Henrietta Morrison - Dinner for Dogs: home cooking for a happy and healthy dog

Contents

List of Recipes

About the Book

How can you ensure your dog stays happy and healthy, from the early, bouncing puppy months to the later, grand old dog years? This recipe book is the answer!

By cooking for your dog you will keep your four-legged friend fit and cheery and know exactly what is going into your pets food, cover all his or her nutritional needs and save on vetss bills into the bargain.

Here are 50 recipes for tasty and easy dinners, homemade biscuits, kibble and quick treats, all developed with the help of a vet and guarenteed to tickle your poochs taste buds.

Your pet is already a part of the family, and with this recipe book can now be a part of mealtimes too!

About the Author

Henrietta Morrison is the founder of Lilys Kitchen, voted the UKs No 1 Pet Food Company for the last four years by the Ethical Shopping Guide. Henrietta believes that dogs should eat proper food so works with cooks, nutritionists and vets. Her Border Terrier, Lily, is her chief taster.

The only question in life that really matters to dogs is: Whats for dinner?! As pet owners, we feel a deep-down satisfaction when we see our dogs tucking into their food. Luckily, feeding time in our house is a moment of much excitement and anticipation.

If your dog goes off his or her food, its usually a sign that somethings up. I know how concerning this can be: when my dog Lily was a year old, she stopped eating altogether. She would run up to her bowl with her usual exuberance and then back away slowly. I was horrified! I tried different foods, but to no avail; she would seem enthusiastic until she smelt what was in the bowl and would then turn away and wander off looking rather dejected. I started cooking her some chicken, rice, vegetables and apples, which I knew she loved, and she began to eat properly again. This was definitely good news all round and I kept a copy of the recipes I made.

Cooking for your pet is easy, satisfying and a great way to bond! It is good to know that what you have prepared is a nourishing, yummy meal that is real food and not the grease-laden dry pellets or chunk-and-jelly that are generally sold in shops.

Healthy eating for dogs

The philosophy behind each recipe in this book is Hippocrates holistic mantra Let Food Be Thy Medicine and Medicine Thy Food. Eating well will contribute to your good health and eating badly will be detrimental, and the same goes for our pets. If its not good enough for me, its not good enough for Lily. Thats not to say Lily should eat what I eat (too many croissants would be on the list!), but if Im not prepared to eat it, then I dont feed it to my dog.

Ready-made versus home-cooked

Providing food for your dog is your responsibility as a pet owner. There are several ways of doing this: you can roll up your sleeves and get cooking, buy a really good ready-made food, or try a combination of both.

Its always been a tricky thing to know what to feed your dog. Theres a pretty assertive lobby from pet food manufacturers who warn you not to cook for your pet under any circumstances because you may not be feeding them properly or, worse, may be making them ill.

I think there needs to be a clear distinction between cooking for your pet, which is an extremely rewarding and caring thing to do, and giving your pet leftover scraps of pizza, curries and the like, which have little nutritional value to your dog.

Its also good to give your dog a varied diet so they benefit from the whole spectrum of nutrients. Youll find more on the building blocks of a healthy diet for your pet .

The problem with pet food

Buying food for your pet has turned into a bit of a minefield. In around nine out of ten supermarkets, pet food will be on the same aisle as laundry products. This is because pet food has been viewed as a commodity just like washing powder. Supermarkets bulk buy at the cheapest prices, and its a market that is almost solely controlled by huge multinationals that are experts at producing millions of tins of dog food an hour.

But for me, food for your dog should be just that real food made from ingredients you or I would recognize immediately. One of the things that has amazed me is that we owners dont trust our instincts when we are buying food for our pets. Even though the food may smell awful and contain all sorts of horrible things, we still carry on buying it and feeding it to our dogs.

Cheap dog food is cheap for a reason: the only way its possible to sell a huge bag of dog food for a few pounds is to make it using extremely low-grade, waste ingredients from, the food industry restaurant oils, tomato skins, twigs and pips from grapes, heat-blasted carcasees The list goes on.

Youll find more information on how to read a dog food label to help you navigate your way through all the pet foods on the market .

Using the recipes in this book

The recipes in this book are designed to be easy, healthy and low fat. There is no added salt and most of the recipes are wheat gluten free. You will find here a selection of everyday meals and treats, as well as recipes suitable for old dogs and those that have been unwell.

They do not claim to be complete meals as we would then have to get very technical about adding in enough calcium, making sure theres not too much copper, etc. Complete pet foods have a wide range of vitamins added to them to make sure they provide the full spectrum of nutrition. Your vet is the best person to talk to about nutrition for your particular dog.

Ive included some nutritional information as a guide to whats in the recipe. These have been calculated on an as fed basis this means that you get the nutritional value of the cooked food. This will give you some guidelines on how calorific the recipes are and how much fat and protein they provide.

My advice would be to try to make the time to prepare a home-cooked meal for your dog at least once a week. If you have time for more, then great and if not, then make sure that on the other days you are feeding your dog a really good food. Dont go for the cheapest option; buy the best food you can your dog is worth it!

Remember: our dogs depend on us solely for their food and nourishment indeed for their survival. Lily is so excited to see me every morning! I know she loves me, but I also know shes excited as it means breakfast is on its way!