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 CHAPTER 3

The Best Foods for Your Pet

To achieve nutritional balance in your pet’s homemade diet,
you must provide variety. And the key to planning a variety-
rich diet is to take your animal’s individuality into account.
While commercial food is designed to be universal, your
homemade food is designed by you for your specific pet,
within your own household culture. There truly is an art to
creating meals for your individual cat or dog.

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 Personalizing History
Your Pet’s Meals Your pet’s history is a good starting place for
evaluating what your pet’s individual diet needs
Every animal is an individual, and may be. If you bought your kitten or puppy from
an ingredient that works for one a caring and responsible breeder and she has
been nurtured and pampered all her life, you
animal may not agree with an-
may not need to worry much about addressing
other; even littermates can have health issues. But you do want to know what
very different reactions to food. the breeder was feeding and if there were any
Allergies are one obvious reaction, adverse reactions to certain foods. Also, try to
but there are other, more subtle, find out if the parents of your kitten or puppy are
reactions to food that should be healthy or if the breed itself tends to have certain
genetic issues or diseases.
taken into account as you build
your pet’s diet. For example, If you are adopting your animal from a shelter,
ground chicken may be the perfect you may not have any real background infor-
mation available to you. Ask the people at the
protein source for your gentle and
shelter to tell you as much as they can about the
slightly lazy cat, seemingly giving animal you are adopting. Questions about how
her extra energy and a friendlier your new pet interacts with the other animals and
disposition, but it may lead to ex- how she eats, sleeps, and displays aggression
tra nervousness and even anxiety or anxiety will help you make comparisons and
in your other, more high-strung, allow you to build a historical profile.

cat. You’ll want to consider the Take this background information into consider-
individual and personal needs ation when thinking about your pet’s mealtimes;
of your specific pet as you create food and eating are huge parts of animals’ lives
and can play a significant role in their emotional
meal plans.
and social reactions. For many animals, feeding
To get started in personalizing your pet’s meals, time may be associated with stress and compe-
you need to understand your pet’s history, per- tition. If you have a multiple-animal household,
sonality, eating style, and more. Here’s a run- make sure you are aware of what is happening
down of what you need to know. socially at feeding time, and if you see that one
of your pets is becoming stressed, be ready to
provide alternative feeding arrangements.

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 I worked with one client whose mixed-breed dog was experiencing con-
stant diarrhea no matter what types of food we tried. She was the only
animal in the household, but she gulped her food and fretted and became
snappy if anyone approached her while she was eating. Apparently she
had some experience in her background where feeding time was stressful
and she couldn’t get over it. We decided she needed privacy and reassur-
ance and moved her feeding time out of the busy kitchen and into a small
and dimly lit bathroom and closed the door. The human family made sure
to be relatively quiet and calm outside the bathroom while she ate. At first
she continued the pattern, but after a couple of days, she started feeling
comfortable enough to eat more slowly, and the diarrhea started to ease
up. A year later, she is now eating back in the kitchen and even sharing
with us at the supper table, finally realizing that the stress from her past no
longer exists.

If you find that your pet is experiencing stresses derived from the past, con-
sider making some routine changes. For example, if your cat was bullied by
other cats in the past while eating, a good change might be to feed each
animal in your household in a different room. For genetically linked health
issues, talk with your veterinarian—he or she should be able to give you
nutritional advice. A holistic or integrative veterinarian can provide detailed
nutritional information you can apply to your individual pet.

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 Food Background
Consider your pet’s food background. If your
cat has only been fed kibbles or canned, mushy
cat food, she may have no idea what to do
if you present her with a whole chicken heart.
Introduce it gradually—start by grinding or finely
chopping the heart; then once she’s used to
that, start chopping it less and less, slowly working
up to serving a whole one. Don’t be discouraged
if this doesn’t work out for your cat. My one cat
will never get used to a whole heart; I have to
chop it a little or she just bats it across the kitchen
floor! Also, you will be introducing all sorts of new
flavors that your pet may love eventually, but
may be nervous about when first introduced. Be
prepared to be patient and creative.

You may find that the transition period to a new,

homemade diet lasts longer than you expected.
Be aware that if you are switching from a com-
mercial food to a homemade one—particularly
from a grain-based, bulky food to a concen-
trated, mostly meat food—your pet will have to
go through a certain amount of adjustment. Your
You can make the transition easier by taking
pet may feel cheated if he’s used to a big bowl
your time. Don’t rush it! You may be excited to
of food and is now presented with a smaller serv-
start your pet on a new way of healthy eating,
ing of high-quality food. Also, your pet’s metab-
but take little steps. Start by adding a couple
olism may need some time to revamp itself and
spoonfuls of new food to your pet’s current food.
process the food properly.
Use simple ingredients with tastes and textures
similar to what you’ve been feeding up until now.
You don’t want to overwhelm your pet. I know
many pets, especially cats, who have become
overwhelmed by too many new ingredients at
once, were turned off from variety, and became
suspicious at mealtime.

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