you’re getting accustomed to this style of feeding), then just move the frozen packs to your fridge, feed, replace the packs in fridge for next meal … this way you should end up feeding part frozen which will be nicer for you to handle.
Dogs will be fine.

I don’t have 3 kennels so will have to figure out a different way to feed. Maybe I can do some trays/pans/bins or something in the garage that I can easily wipe out. They don’t tend to carry anything food wise around so hopefully that won’t become an issue with a raw diet. It will definitely be trial and error.

Invest in the kennels - it will be cheaper that the vet bills if a fight breaks out … usually once dogs realize what raw is, they become much more territorial about their meals … separate kennels is just a wise precaution for sanitary reasons & dog peace.

(check for used crates in your area, often they are very economical)

[wendy]

Before you go all out for this, why don’t you pick up some pre-made raw patties and see if they actually cure this “yeast” problem in the one dog? Feed the dog the raw patties for a month and see what happens.
Many yeast infections are actually related to an immune system malfunction and don’t have anything to do with diet.

[In_The_Gate]

Cornell University’s Nutrition department can do over the phone consults to formulate diets pretty reasonably. They can be reached at 607-253-3060. Don’t quote me, but I believe pricing starts at $50 - $100 for custom home cooked diet plan.