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Resident Ridgeback Oslo · Chief taste-tester Louie
Real food, cooked at home, for one very good hound.
Hound Chef is a food blog for dogs — simple, balanced homemade dinners, biscuits, frozen treats and birthday pupcakes, cooked by his people and taste-tested bowl-by-bowl by Louie, Oslo's half-brother and our chief taste-tester — a fellow Ridgeback who will eat anything that gets close to his mouth. Oslo himself supervises: Ridgebacks are hounds, the nose does the first review, and Oslo's liver-brown nose is not easily impressed. If it didn't earn a clean bowl and a satisfied sigh, it didn't make the site.
8Kitchen-tested recipes
0Unsafe ingredients
15–45 minMost dinners, start to bowl
The Hound Chef Harvest BowlTurkey, sweet potato, peas & brown rice — Oslo's #1 dinner
Browse by craving
What is your dog in the mood for?
The Hound Chef cookbook
Latest & most-loved recipes
Tap any recipe for the full ingredient list and step-by-step. Use the serving scaler in each recipe to batch for a whole week — or just for tonight.
A note on balance: These recipes are a great foundation for home cooking, but a dog fed homemade food long-term needs complete nutrition — including calcium and essential vitamins and minerals. Talk to your veterinarian (or a board-certified veterinary nutritionist) about adding a canine multivitamin / balancing supplement formulated for homemade diets, especially for puppies, seniors, pregnant dogs, or dogs with health conditions.
No more guessing
How much should I feed?
The portion calculator uses the standard veterinary starting point — resting energy needs scaled by life stage and activity — then converts it into cups of the Hound Chef recipe you pick. It's a starting point: adjust by body condition and your vet's guidance.
Daily target
— kcal
- Enter your dog's weight and tap Calculate.
Split the daily amount across 2 meals for adults (3–4 smaller meals for young puppies). Transition to any new food gradually over 7–10 days, mixing increasing amounts of new with decreasing amounts of old.
Make Sunday easy
Oslo's sample week
A rotation keeps homemade feeding varied without daily cooking. Cook two big batches on Sunday, portion, refrigerate up to 4 days or freeze up to 3 months.
| Day | Breakfast bowl | Dinner bowl | Treat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | Turkey & Veggie Harvest Bowl | Turkey & Veggie Harvest Bowl | 1 Peanut Butter Pumpkin Biscuit |
| Tue | Turkey & Veggie Harvest Bowl | Salmon & Sweet Potato Supper | Small handful of blueberries |
| Wed | Salmon & Sweet Potato Supper | Slow-Cooker Beef Stew | Berry Yogurt Pupsicle |
| Thu | Slow-Cooker Beef Stew | Turkey Veggie Meatballs + steamed broccoli | 1 Peanut Butter Pumpkin Biscuit |
| Fri | Turkey Veggie Meatballs | Gentle Chicken & Rice (easy Friday tummy) | Carrot sticks for crunch |
| Sat | Gentle Chicken & Rice | Salmon & Sweet Potato Supper | Berry Yogurt Pupsicle |
| Sun | Cook-day tastes (tiny!) | Fresh batch, still warm (cooled!) | Birthday Pupcake — if it's a special day |
Read before you cook
The Hound Chef safety list
People-food and dog-food are not the same cookbook. Tape this to the fridge — everyone who feeds your dog should know it.
✓ Safe staples we cook with
- Lean turkey, chicken & beef
- Salmon (cooked, boneless)
- Eggs (fully cooked)
- Plain pumpkin purée
- Sweet potato & carrots
- Green beans & peas
- Blueberries & apple (no seeds)
- Plain yogurt (no xylitol)
- Brown or white rice & oats
- Peanut butter (xylitol-free!)
Always cooked, unseasoned, boneless and skinless where relevant. No added salt, sauces, or spice blends.
✕ Never, ever feed
- Chocolate
- Xylitol / birch sugar
- Grapes & raisins
- Onion — all forms
- Garlic — all forms
- Macadamia nuts
- Avocado
- Cooked bones
- Alcohol & caffeine
- Raw yeast dough
If your dog eats something on this list, call your veterinarian or animal poison control right away — don't wait for symptoms.
