In pet food news of late, you perhaps have seen headlines claiming a new study found that Home Prepared Pet Foods are a concern for pets because they have been found nutritionally incomplete. Here are a few:
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These headlines are based on a new study, titled “Findings from the Dog Aging Project: home-prepared diets for companion dogs feature diverse ingredients, and few are nutritionally complete” which states (bold added):
“The purpose of this study was to qualitatively describe the home-prepared dog diets reported by DAP participants during calendar year 2023, examining common ingredients and their descriptions for future development of a more detailed survey designed to collect more complete dietary information from dog owners who feed home-prepared diets.”
Instead of ‘examining ingredients for future development of a more detailed survey to collect complete dietary information’ for home prepared diets as the study claimed, the researchers did something else entirely.
Based on ONE single question – the most minimal information request – the study made this claim: “Of the 1,726 home-prepared diets, 341 (20%) did not have enough ingredient information to code dietary completeness, 751 (44%) were classified as deficient, 527 (31%) were partially deficient, and 107 (6%) were classified as complete.”
What was that ONE question:
“Tell us everything you want us to know about your dog’s home-prepared diet. We will use this information to guide the development of a more detailed study.”
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See Supplementary Material S1, page 19.
They did NOT ask for a detailed ingredient list and recipe.
They did NOT require full details to be disclosed for each home prepared diet.
They simply said ‘tell us what you want us to know’ and then assured pet owning participants this is only for future development of a detailed study.
The study appears to set the stage for home prepared pet food failure.
The question about home prepared pet food wasn’t asked until well into a lengthy survey. If you’ve ever participated in surveys like this, by the time to get 15 minutes into it your eyes are crossed. You start off doing your best to provide accurate responses, but 15 minutes later you just want to get to the end of the survey. At this frazzled moment, when you see a question that allows you to be detailed or brief (‘tell us everything you want us to know about your dog’s home-prepared diet’)…what are most people going to do? They are going to provide as quick of a response as they can.
The study almost led the participants into providing a brief response by stating “We will use this information to guide the development of a more detailed study.” In other words, ‘we know you are tired of this survey at this point – and this question is only to guide us in the future for a more detailed survey – so don’t worry about giving us all the details.’
The study took the information provided to this one single question and pretended they had complete home prepared diet information. If a 15 minutes into the survey frazzled pet owner responded “chicken, egg, and vegetables” (intentionally brief because they just wanted to reach the end of the survey) to the open ended question…presto! Incomplete home prepared diet.
After this one vague survey question, the study came to this conclusion:
“The composition of home-prepared diets varied substantially in terms of ingredients, and few are likely to be nutritionally complete.”
For a study to make the broad claim that 94% of home prepared pet foods are nutritionally incomplete based on one single vague question without requiring full details of the diet OR any nutritional laboratory analysis is absurd.
Personal opinion: I firmly believe home prepared pet food recipes should be carefully chosen (and that recipe followed). I provide my own pets with part home prepared foods and part commercial food. The following are recipe sources that I make for my pets and trust:
The Forever Dog Life from Dr. Karen Becker and Rodney Habib. https://foreverdog.com/
Dr. Judy Morgan is the author of numerous books including her latest Raising Naturally Healthy Pets. https://drjudymorgan.com/
Dr. Barbara Royal and Dr. Natasha Lilly offer complete and balanced recipes for cats and dogs. https://animaldietformulator.com/products/ready-made-recipes
Andi Brown, author of The Whole Pet Diet, provides the recipe for the Whole Pet Diet Chicken Stew for cats and dogs. http://www.thewholepetdiet.com/docs-stew-the-healthiest-version-of-my-food-for-dogs-cats
Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
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Robert
December 4, 2025 at 2:40 pm
An honest interest would be:
1. What do you feed?
2. How is your dog’s health?
An honest scientific interest would do what every honest study must do:
compare the intervention (food, drugs, exercise etc) with the OUTCOME.
I have moved the Dog Aging Project into the trash and will stop my participation. So disappointing. I thought they really tried to work for the benefit of dogs and their humans. Just another bunch of bought and paid for shills.
