Kody is doing great today and he’s more playful than he’s been since he fractured his tooth. It’s so great to see him asking to play and then being able to play so animatedly.
If you’re a regular reader you know that I cook Kody lunch every day and give him kibble from a Canine Genius every evening which he has fun with. But Kody can’t have kibble again or anything crunchy until he gets his crown, so I need to give him soft food in the evening too.
I went to the store and bought high quality canned food for the evening. As I guessed, Kody didn’t like it and barely ate it, eating just a little at a time then leaving it. I wouldn’t want it either, even though it’s very high quality food, it’s covered in slime and it smells like, well, dog food. So I’ve decided instead to cook for Kody in the evening as well. It doesn’t take me long, so it’s not really a big deal.
The only reason I didn’t do this from the start is that I was concerned about nutrition. Kody just gets beef and rice for lunch, so I was concerned such a simple diet would cover his nutritional needs. Luckily I needed to make a fresh batch of the frozen rice balls I pre-cook for Kody’s lunch and decided to mix in some vegetables. To do this, just start to make the rice in the rice cooker as usual add the rice and the water up to the correct level. Now that you have the right amount of water for the rice, add some chopped vegetables. I added carrots, celery, and mushrooms this time for Kody. Be sure to avoid onions and garlic as those are highly poisonous to dogs.
When the rice is done, there are cooked chopped vegetables mixed in. I scoop out the rice balls with vegetables, freeze them, and that will add a few vitamins and minerals to the beef and rice with very little extra work.
Tip: You can add a lot of chopped vegetables, more than you would think. They get smaller as they cook, so what looks like a lot of vegetables when you put them in will cook down to a reasonable amount. The rice also grows doubling the effect.
Also I finally found out how to cook brown rice properly in a standard rice cooker. You just put two “cups” (rice cooker cups) of rice in and instead of filling water to the two mark, you fill it to the three mark. Brown rice comes out perfect. Tonight I made some brown rice for me just to try it out, but in the future Kody will get brown rice too. Brown rice tastes better than regular rice and it has a significantly more nutritional value and it’s one of those magic foods that fights off everything from diabetes to cancer.
Finally, I also bought chopped chicken breast in Kody’s dinner since his dinner is usually chicken kibble. This may surprise you, even buying free range organic ground chicken breast (and organic vegetables), this dinner ends up being cheaper than the canned food.
Kody loved it and had the excited reaction I would expect him to have when presented with good food. Whatever people may tell you, dogs, like humans, prefer real honest to goodness food.