Man's Best Friend Eats Pretty Well

Every night around dinner time, Buddy starts watching me a little more closely. If I'm running late, he'll let me know.

First comes the look. Then the waiting. And eventually, the whimper that basically says, Are we planning on eating tonight or what?

After almost nine years together, we've gotten pretty good at understanding each other. Buddy is an 85-pound Black Lab mix and has been part of our family since he was a puppy. He's happy, easygoing, strong, occasionally loud, and convinced that every dog in the neighborhood needs to know when he's outside.

He loves walks, squeaky toys, little dogs, treats, and apparently whatever I'm cooking. But before Buddy became the dog lying on my kitchen floor waiting for dinner, he was just a puppy at an adoption event. We met him through Justin Bartlett Animal Rescue at a Petco adoption day. We actually went there interested in his sister, only to discover she had already been adopted. But she had a brother.

My boys grabbed Buddy from one of the volunteers, brought him into the playpen, and started playing with him. That was pretty much it. We weren't leaving without him.Sometimes the things that become permanent parts of your life aren't necessarily the things you originally went looking for.

Thirty Years Without a Dog

Dogs had always been part of my childhood.

Growing up, we had four of them and even went through two litters of puppies. But when I was twelve, our family moved from a large house into a condo and we couldn't keep our dogs. It would be about thirty years before I had another one.

I always knew I wanted a dog again, but I also knew I wanted to wait until the timing was right. I wanted a house. A yard. A fence. A place where a dog could actually run around and be a dog. When we finally bought our current home, we gave ourselves a year to settle in.

Then Buddy arrived. He was the first dog I had ever adopted myself, and I don't think I fully understood how much a dog could become part of your routine until I had one of my own. Buddy and I do just about everything together. We sleep. We walk. We stretch. We eat. We hang around the house. Since I work from home, he's with me most of the day.

He has his own dog door, which means he's free to head outside whenever he wants. Unfortunately, that also means the second he hears the neighbor's dogs, he can launch himself through the door, circle the pool, and bark loudly enough to make sure the entire neighborhood knows Buddy has entered the conversation.

On walks, I'm occasionally under the impression that I'm in charge. Buddy has other ideas. At 85 pounds, if there's a dog or smell he wants to investigate, we're probably going to investigate it. For all that strength and energy, though, he's incredibly gentle.

He seems to know when something is wrong. He'll lie beside me, or sometimes directly on me, when I need him. And when he's the one who's scared, especially during thunderstorms or loud noises, the roles reverse. I'm there to calm him down.

That's the thing about having a dog. You take care of them, and somewhere along the way you realize they've been taking care of you, too. Buddy has taught me to slow down, stay grounded, and live a little more in the moment. Dogs are pretty good at that.

So I Started Cooking for Him

About five years ago, I started paying more attention to what we were putting in Buddy's bowl.

People were beginning to talk more about making fresh food for their dogs. At the same time, fresh commercial dog food was becoming more available, and pretty expensive. I started looking at traditional dog food differently, too. Some ingredient lists were filled with things I couldn't pronounce, and the food itself certainly wasn't something I would ever want to eat.

That got me thinking. I cook for my family all the time. Buddy is part of my family. Why wouldn't I cook for him?

We did some research, talked with our veterinarian, and started experimenting. Over time, we landed on a combination that works well for Buddy: ground turkey, vegetables, beans, pumpkin, and rice. We still use some dry kibble and serve the fresh food over it at dinner.

The recipe isn't complicated. That's part of the point. It also isn't something I treat like a scientific formula. We've made different versions depending on what we have available. Sometimes we've used sweet potatoes or green beans. We've tried chicken and salmon. The important thing is knowing which foods are safe for Buddy and making choices that work for him.

And Buddy has made his opinion about the experiment pretty clear. He knows when I'm making his food. He'll lie on the kitchen floor while I cook, smelling everything and waiting patiently, or at least his version of patience. Once I've portioned everything out, he's been known to help with cleanup by licking the pot. If Buddy were writing the restaurant review, I'm pretty sure I'd get five stars.

Buddy's Dog Food

I've included the recipe I normally make below, but I think it's important to look at it as a starting point rather than a one-size-fits-all formula.

Every dog is different. Their size, age, activity level, health, and nutritional needs are different, too. Before making significant changes to your dog's diet, talk with your veterinarian about what makes sense for them.

What I like most about making Buddy's food is simple: I know what's going into his bowl. There isn't anything mysterious about it. In fact, I could eat the ingredients myself if I wanted to. More importantly, Buddy enjoys it.

And after everything he's given us over the past nine years, making his dinner doesn't feel like much of an inconvenience. It feels like taking care of family.

More Than What's in the Bowl

People have been calling dogs "man's best friend" for generations. I understand why now. Buddy doesn't care how productive I was that day. He doesn't care what's in my bank account, what went wrong, or what's still sitting on my to-do list.

He's just happy I'm there. He wants his walk. He wants his dinner. He wants to investigate whatever dog walked past the house three hours ago. And, most of the time, he wants to be somewhere near us. 

There's something worth learning from that simplicity. We spend so much of our lives thinking about what's next that sometimes it takes an animal living completely in the present to remind us to enjoy what's happening right now.

Buddy has given our family almost nine years of companionship, loyalty, laughter, and unconditional love. Making him fresh food is just one small way I can return some of that care.

You don't need to follow my recipe exactly. You don't even need to make homemade dog food to understand the larger point. Take care of the animals that take care of you.

Give them the best life you reasonably can. Take the extra walk. Throw the squeaky toy one more time. Let them stop and smell whatever apparently fascinating thing they've discovered along the sidewalk. And appreciate the ordinary days with them. Because unfortunately, dogs don't get nearly enough of those.

I've learned that food isn't only one of the ways we take care of people. Sometimes it's one of the ways we take care of the four-legged members of the family, too. Buddy may technically be our dog.

But after almost nine years of sleeping, walking, eating, playing, working, and living alongside him, that description feels a little incomplete.He's family. He's my best friend. And apparently, I'm his personal chef. That's why stories like Buddy's have a place in the food I make, the life I live, and here at Only One Life.