Forty Cups of Dog Food Hogging My Freezer

My roommate C decided to foster a dog. She's wanted one for awhile now, and at first I vetoed the idea having not grown up with a dog and being convinced that I was allergic. I mean, I've definitely tested as allergic to dogs and cats my whole life. Now it looks like the allergy to dogs may fall into the category of another set of allergies I also test positive for: trees and grass. Let's put it this way, I don't exactly break out into a set of hives every time I venture near a state park. My flabby thighs, however, don't promise to refrain from breaking into a fit of anxiety and impending performance issues though.

So a couple of months back, I changed my mind and said okay to a dog. Enter Hudson. Our 80-pound plus pooch. Now that there's a dog in the house, the first thing I thought of was feeding him. Not that he needed me, C takes complete care of him. But I see another mouth, and I see kitchen time.



This is him gnawing on this toy of his that used to be a flying squirrel. I say used to be because on the second or third day of meeting Hudson, I saw this strange orange and blue thing on the living room floor. The head had already been ripped off and each limb was displaying serious damage. Now all the stuffing is gone, and it's just a a limp rag used for nosing around and playing tug of war.

I based the recipe on Sam's Healthwise RawFood Cakes, that I found on the Internet. I don't really know why it's called raw food, there's cooked eggs in it. I couldn't stand the lack of meat and added a pound plus of cooked ground beef.



This recipe is some sort of fiber machine. Here is the broccoli and zucchini.

Then you have to pulverize everything in the processor, which makes everything look really pretty. At least in the beginning.

Tons of apples and carrots. It's a rabbit's dream buffet. Speaking of which, I don't know that Hudson would chase rabbits. I haven't spent much time with him, but the little that I have, he seems to largely ignore the city squirrels. Aren't they supposed to be mortal enemies?

Pulverized carrots and apples. Now remember, the green mash has to get mixed in with the orange mash.

Instead of just adding cranberries, I also put in a bag of frozen mixed berries. I half wanted to spoon this stuff back out and make myself a smoothie, forget the dog's nutritional requirements.

Then I made brown rice (without the chicken stock, it wasn't ready yet), threw in the oatmeal, the pulverized egg shells, the hard boiled eggs, the ground beef, some reheated frozen peas and carrots, the roasted yams, the parsley, (there was no cabbage), the yeast, the flax seed, the peanut butter, the oil and the pumpkin seeds.

Oh yeah, about the seeds. After the eggshells, it didn't occur to me that those seeds should be shelled first. So I sort of hacked them up in the food processor and threw them in. I can say with confidence that those do pass and will not kill your dog.

Then you mush all that stuff together with your hands before making 1 cup cakes to freeze for future use.

Ta da! The finished cakes. It looks like dog food yeah? Well, I have no idea what dog food is supposed to look like, but an undefined brown mush seems about right to me.

Hudson's verdict on the food? Not sure. He seems to smack his lips and lick a lot when he eats it, but that might be because of the peanut butter.

Anyways, he hasn't ever had a full meal of it yet because when I tried to phase him into it with half his regular food and half my food, it really did a roto rooter on the guy and freaked C and I out a little. Or rather, freaked me out a little. I'm not sure what C thinks. I'm hoping to give it another go soon though because I really want my freezer back in time for Thanksgiving. I ordered a heritage turkey and am bust my pants excited about it.