Vitamin recommendations?

[Sylvia and Malley]

I have a question.  I make Malley's food.  She gets ground beef or venison mixed with ground turkey and chicken, rice, green beans and carrots.  She loves it, she is happy and very healthy.  I make her frozen treats with yogurt, peanut butter and honey.  Her crunchy bone shaped treats come from the local organic baker and they are made from whole wheat, water, butter, eggs, beef base, dried garlic and dried skim milk.  Everything is great - she is great, teeth are great and I thought I was making smart choices. Same thing I do for us - organic and whole food.  Latest trip to vet for shots - she says - that's nice and all, but Malley should have vitamins.  Recommendations please.  Thank you!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Dogs who eat homecooked diets should get a human multi-vitamin, the plainest one you can find. They also need bone meal for calcium. We have homecooked diet recipes with supplemetn recommendations in The Food Group.

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

Your vet should be able to help you, or maybe I just have a really good vet who takes a hollistic approach to my dog's kidney disease. She gave me a very precise recipe to make him.  I include liquid B12, crushed Tums and fish oil on his food. But don't go by what I give since that is designed for his kidney problems....

Some of our other homecooked recipes in the Food Group might have vitamin info as Karen suggests...

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

Just at a glance I am concerned about the lack of calcium in her diet. I too would recommend you check out the home cooked section of the Food Group for recipes that will give you an idea of how to get that end of it balanced.  Also, many people choose to eliminate or greatly restrict grains from their doodles diets. Some question if grain is necessary or beneficial for dogs.  If you haven't considered this in the past you might also want to do a little research in that area so you can make an informed decision. Her diet sounds good but just needs a little tweaking. Love that you use organic and that you are such a devoted Doodle Mom! :)

[Ginny Nightingale]

I am no expert and wouldn't venture a guess as to whether or not this is good but it sounds similar to what my sister does for her dog who is the picture of health and gets no vitamins. Also I was told to add raw eggs and the shells (all crunched up) to my dog's food when they were on a raw food diet and that the shells were included to add calcium--the dogs ate them right up!

[Sylvia and Malley]

Love all of these responses.  I started this diet with our other dogs years ago due to allergies and hot spots and they were perfect in 2 months and off all meds.  That is when I went all home made and all organic.  Shepherd lived to be 16 and the Akita to 14.  A vitamin had never been mentioned and so that is what caught me off guard with docs comment.  She gets her "ice cream" treat every night - the yogurt mix - so I thought I had calcium covered.  I guess I will just get a vitamin and slip it to her to ease my guilt.