Arlo's health and happiness is our main concern, after all he is our fur baby. We would never subject him to a diet which would harm or effect him in anyway, and this blog is to promote the easiness and versatility of a vegan diet for dogs!
To make sure Arlo was getting enough food, we worked out his weight (3.10kg) and 3% of this would work out to be the weight of food he'd have a day.
*To find out more information about how and why check out Vegan Heartland which has been a lifesaver for us starting off, as well as a ton of research elsewhere.
His daily intake roughly worked out to be 1 cup a day, split morning and evening. We've rounded this up slightly as Arlo's only a puppy so should be getting more at this stage. Vegan dog food is lower in calories so they tend to need more than other dogs, however vegan dogs get ALL the nutrients, minerals and vitamins they need!!
Tesco was the place we went for our first big shop, and this worked out to be the cheapest. Everything came to around £25 and with this batch we barely made a dent into it...
The basis of a vegan diet for dogs is:
-Whole grains
-Beans
-Legumes
-Vegetables (orange and green)
-Oils
-Optional seasoning and flavour
-Optional dog supplement
Using a slow cooker we added brown rice, red split lentils, black turtle beans, mix of bulgar wheat, quinoa and red quinoa, frozen peas and mung beans. As this was our first shot at it we kind of chucked everything in using rough amounts from a recipe online. We chopped 3 sweet potatoes (orange veg) and a whole broccoli (green veg) into small chunks as Arlo's in the process of loosing his baby teeth so we wanted to ease the process for him.
For the oils we added a spoonful of coconut oil and a whole lot of water before cooking everything on high for around 4 hours.
We plan on changing up our recipe with every batch we make, playing around with the orange and green veg to keep things interesting and making sure Arlo gets a balanced diet from a range of veg.
This batch we cooked will last just over two weeks- one week measured up in tubs and the rest frozen until needed.
Because Arlo hated his old food and barely ate we didn't need to slowly introduce this new diet change.
Once his first vegan meal was in front of him he WOOFED it down and its been that way ever since.
He's even started to do a little dance when we have his bowl in our hands!
I understand this post has been quite vague on measurements and also health benefits but were still learning as we go along. We kind of threw everything together and hoped for the best...
Next time I plan to take pictures of the cooking process and document measurements for anyone wanting an exact recipe.
But for now just enjoy this pic of Arlo with a full belly and REMEMBER, if you're going to feed your dog a vegan diet please make sure you do your research and check what foods are poisonous.
Thanks for reading, Maisie x
