2 Vet-Approved Recipes: Homemade Food for Senior Dogs

“Rufus is feeling five years younger! He loves his food now and just seems so much happier.” I’ve heard pet owners gushing like this over and over after I’ve recommended they switch to homemade food for senior dogs. 

Home-prepared dog food can make a huge difference if your buddy has lost a bit of interest in life or is a picky eater. It can also be used as a tool to treat diseases common in senior dogs. But it’s extremely important to make the food complete and balanced! Otherwise, your dog could end up worse off than he is with dry dog food. 

Homemade food for senior dogs can be as simple as chicken, brown rice and green beans as long as you add the right supplements. It’s easy (and free) to create a complete and balanced recipe with BalanceIT.com®. I’ll show you two vet-approved recipes I created there that are perfect for senior dogs. 

Weight and muscle loss are common in geriatric dogs. Scientists believe these may occur due to the increased recycling of old body cells (autophagy)(3). 

We want our older dogs to maintain their fat and muscle mass for as long as possible. But it may take more calories and a different macronutrient ratio to combat geriatric wasting once it starts. Home-prepared food can be tailored to fit your dog. Most dogs also find it tastier so they eat more of it. 

It’s not unusual for senior dogs to experience changes in appetite. If a dog is eating less, the food needs to have a more concentrated level of all required nutrients to meet the dog’s needs. 

Home-prepared food can be made with more calories per cup and still have all the vitamins and minerals your dog requires for health. Some of the reasons senior dogs have a lower appetite include: 

• Dental disease–so many senior dogs have dental disease to the point of having pain and an overall unhealthy condition.
• Mobility issues–spinal pain, muscle stiffness and arthritis are common in older dogs.
• Other systemic diseases–urinary tract diseases, liver disease, chronic gastrointestinal disease and endocrine disease are all more likely to occur in senior dogs. 

A lot of internet dog enthusiasts are saying senior dogs require more protein than adult dogs. Is that really the case? 

Veterinary nutritionists currently believe healthy older dogs don’t need more protein than younger dogs. Most high-quality adult dog foods have plenty of protein for senior dogs. 

AAFCO and NRC do not have official senior dog food recommendations (1). Instead, they fall into the Adult Dog category. 

Any “senior” labeling on dog food is purely made up by the manufacturer. There is no official standard for senior dog food. Some products have less protein than adult food while others have more. 

There’s a lot we don’t know about the nutritional needs of senior dogs. 

Some researchers have wondered whether older dogs absorb less dietary protein. This idea led them to think seniors need more highly digestible protein to maintain health (2).

But several clinical studies have found no difference in protein requirements between healthy geriatric vs. younger adult dogs. 

A 1985 study showed no difference in the ability to utilize nutrients from different diets when considering a group of 10-12-year-old dogs compared to a group of 8-year-old dogs (4). A 2001 study also found no difference in whole-body protein turnover between geriatric and young adult dogs while eating 16%, 24, or 32% protein. They concluded that 16% dietary protein may be perfectly adequate for geriatric dogs (5).  

Some dog food manufacturers assume senior dogs all have some level of renal dysfunction/kidney insufficiency. 

There was a time when veterinary nutritionists recommended feeding all dogs with kidney disease less protein. That’s why some senior diets provide a lower level of protein than adult diets. 

Current opinions on this practice vary, but many nutritionists recommend protein restriction only for dogs with advanced kidney disease. If your dog has kidney disease, please consult your veterinarian for help formulating an appropriate homemade meal. 

Vet nutritionists currently recommend healthy elderly dogs eat dog food with at least the amount of protein recommended for adult dogs. The protein source for seniors should be highly digestible. Human-grade sources of protein used in BalanceIT.com’s recipes are generally highly digestible. 

Each case must be assessed separately as some older dogs are overweight, some have arthritis, some have failing kidneys and others are healthy except for the loss of muscle mass. Work with your vet to determine if your dog needs a special therapeutic diet. 

It’s super common for well-intentioned pet owners to feed a homemade diet consisting only of meat and starch. Most people don’t consider all the deficiencies in this sort of diet. 

Unbalanced diets scare us vets! We don’t want to see dogs showing up with rickets from lack of calcium or skin disease from the wrong balance of essential fatty acids. So we tell people to feed a commercial food instead of cooking their own.

I’ve seen some dog food recipe doozies in books and on the internet. 

I mean, really? 15+ ingredients??? And many are hard to find and expensive. 

It’s a turn-off for all of us pet lovers. But you’ll see below that recipes don’t have to be complicated or super expensive. 

The animal protein components are the most expensive and most important part to keep as simple as possible. Consider using lean ground turkey or ground beef, chicken breasts, chicken thighs or less expensive types of fish like tilapia. 