New to this?
Start homemade in 3 steps
1
Pick one gentle recipe
Begin with Gentle Chicken & Rice or the Turkey Harvest Bowl. One protein, familiar vegetables, nothing fancy — your dog's stomach will thank you.
2
Transition over a week
Days 1–2: 25% new food. Days 3–4: 50%. Days 5–6: 75%. Day 7+: 100%. Slow swaps prevent the tummy rumbles nobody wants at 2 a.m.
3
Balance & check in
Use the portion calculator for amounts, add a vet-recommended balancer for daily feeding, watch weight and energy, and review the plan at your next vet visit.
Meet Oslo & Louie
Hi, I'm Oslo — Ridgeback by breed, food critic by calling.
Oslo is a Rhodesian Ridgeback — wheaten coat, long dignified muzzle, and the ridge of hair running along his back that gives the breed its name. He is the face of Hound Chef and the most dignified supervisor this kitchen has ever known. His people do the cooking; Oslo supervises from exactly one inch inside the kitchen doorway, and nothing is written down until it has passed his inspection. The idea is the same one this kitchen has always run on: food made slowly, simply, and specifically for dogs — never seasoned people-food scraped off a dinner plate.
And then there's Louie — Oslo's half-brother, also a Rhodesian Ridgeback, and our chief taste-tester. Telling the brothers apart is easy once you know the noses: Oslo is a livernose, his nose a warm brownish liver color, while Louie's nose is black. Louie earned his title honestly: he will eat anything that gets close to his mouth, so no recipe goes up on this site until it has first disappeared into his.
Every recipe here passed two reviews. First, the Louie Test: the chief taste-tester gets the first bowl, and he has never once sent anything back. Then the harder review — Oslo's. Bowl placed down, one long, thoughtful sniff — Ridgebacks are hounds, and the nose files the report — then the verdict. A polite walk-away meant back to the cutting board. A clean bowl and a satisfied sigh on the rug meant we wrote it down. The recipes that made this page are the ones they both go back to: the turkey bowl Oslo stations himself by the stove for, the biscuits he can hear from the far end of the house, and the pupcake that now marks every gotcha day.
We're not veterinarians, and Oslo definitely isn't (his credentials are entirely snack-based). Cook with the safety list, balance long-term diets with your vet's help, and adjust portions to your own dog — a 90-pound Ridgeback and a 12-pound terrier do not eat alike, and Oslo would want that stated plainly.
— Oslo, Rhodesian Ridgeback & Kitchen Supervisor 🐾
Good questions
Homemade feeding, answered
Can homemade food be my dog's only food?
Yes — many dogs thrive on it — but it must be complete and balanced over time, not just “meat and rice.” Use recipes as the base, add a balancing supplement designed for homemade canine diets as your vet advises, rotate proteins, and monitor weight, coat, energy and stools.
How long does homemade dog food keep?
Refrigerate cooked food in sealed containers for up to 4 days. Freeze portions for up to 3 months. Thaw in the fridge overnight, warm gently (never piping hot), and discard anything left in the bowl after about 2 hours.
Can puppies eat these recipes?
Puppies have specific calcium, phosphorus and calorie needs for growth, especially large breeds. Use the calculator's puppy setting for a rough amount, but confirm any regular puppy diet with your veterinarian before making it their main food.
What about raw food?
Hound Chef recipes are cooked. Cooking reduces the risk of bacterial contamination (like Salmonella and Listeria) for dogs and for the people handling their food, and makes many vegetables easier to digest. If you're considering raw, discuss the risks with your vet first.
Why no garlic or onion if some old recipes include them?
Onion and garlic — fresh, powdered, or cooked — can damage a dog's red blood cells and cause anemia. The dose risk isn't worth it for flavor dogs don't need, so Hound Chef leaves the whole allium family out, always.
Get Oslo's Sunday Batch Letter
One email a week: a new recipe, a batch-cooking tip, and whatever Oslo stole off the counter. Enter your email and we'll generate your welcome pack — the starter shopping list — right here.