Feeding guidelines:

For puppies, I recommend a high quality commercial diet with reasonable levels of calcium and calories, hopefully along with canned and/or pre-made raw diets that meet the same guidelines.   Excess calcium and calories can cause a lot of damage in a growing puppy.  There is some room for error in an adults dog's diet, but NO room for error in a puppy's diet.  For this reason, I do not recommend any type of home-formulated diet as a staple diet for puppies (or pregnant bitches.) 

I recommend feeding a commercial food such as Eagle Pack Holistic or Healthwise kibble and/or Aunt Jeni's or Nature's Variety raw formulas. For more information on puppy nutrition and suitable foods, click here.  Toy breed puppies are able to utilize much higher levels of calcium and calories from weaning until about 4 months, and most small breed puppy formulas are suitable for them.

Pregnant females should be fed diets with moderate levels of calcium since excess calcium can predispose them to uterine inertia and eclampsia.  More on that here.

The trend these days seems to be "more is better!" there are kibbles on the market with over 40% protein and almost 600 calories per cup. There are actually very few dogs that require this level of energy or nutrients.  Unless you have a sled dog, lactating bitch, underweight dog, newly weaned toy breed puppy or an agility champion, you probably have no need for these types of foods.  Even chihuahuas with their high metabolisms have a tendency to become obese when fed these types of formulas.  Sometimes less is more! 

For adult dogs I use and prefer Natural Balance and Healthwise dry foods, with added protein in the form of canned or pre-made raw food. I formulate my own balanced recipes based on the 2006 NRC guidelines for my own dogs, but for the average pet owner, canned or pre-made raw is just fine and much more convenient!

On home-cooking:

There are many books on home-cooking for dogs and natural diets for dogs.  I own quite a few of them and have looked through most of the others.  The misinformation out there is downright scary. There are recipes that call for "kelp" yet never mention how many mcg of iodine should be in the kelp.  Different brands of kelp may have vastly different amounts of iodine.  Iodine excess in young puppies can permanently damage thyroid function. That is just the beginning.  Many recipes I have seen have imbalanced calcium:phosphorus ratios, are short on important minerals, contain near toxic amounts of vitamin A and/or copper, etc, etc.

Even veterinarian formulated recipes call for human multi-vitamin/mineral tablets.  There is no way to be sure you are providing balanced nutrition with a generic vitamin tablet!  The foods you use in your dog's diet already contain vitamins.  Some, like vitamin D or A can be toxic in excess.  If you are feeding a diet high in liver and using a Centrum vitamin in addition, you could be providing toxic levels of vitamin A in the diet.

*Just because someone publishes a book or a website with dog recipes does not mean those recipes are actually balanced!

Click on the link below for more feeding recommendations:

Recommended dry and canned foods