For the carbohydrate component, white rice is probably the least expensive option. You could also use brown rice, sweet potato, white potato or even oats. 

It’s not required, but why not include a little anti-inflammatory boost by adding fish oil? These days it’s easy to find and usually not expensive. 

You can get as fancy as you want or keep things ultra simple with a meat, carb and veggie recipe. Using more common ingredients will make it easier to buy everything you need for your dog’s diet at your usual grocery store.

It’s a lot easier to grab a huge bag of dry kibble off the shelf at the supermarket than it is to source multiple items from multiple stores for cooking at home. Then there’s the issue of having to cook for your dog daily. 

And many people don’t have the freezer space to pre-cook a month’s worth of dog food. 

I’ll show you how to deal with each of these points. My system makes it feasible to feed my two dogs fresh food daily for over 10 years. I spend only a few hours a month on it and it’s less costly than some high-end commercial food products. 

VET-APPROVED BALANCED HOMEMADE DOG FOOD

Making food for your dog is not difficult. I’ve been doing it for 10 years for my two dogs. It does take a little more effort but the payoff is so worth it. 

Today we are fortunate to have a free resource at BalanceIT.com for creating a nutritionally complete homemade dog food diet that can be safely fed long-term.

Balance IT was founded by Sean Delaney, DVM, MS, Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Nutrition (DACVN). Dr. Delaney is a board-certified veterinary nutritionist. His team has created powerful software that vets and pet owners can use free of charge to create millions of pet food recipes. 

Balance IT also offers supplements to go along with each recipe to ensure there are no nutritional deficiencies. That means your fresh food recipe will be just as complete and balanced as high-end commercial veterinary diets. 

You won’t have to worry about your pup developing diseases from eating an unbalanced recipe like just chicken and rice. And your vet won’t fuss at you for endangering your pet!

I prefer to cook my dog’s food in batches, preparing at least one week’s worth at a time. You can tell the BalanceIT software to calculate the recipe for one day, a week or even up to three week’s worth of food for your dog.  

You must cook the ingredients separately, exactly as instructed in your recipe. Don’t try to throw everything in one pot to cook or the food will not be balanced properly!

On my pet food prep days, I cook my meat and starch, weigh and mix everything in a giant bowl and then portion it out and put it in the refrigerator and/or freezer. That’s it. Once you get the routine down, it’s not a big deal. 

I’ve created two sample recipes that work well for my senior dogs. But there are many choices when creating dog food recipes with BalanceIT.com. You can make a super simple three-ingredient recipe or choose multiple “superfood” ingredients. I suggest starting with a simple recipe. 

How can I make BALANCED homemade dog food?

I prefer using the Balance IT Canine Plus supplement which allows you to reheat your pup’s meal one time without destroying the nutrients. If you opt for the regular Balance IT Canine supplement, you’ll have to mix it in after you’ve reheated the food, or you can serve the food cold.

Failing to add the supplement will lead to critical nutritional imbalances. These can result in serious health problems over time. Please take this very seriously!

How can I make a FREE recipe for my specific dog’s needs?

I encourage you to create your own recipe based on your dog’s weight and preferences. Head on over to BalanceIT.com. It’s EASY and FREE! Here’s the one I made for my dog…

Discuss any diet change with your vet if your dog has any health problems or a history of reacting badly to food changes. I always tell people to gradually change to the new diet over 7 days for dogs who tolerate changes well. Change over a period of 14 days if you know your dog tends to get an upset stomach with food changes. 

Stop the new food and contact your veterinarian if vomiting, diarrhea or decreased appetite occurs. 

As a rule of thumb, for most homemade dog food 1.5 cups is about equal to 1 cup of dry dog food. So a dog who eats 2 cups of dry food twice a day will be eating closer to 3 cups of homemade dog food twice a day. 

Luckily, you don’t have to guesstimate since your Balance IT recipe will tell you exactly how much to feed your dog.

It costs me around $95 per month to feed a 52-pound dog with the chicken and rice homemade diet shown in this article. That figure could go up significantly if you’re using more expensive proteins like lamb or fish. 

Chicken & Rice Recipe Cost per Month for 52 lb. Dog:

I’ve figured out that my homemade dog food recipe costs 66% less to feed my dogs than commercial raw dog food (~$300/month), which I used before I started cooking for them. 

I also feel better feeding home-prepared cooked meals after several of the raw diet products I was buying were recalled due to serious bacterial contamination.

Homemade dog food indeed costs about 25% more than high-end dry food (~$75/month). And it costs a lot more than mid- or low-range kibble-style dry food. 

But the difference in the quality of ingredients, control over preparation, psychological and physical benefits are definitely worth the extra money!

So if you have a couple of hours a week to cook food for your dog, you can feed fresh meals for just a fraction more than it would cost to feed high-end dry dog food. Why not give it a try?