Added Calcium

I feed the same way[]  I feed Nature's Variety or Canidae mixed with canned in the morning and raw meal at night.  What I do is every other day I mix in an entire egg shell and all with my blended veggie mix.  I slightly steam my veggie's, throw in the blender with water, organic plain yogurt, ground flax seeds etc.  and an entire egg and blend until smooth.  This I mix in with hamburg for my base then throw raw meat etc on top.  I do the entire egg every few days and this goes into 5 large dogs food. 
 
For such a small dog you could keep the egg shell aside and just blend a bit of the shell for calcium into your veggie mush.
 
Others will probably have other suggestions which may interest you more.  This is just what I do.[]

It's important to make sure the calcium and phosphorous is balanced, and Innova definitely doesn't have the extra calcium to balance the phosphorous in the meat you're feeding.

For my dog, I often mix up a pound of ground meat and add a 1/2 teaspoon of ground egg shell powder (I rinse and save the eggs shells, stick them in the oven for 10 minutes or so to dry them out, and then I stick them in an old coffee grinder til they're really finely ground), and then I give that to her over a couple days.

I've seen people and websites suggest adding everywhere from 1/2 tsp. egg shell powder, to three tablespoons (though I still think they made a mistake. That same site at some point suggested 1 tsp, 3 tsp, and 3 tbsp..I think they're just nutso), per pound of meat, but I've never seen anything stray far from an average egg shell having around 1800 mg calcium, and according to nutritiondata.com and a government site, a pound of raw meat, depending on the kind, has 600-900 mg phosphorous, so if you're aiming between 1:1 and 2:1 calciumhosphorous (which is recommended for dogs), that'd be 1/3 tsp-1 tsp per pound. It's really not that complicated, but it seems like it is at first. [] Hope this helps.
 
 
Great looking dogs, btw, Cally. What breed(s) is the brown one in the middle? The other four are pretty obvious, I think. I always want to bury my hands in newfie fur when I see pictures of them. And I have memories from when I was little of perhaps the sweetest dog I've ever met; a HUGE rott named Thor.  []

Nature's Farmacy makes a supplement that is specifically for balancing the meat in homecooked or raw diets. It's called DogZyme's KA Calcium. IT's what I use to balance the meat in my raw diet. It's very easy to use and measure, and not too expensive either.

http://www.naturesfarmacy.com

I went to naturesfarmacy website but couldn't find DogZyme's KA Calcium.  Could it be called something else?

When I  homecook I use Solid Gold Bone Meal, 1/2 teaspoon per lb of boneless meat.  At one time someone very knowledgeable on dog nutrition used to post here and that was the amount she told me to use and other members here also use the same and have had no problems.
 
But, Wysong also makes a vitamin specifically for homecooked/raw fed dogs called Call of the Wild, you might want to check that out too.  I would of used it but it contains chicken and Willow is allergic.  But, great products and great company. 

You should call them, they are very nice on the phone.  1-800-733-4981.   I just looked at the container, and it is def. called DOGZYMES KA-Calcium.

When I homecook I use Solid Gold Bone Meal, 1/2 teaspoon per lb of boneless meat.

 
Might want to rethink that.
 
From Solid Gold's site:
 
Calcium - 1368 mg/tsp
Phosphorus - 684 mg/tsp
 
So in 1/2 tsp, you'd have about 700 mg calcium, and 350 mg phosphorous, and in a pound of boneless meat, according to a few sources, there's 600-900 mg phosphorous. The suggested ratio for dogs is 1:1-2:1 calcium to phosphorous, so I'd use at least a teaspoon, which would bring you up to approximately 1:1.

I take a calcium citrate supplement every day that has Vitamin D in it also.  Could I pulverize these to add to my homecooked food?  If that's possible how much would I use per pound of boneless meat?

I take a calcium citrate supplement every day that has Vitamin D in it also. Could I pulverize these to add to my homecooked food? If that's possible how much would I use per pound of boneless meat?

 
You'd have to tell us how many mg of calcium are in each pill. It's probably 500 or 600 mg, in which case you should probably use 1 1/2-2+ per pound.

To add egg shell calcium, which is better to grind the shells- a blender or a coffee grinder?  Thanks

The coffee bean grinder works great.  I never tried a blender but I don't think it would pulverize it to a powder. 

Hmmmm, and my experience is the total opposite.  BUT, I have a heavy duty professional blender so that might be the difference.

 I bought a coffee grinder and after your replies, experimented with my old mini blender.   I was surprised it still worked and it worked grate on my shells.
 
Thanks, guys!
 
 
 
 
 

It's important to remember that all foods contain calcium and phosphorus.  So when balancing them, you need to take all the ingredients into account, not just the meat.
 
What I do is use the following websites, figure out the total amount of calcium and phosphorus in the ingredients I'm using, and then add in enough calcium to balance it out.  It only takes a few minutes to figure out, and you can make notes for the most frequently used ingredients so you don't have to look them up again.  Some people even make spreadsheets, but I'm not that good on the computer!
 
Link to NutritionData website
 
Link to USDA website
 
I like using a mortar and pestle to grind eggshells, but then I'm a fairly low tech kinda person! []