Meat Loaf Recipe for Dogs!

Pre-oven prepared loaves.

If you're looking for a healthy, hearty, home-cooked-meal recipe for your pet, look no further. After my dog had spinal decompression surgery, he had a long road to recovery. Because of his condition, he had lost his appetite for weeks prior to surgery and lost a lot of weight. I tried feeding him everything before and after to get him eating again.

He slowly began eating baby food and some home cooked chicken- he's never been a fan of rice so he had no binders in his diet and was refusing kibble for a long time.

Delicious fresh ingredients that are great for your dog!

My mother and I began thinking of possible options of healthy food that he could eat-- we'd made meat balls and power balls for dogs in the past, and then she came up with the amazing idea of looking for a doggy meat loaf recipe.

Well, low and behold I did a search online and came across a fantastic recipe that I adjusted to suit my dog. He loves this meal and knows the smell of it when it comes out of the oven. I make it regularly for him now and its not only healthy, but its better than canned foods, not expensive to make and maintains his weight (as well as keeping him regular).

Shredded carrot, tomato paste, mashed sweet potato, chopped celery and chopped apple.

Can be prepared as large loaves or small balls or prepared in a muffin pan. I make mine in larger portions because my dog is a large animal (150 lbs) and I always divide it up and freeze it anyway.

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds of lean ground beef (I use 90%)

3 stalks of celery, chopped

2 carrots, grated

1 apple, cored, peeled and diced

2 eggs

2 slices of white bread, torn into pieces (alternately I'll use the equivalent with a fresh roll, pulsed in a food processor)
1cup regular rolled oats

1 cup wheat germ

1 6 oz can tomato paste

1 medium-large sweet potato (yam), peeled, boiled and smashed

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Coat a large roasting pan (I use a baking sheet) with olive oil and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the ground beef, 3 stalks of celery, grated carrots, apple, eggs, bread, oats, wheat germ and tomato paste using your hands. Divide the meat mixture into equal parts and make loaf shapes. (*Tip: Mix the dry ingredients and chopped produce together in the bowl before adding the sweet potato and remaining wet ingredients! This makes mixing much easier.) Place the loaves in the roasting pan. Cover with foil.
3. Bake for 80 minutes (1 hour 20 minutes) in the preheated oven, or until the meat is cooked through. The internal temperature should be 175 degrees F (80 degrees C) when taken with a meat thermometer. Allow to cool.
4. Portion the food into containers with lids and refrigerate. To serve, give your dog 1/3 of a container with each portion of kibble. (But I give this to my dog twice a day as a morning/evening meal, so for a big dog I give him about 1.5 cups of this recipe per meal).

Note: You can use gloves to mix the meat loaf if you don't want to get your hands covered in the meat mixture. 
You can easily double up on this recipe and also freeze portions you aren't going to use right away!

Recipe adapted from original source: [link]