Stewart Creations

Today I am packing ziplock baggies of dog food for the freezer so we can easily travel with it. The trip is only four or five hours of driving, but we need meals for the three dogs for two or three days. I’m sure there will be turkey leftovers for one meal, but they need some of their own, too.
These dogs of ours are pretty well-fed. Not fat, they get off-the-leash walks almost every day, but they eat all home cooking, nothing canned.
I make their chicken, carrot, rice food every week in the crockpot on the back porch. When we go on a trip they get it frozen in little baggies. These travel in the ice chest and then we just throw away the baggie. Total portability. Of course, we will recycle the baggie if we can, but Rocky Point so far has not got up to speed on recycling plastics.
They have security cameras everywhere, though. The parking lot of the motel we will be staying in, The Granada del Mar, phone number (from the U.S dial these numbers –>) 011 52 638 383 2742
has security cameras, and if you look for it on the web you’ll run into Manny’s beach cam. He has the party up and running 24/7. Not much to see until weekends, though, the beach is pretty quiet until party time.

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Third installment in the kibble salmonella scare:
You should never let your guard down when it comes to huge corporations. They’re just trying to make some money, in accord with the American Dream (and it is a very good dream, I love capitalism).
Corporations don’t make the decisions; people make the decisions, and they have to please the board, which is made up of people who are yet another step removed from whatever the corporation does to make the money that makes the board happy. How can they police themselves? Really. It’s a very rare corporation that has any morals. The individuals that make up the corporate entity may be (and mostly are) very fine people, but a corporation cannot have a soul or conscience, really, it’s not in the nature of the beast.
That leaves it up to the consumer. The American Way (and again, it’s a darn good way).
Somehow i missed the salmonella poisoning issue of 2007, but found plenty on line about it the other day.
In August 2007, Mars Petcare voluntarily recalled select bags of its Red Flannel Large Breed Adult Formula dry dog food and Krasdale Gravy dry dog food.
Maybe I missed that because I had already started feeding them human-grade kibble (Canidae)and started cooking for my dogs, so I felt safe. I researched and settled on Canidae kibble for the human-grade ingredients and low carbohydrates, which dogs don’t need. I found some easy and affordable crock pot recipes. For instance:

Crock Pot Dog Dinner
chicken legs and thighs (we use the cheap ten-pound bag)
carrots
white rice or macaroni

Break the carrots into a couple of pieces and lay them on the bottom of the crockpot and put a layer of chicken on top of that so the chicken won’t stick. Pour in some rice or macaroni (a cup or less) and top with as much chicken as will fill the pot. Add enough water to leave a couple of inches from the top so it won’t overflow.
Set the crock pot up on the porch if you have a small kitchen like me, and out of your pets’ reach (it gets hot). The porch is also great because it smells up the whole house when it’s inside.
Let it cook four hours or so on high or six on medium, the chicken should fall off the bone when you stir it.
Take the long bones out, the rest will be so cooked that it’s okay. You need to use your judgement based on your own dog. Cool to wrist-temperature before you feed it to them and keep it refrigerated since there are no preservatives. Once it cools you can skim off the fat for low-cal diets. Use this in the same amounts as your usual canned portion.
Sometimes I add (very cheap) liver trimmings or pork kidney and the dogs really love it. Boy can that stuff stink while it cooks!

The reason I use white rice and pastas is because one of our dogs has an occasional digestive thing and the vet told me that if she wants roughage, she will eat weeds and grass, but bulk in the form of brown rice and whole wheat bran is probably part of her problem and not that good for her, although carrots in small amount are allowed. (She really loves her cooked carrots).
Cooking every few days is no problem for us and it’s a lot cheaper than canned. I also feel I’m generating less waste in the form of packaging than I did with canned, so that adds to the appeal for me. Dogs love this food and they don’t even care that it’s really, really good for them.
Lack of trust in commercial dog food generated by big business drove me to the point of cooking for my dogs, and it turns out it’s a good place to be driven to.
Good luck to you whatever you decide.

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1 1/2 to 2 lb. chicken necks
1/2 to 1 lb. chicken, beef or pork livers
1 to 2 c. rice
several carrots
water to fill

Line crockpot bottom with carrots, add meat, pour rice over and fill close to top with water.
Set on low for eight or ten hours or high for four to six hours. Cool completely and store in refrigerator.

Australian Cattle Dogs love it mixed with a good-quality kibble. We use Canidae because there are no mystery ingredients and NO GLUTEN and no glutinized products.

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