Our member DeeDee feeds an awesome balanced raw diet to her dogs. Meat, organs, and bones that her dogs can tear, gnaw, etc. No icky ingredients. A species appropriate diet. Good for their teeth.
Correction. That's the way they used to eat before Vlad got sick. Vlad can't have bones. His stomach won't digest them anymore since he developed Addison's, and he ends up with a glued section of bones coming out of him. There's too much risk of him developing a blockage, so bones have left the house except in ground form. Vlad has to have a Calcium Citrate supplement because he can't eat over 5 oz of the meat with ground bone. They get liver and a turkey heart at every meal. I know it's the cats that Taurine is SO important for, but I'm following the old wisdom about eating hearts liver making healthy hearts and livers. I'd feed them even if you didn't HAVE to feed 10% secreting organs, though hearts aren't secreting organs.
They get gizzards and whole chicken breasts, but I remove the skin and bone for Vlad b/c of the pancreatitis he had during crisis. I save the little breast bones for Barkly since he can eat them without Vlad seeing that he's got them. I used to just give sections of necks and backs, but those are big enough for Vlad to see, and he would want them. Believe me, he watches EVERY single thing that I put in both bowls at every meal. I hide the part with the bones for Barkly when I'm defrosting everything, and I know it's all hidden down the marked, left side of the pan. I don't give beef chunks anymore because it seems to also be too much for Vlad to digest easily, but red meat is always harder to digest than white meat.
I also feed vegetables and fruits. Most holistic vets that encourage BARF instead of prey model say 25% of meal should be vegetables. I try to give greens (collards lowest in potassium) + orange, red, yellow colors at every meal. I make a puree b/c once again, Vlad now has problems digesting it if it's not pureed. The Cortisol that Vlad is now missing is a huge part of digestion. I could keep his diet the way it was if I gave him about 10mg of prednisone a day, but I'm not willing to do that. The extra prednisone would be more of a danger than the modified diet.
They get either a small amount of dried cranberries or blueberries every meal. It's no more than maybe 3-to-5% of the meal, but they're good antioxidants. They also get probiotics and Vlad gets digestive enzymes to keep his pancreas in check.
A lot of things have changed around here since Vlad's Addison's diagnosis, but it doesn't seem to have affected them since they've both had blood tests since the changes. Barkly DOES get some banana every meal with a VERY tiny smear on top of Vlad's (remember I said he watches everything?), because the low potassium vegetables and fruits seemed to be TOO low for Barkly.