Curious if anyone here has ever tried feeding their dogs a fresh cooked simple diet their entire life? I'm wondering if it's a money saver to do that instead of pet insurance.
It is a lot of time but I don't have kids so I can make it work so far. Our hope is that it extends their life and lowers medical bills. So far it definitely eliminated itching/allergies from the first six months when they were constnatly itchy, eye goobers, running nose eating regular dry and wet dog foods of which we tried several.
Our base is usually quinoa/rice grains, some squash, table spoon of bone meal, table spoon of vitamin/joint health compound, mix in some veg that are dog safe like carrots/broccoli sometimes. Then we add about half protein rotating between ground beef, roast chicken and cod/salmon whichever we can find better deals on. No seasoning on any meat. For snacks I make batches of dried sweet potatoes and give them chicken organs/necks or for training tiny pieces of bacon (only takes a spec). They probably eat healthier than I do.
The time is a pain, no lie, and if I was taking care of young kids or had my old 2-3 hour commute I couldn't do it. It costs a lot more than kibble but really not much more than the higher end wet dog food which we were already buying trying to keep their allergies in check unsuccessfully...which is why we said we might as well try making their food.
I've had the two dogs (husky german shepherd mix) about two years now and they are very healthy and I'm on the fence over pet insurance myself and probably going to quote the companies people mentioned here.