Bonnie S Morris
December 4, 2025 at 3:58 pm
All they really want is for us to use the poison they’ve been making for years. We must be hurting their wallets. They don’t tell us about the awful things they put in pet food. I say, Thank you Susan, we are hitting them where it matters. The FDA should do their jobs and do them fairly and honestly.
maryann k
December 4, 2025 at 4:47 pm
Thanks so much for providing links where we can access recipes making it easier for us to feed our furbabies properly/healthfully. And thanks again for all that you do for pet owners.
Fiona
December 4, 2025 at 7:44 pm
Just another stupid contradiction to feeding home made diets. There are plenty of balanced recipes out there. The pet food industry will claim if it says nutritionally complete, that it is the best choice. Uhhhhh, Ol’ Roy at Wallyworld says nutritionally complete yet their food is basically wood shavings and meat grease. And it’s cheap. Your dog may do fine on it initially but then you will make up for it with increased vet costs for health issues. In the wild, are every meal for wolves nutritionally balanced? I think not. Feed raw or home made balanced diet and add a quality probiotic. The difference in your pet’s health will amaze you!
Bab
December 4, 2025 at 11:27 pm
While I agree that if the claims are true that a vague question was asked (I haven’t read the report yet) and assuming owners didn’t follow instructions (“tell us everything” isn’t an invite for a brief answers but a request for thorough detail hence the word “everything”), there is room for questioning the method – assuming the assessment here is telling the whole story – again, I’ll reserve my opinion on that until I read the actual paper.
There is always room to question methodology when critically reading papers. I shall do the same here as I find it odd that the author of this particular commentary recommends feeding home cooked diets from trusted sources while at the same time recommending formulations from a number of vets and other individuals that are not qualified to be formulating recipes – not a single one of them is a board-certified nutritionist nor a PhD companion animal nutritionist. And to add insult to injury, feeding a mix of home cooked and commercial kibble is generally not recommended because unless the home cooked portion of the diet was formulated specifically to complement the commercial diet, both could throw off any balance they originally had in the first place – assuming they were actually balanced to begin with.
The struggle with homemade is not in the fact that it’s homemade – it’s that the majority of the commercially available recipes are not written by actual credentialed experts. They are not able to be quality tested and have complete nutrient analysis of the final product. They do not go through digestibility and bioavailability testing. Owners often substitute ingredients or change cooking methods not realizing it can completely alter the nutrient makeup and balance of the food. If it can’t be tested, it needs to be made correctly following specific guidance from an expert on an individual and personal level (that is, specific to each individual pet) to ensure it’s going to actually provide your pet with what they need. Otherwise, it’s just as incomplete and thrown together as this study is being accused of being.
Susan Thixton
December 5, 2025 at 4:45 pm
Commercial pet food is not individualized – “specific to each individual pet”. Why would home prepared need to be?
Many board certified veterinary nutritionists are the individuals that formulate diets using waste ingredients. Me personally, I will trust those that would never include those types of waste ingredients instead.
Dr Mark dos Anjos
December 7, 2025 at 1:53 pm
Nice to see someone exposing the lies behind the survey. The veterinary nutritionists are only responsible for coming up with the formula for the feed but it is up to the company that produces the food to put it all together, so of course they slap it together with the cheapest ingredients they can find. Those companies that produce the food for dogs are the same ones that produce human food so any ingredients not fit for human cosumption, like brewers rice, are fed to dogs. I would much rather feed my dog ANY homemade formula over the trash that those companies are selling to a gullible public who are just buying what the commercials are telling them is best for their dogs.
Nadene
December 5, 2025 at 10:30 pm
Interesting article to say the least! My two 13 year olds have been on homemade food for ten years. Their health is amazing, so says my vet. Because my homemade food is not completely balanced I give a complete vitamin with additional minerals and a probiotic. The results speak for themselves. Bloodwork is perfect. There is no arthritis.
Thank you, Susan Thixton, keep up the great work that you do for us.