If you are Cooking...

...for your pets now, here's a comment I've pulled from an article on homemade pet food. I'm seeing a lot more posts like this, where simple home cooking over a long period of time will miss key ingredients our pets need to thrive. The last sentence is key: check in with your vet for any significant change in their diet.

Please do not give your dogs bones of any sort. I work at an animal hospital, and dogs that have been given even the "safe" bones have been brought in on an emergency basis for exploratory surgery to remove the splinters caused by the dog breaking the bone up. This can occur with ANY type of bone.

As to the rest of the article, there are many other foods not mentioned in this article which can cause severe problems with dogs or cats, even if they do not cause problems in people. Onions are not good for dogs or cats, and even certain fruits have been linked to internal organ failure in pets. If you plan on feeding your pets home-made diets, please research, research, research. We see many cases of home-diets that cause severe intestinal problems, including pancreatitis. Variety may be good, but too much can cause just as many problems as you think you are fixing.

If your pet's system has grown accustomed to packaged diets, do not change over all at once. Please take the time to really research your ingredients, and speak to your veterinarian about any drastic diet changes.