Managing health problems
Week 5
For dogs suffering from a wide range of health conditions, home-cooking can help
If your dog is struggling with itchy skin, delicate digestion or a more serious medical condition such as kidney disease or pancreatitis, a specialised homemade diet can make a significant difference to their long-term health and wellbeing. These are the key aims of the final tutorial in the series:
Understand the role diet plays in managing a wide range of health conditions in dogs
Learn how home-cooked exclusion diets can help diagnose and treat food allergies and intolerances
An introduction to VetChef Prescription Home-cooked recipes and how they can be used to manage complex medical health conditions such as renal failure, pancreatitis and IBD
So, sit back, watch this short video, and get cooking :)
Exclusion diets
For dogs with a range of dietary intolerances or allergies, individually tailored home-cooked diets are the veterinary 'gold standard'.
Turkey & sweet potato exclusion diet
This diet is an example of the kind of simple exclusion diet that VetChef nutritionists use to help diagnose dietary intolerances and allergies. It's not a balanced diet and so is only suitable for feeding for a couple of weeks at most, in order to see how a dog responds to these specific ingredients.
Combine the ingredients by mixing to a dough, roll into 20 golf ball sized portions. Pop onto a baking tray, press lightly to slightly flatten each biscuit.
Bake on 180 fan for 15 mins, then allow to cool thoroughly before serving - feed one biscuit at bedtime, with a dish of warmed goat or oat milk.
Dinner Time
If your dog is suffering from a medical health issue such as arthritis, kidney disease, pancreatitis or many more, VetChef can help make dinner time therapeutic as well as delicious.
Simply sign up for the VetChef Clinical service, and we'll provide you with tailored recipes designed to support your dog's specific health issues. You'll also get one-to-one nutritional support whenever you need it to help you keep on top of your dog's changing nutritional needs.
Dr Joe's top tips
They are what they eat
The number one thing you can do to help your dog to live a long, happy and healthy life is to make sure they are eating an appropriate, healthy and fresh diet.
Keep it simple
Unlike processed diets with ingredient lists as long as your tail, home-cooked diets are simpler - and when it comes to managing allergies and intolerances, simple is best.
Use VetChef Clinical
If your dog has any kind of chronic health issue, VetChef Clinical can play an important role in ensuring their diet is providing the optimum level of support for their long-term health and wellbeing.
Prescription home-cooked
For dogs with more complex health conditions, home-cooking can also help in many cases, through the use of condition-specific diets and supplements designed to deliver active nutraceutical compounds.
How did it go?
Hopefully you have found the Kibble to Cooked program useful and enjoyable, and you and your dogs are well on the way to a fresher, healthier home-cooked future. If you have any questions or feedback on the program don't hesitate to get in touch - click here to send us an email.