WAGSTA Recipe Guidelines

Welcome WAGSTA Chefs!

Congratulations on taking the step to prepare your dog’s food.

The WAGSTA Wellness program provides a menu of nutritionally ‘complete and balanced’ dog food recipes, formulated in conjunction with our consulting animal nutritionist, Professor emeritus Nick Costa.

These recipes have been formulated to ensure your dog receives all the vital mineral and vitamin requirements as set by AFFCO feeding standards.

To meet these standards and provide your dog complete and balanced meals, supplements are essential.

All recipes provided by WAGSTA require the addition of mineral and vitamin supplements plus an oil blend (see below).

These supplements can be purchased through your local supermarket or pharmacy. Pay particular attention to formula concentration to ensure your product meets our guidelines.

Supplement Shopping List

1. Fish oil liquid* (Do not use cod liver oil)
2. Olive oil- Extra Virgin
3. Canola oil
4. Sunflower oil
5. Zinc tablets 25 mg (1 crushed tablet per recipe)
6. Calcium – powder or liquid (1500 mg per recipe)
7. Iodised salt (1/4 teaspoon per recipe)
8. Women’s multi-vitamin (Centrum Women) – 1 crushed tablet per recipe.
9. Phyllium husk/ powder – natural fibre, non-flavoured

Important: The formulation of balanced home-cooked recipes requires a dedicated approach and attention to detail. Ingredients and supplements must be precisely measured to achieve the correct nutritional balance. 

Please do not be tempted to follow generic online recipes whilst undertaking your WAGSTA diet plan. The majority of these recipes fail to provide calorie counts- making it impossible to correctly portion meals and complete your diet plan.  The nutritional balance of some of these recipes is also questionable- potentially causing developmental and health issues.

New to Home-Cooking?

If you are not used to preparing home-cooked dog food, WAGSTA strongly recommends feeding a quality commercial diet food during your dog’s diet plan. Commercial foods are already balanced for your dog’s nutritional needs, saving you preparation time and the expense of supplements.

For best rates of success and to make portioning as simple as possible, WAGSTA recommends feeding a quality dry or kibbled dog food.

You may then consider introducing home-cooked recipes once you dog reaches their healthy weight.

Safety Guidelines

When home-cooking, particular attention must be paid to food hygiene and storage practices to prevent bacterial cross contamination and food spoiling.

Preparation and Storage Guidelines

1. Accurately measure raw ingredients using a pair of digital kitchen scales.
2. Cook meat separately to other ingredients to prevent over-cooking the protein.
3. Consider roughly blending the cooked ingredients together in a blender (to prevent selective eating of ingredients).
4. Do not cook or heat the vitamin, mineral and oil supplements. Add after the main ingredients have been cooked.
5. Refrigerate in a sealed container at 0-4 degrees Celsius (32-39.2 degrees Fahrenheit). Or freeze at minus 20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit).
6. Use refrigerated food within 3 days. Check for odor and color changes before serving.
7. Serve at just below body temperature. Ensure there are no hot spots if defrosting or warming the food in a microwave.

NB. Each recipe provides 1000 kcals.
The final cooked product must be portioned according to your dog’s daily calorie requirement (using the WAGSTA home-cooked portion calculator).

Food Hygiene Guidelines

1. Always wash hands and use clean utensils and equipment when preparing food.
2. Avoid cross-contamination by separating raw and cooked foods.
3. Ensure that food is cooked thoroughly.
4. Keep food under temperature control.
5. To prevent contamination of meat during handling, wash hands thoroughly with warm water and soap both before and after touching raw meat …
6. To avoid raw meat juices cross-contaminating other food and food contact surfaces: Prepare raw meat away from other foods, especially ready to-eat foods.
7. Regularly wash your dog’s serving bowl (between meals).

Warning!
Homemade dog food is prone to rapid bacterial and fungal growth if it is not chilled. Do not leave or store food at room temperature.