home prepared diet

How much?Depends on how much dry food you'll be feeding, and his metabolism etc etc.

You can feed him pretty much anything that is classed as healthy for us,except for the obvious things like onions,grapes,raisins,macadamia nuts,spices and such.

All home made foods should be meat based IMO,to that you could add,liver,heart,kidneys, fruits and veggies,pasta,rice. if you're still mainly going to be feeding a commercial food you dont have to be too anal about getting the correct ratio's,just make sure and cut back on the dry food if you're going to make home made additions a large part of his diet.
The most important thing to give IMHO are rmb's.They clean teeth,provide good calcium and phos levels,keeps them mentally and physically healthy,and they are nutritious.This is ofcourse my criteria,i know not all people are comfortable giving bones,they're just something i think all dogs should recieve the benefits of [sm=wink2.gif]

ETA: Does that last sentence make sense [8|]

  If you e-mail Glenda, user name glenmar, she has a well balanced home cooked recipe she will share; it was tweaked by an animal nutritionist. You need to do some research and go about this very carefully or your dog may not get the right balance of nutrients. Monica Segal is an animal nutritionist and has some books on her website which explain the nutritional needs of dogs and have recipes; [linkhttp://www.monicasegal.com/catalog/writings.php]http://www.monicasegal.com/catalog/writings.php[/link]  "K9 Kitchen" is about $22 and she has a booklet called " Cooked Diet Recipes" for $6.00. She will also develop a diet especially for your dog.

You can also visit this website.
 
[linkhttp://www.petdiets.com/]http://www.petdiets.com/[/link]
 
The people here who design diets are vet nutritionists certified by the American College of Vetrinary Nutrition (ACVN).
 

Please feel free to email me for my recipe.  It was originally "mine", but then tweaked and approved by a canine nutritionalist.
 
There are things you MUST know, even if you continue to feed kibble as well.  Such as balancing the calcium/phosperous ratio, which is crucial to good bone health, and you can't let that slide just because you still feed kibble.  Nor can you avoid organ meat, which does NOT include heart, because that should average 5% of their daily consumption.
 
Heart, specifically beef heart is an excellent source of taurine, but it is best served raw since cooking destroys the taurine.....

Nor can you avoid organ meat, which does NOT include heart, because that should average 5% of their daily consumption.

 
I'm lacking here. [] I'm afraid of the toxins in commercially raised beef organs (and I'm still doing all beef because I haven't yet figured out if she's allergic to other meats). You don't worry about that? Or are you more worried about leaving organs out of the diet? Like a benefits worth the risk thing... I'm having a tough time getting enough variety into her diet anyway, and am planning to switch to partially commercial, if I can find a food she does well on. Do I still need to add organ meat?

I personally believe that the benefits outweigh the risks.  And yes, even with a commercial food, they DO need the organ.

Nor can you avoid organ meat, which does NOT include heart, because that should average 5% of their daily consumption.

 
I don't have much experience with the well-balanced home prepared diet, but I know that Monica Segal does use vegatarian diets for some of her clients with health problems who can't tolerate any meat.  Does she supplement for the lack of organ meats?

Does she supplement for the lack of organ meats?

Of course! A vegetarian diet, for a dog, must be heavily supplemented, particularly with things like taurine.