My Persnickety Life Begins

      

     We got a chihuahua puppy about 7 months ago, when he was 4 months old. He has brought so much joy to my life, but also so much anxiety. He is SO picky and persnickety. I have tried so many different commercial dog foods and none of them seem to appeal to him. I was in unchartered territory because every dog that I have ever owned (Labrador, basset hound, and rat terroir) all loved food and would eat ANYTHING. No not eat, scarf anything and everything. A picky dog?? I really had no clue those existed because my only experience with dogs was dogs that ate everything. I never even had difficulty with switching dog food brands if one was unavailable. 

     My husband told me to just leave him alone and he will eat when he gets hungry. I could not stand this approach. He went an entire day without eating and I was a miserable mess. I know how dangerous that is for this breed and the risk of hypoglycemic shock, so this was not the approach I was going to take. I started just giving him whatever we were eating (that is safe for dogs) because I was clueless and desperate and he was not eating. 

     After about 4 months of agony and trying SO many different commercial puppy foods supplemented with people food here and there, I was a mess. I started researching, reading, watching videos and trying to figure out what I was going to do. Kibble was just not working. He would only eat it when I mixed wet and dry together and then he picked at it and ate some of the wet and got some dry by accident it seemed.  In fact it gave him rashes and made him itch and lots of other side effects too. (See redness below)

     I finally decided that I would make him homemade dog food. I was and still am terrified and I guess I started this blog tonight to chronicle this process. Here is my first recipe, made in a 6qt instant pot: 

Cinco Homemade Dog Food Recipe 1

Set Instant pot to sauté

Put in 1 tbsp. Olive Oil

When it says Hot, Brown 1 lb. ground turkey

Turn off

Put in 1 cup raw spinach

3/4 c. Jasmine rice

2 carrots shredded

1 apple shredded with peel (all seeds and core carefully removed)

1 sweet potato shredded without peel

1 cup cut up broccoli

2 cups unsalted chicken broth

Put lid on to sealing

Pressure cook, time 15 minutes

Manual release

Mix and chop it all up with a "ChopStir"

Cinco gets ¼ cup twice a day (½ cup total)

Here is the ChopStir that I own: CLICK

    Ok so the nutrition label is based on a 2,000 calorie diet which obviously does not apply. Cinco will get 260 calories which would change those percentages greatly. However the grams and milligrams are helpful as I try and figure out how to balance his diet and supplement it appropriately. 

    I need to find a vet that is on board with homemade dog food and I am working on that. This is all early stages and I hope to figure out what works and what Cinco will eat and then get some veterinarian advice and approval after I have a working idea and plan that I can show them to review. 

    What I know so far is that Cinco SCARFED this food down! He ate it so fast! I have never seen him eat food that was intended for him like that. So I am SUPER excited and finally hopeful that I can figure out how to feed my persnickety pupper doggo!

If you have helpful, constructive comments, please leave them below. I did not embark on this path by choice. My dog was underweight and not eating well. I felt forced to do something!

Thanks, 

Panicked Pet Mom