Canine cooking: Dog-lover launches recipe book full of healthy meals for pampered pooches

By Rosie Taylor
PUBLISHED: 17:18, 17 August 2012 | UPDATED: 17:21, 17 August 2012


Salmon bake, winter hotpot and celebration cupcakes all sound like the sort of delicious home cooked recipes you would make for you family.
But in fact these are designed for that other special someone in your life: your dog.
The recipes were created by Border Terrier owner Henrietta Morrison after she realised regular dog food was making her pet Lily ill.

Special canine creations: Henrietta Morrison whips up a meal for her dog Lily

She said: ‘I’m someone who is pretty careful about what I eat but I had never translated this into what my dog eats until she became ill.
‘The clue that something was up was when Lily started to refuse to eat any of the dog foods I would buy for her. She’d run up eagerly to her bowl and then back away without touching what was in it.
‘This, coupled with the fact that she had been suffering with a bad skin condition which included itchy ears, made me think it must be down to the food she had been eating.
‘I researched what was in pet food and was shocked at what I discovered - it wasn’t a surprise that she had developed all these allergies - and that’s when I decided to start cooking healthy food for her.’
Miss Morrison cooks for Lily, who is now the picture of health, once a week using her own recipes that include meat, vegetables and herbs, and the rest of the time feeds her from a range she has developed, Lily’s Kitchen.

The right recipe: Henrietta cooks for Lily once a week using her own recipes that include meat, vegetables and herbs, and the rest of the time feeds her from a range she has developed

She has collected her top 50 recipes into a book, Dinner for Dogs, and said that while it cost more to cook fresh food, she was saving money on vets’ bills.
‘If you put it in human terms, if I only ate low quality food from tins and nothing else, I can’t imagine I would be in a very healthy state,’ she added.

Dinner for Dogs by Henrietta Morrison is published by Ebury Press @ £9.99

‘We’ve become so used to buying cheap dog food that we have stopped thinking about the reasons it’s cheap - there’s probably an average of 5 pence worth of ingredients in a usual tin of dog food.’
And now experts are warning that poor-quality food could be harming British dogs’ health.
Dog training behaviourist Sarah Linehan said: ‘Diet does not only impact on physical health but psychological health and behaviour. It works the same way for children and adults, if you are eating rubbish it will impact on you physically and mentally.’
She recommends only buying dog food from pet shops and choosing a brand that says exactly what type and cut of meat is used on the packet.
‘People think dog food is dog food, but there is a massive difference,’ she said. ‘A good brand will say ‘chicken breast meat’. If it says ‘chicken flavour’ it only has to be four per cent chicken – and that will be scrapings from the abattoir floor.’
Vet Marc Abraham, of Grove Lodge Vets in Sussex, said: ‘Feeding your dog correctly is a fundamental part of responsible pet ownership as many health problems that can develop are a direct result of what your dog eats.
‘By feeding your dog a balanced diet that’s correct for his or her lifestage, making sure your dog is well exercised, and cutting out fatty treats, you’ll be helping to keep your dog happy and healthy, as well as preventing serious health problems like obesity and reducing the risk of heart failure, diabetes and arthritis too.’

Dinner for Dogs by Henrietta Morrison is published by Ebury Press @ £9.99