In every dog’s life, there’s a time the vet will recommend the chicken-and-rice diet.
It’s usually for five to seven days, after surgery or during gastrointestinal illness. It may also be used while conditions are under investigation, such as pancreatitis or food allergy symptoms.
It’s bland and easily digested, so it rests the gut while providing low-fat protein and essential vitamins and minerals.
Some tips if you make it yourself –
Rice is boring to dogs, so it needs to be cooked in homemade stock or bone broth to make it palatable. Most commercial stocks contain onion or garlic, and nearly all are high in salt.
Use long grain white rice. It’s easier to digest than brown rice.
Use chicken breast rather than wing or thigh. White meat is easier to digest than dark meat.
An easier way –
This diet is only prescribed when you’ve got less time and energy for cooking. When you’ve been up all night caring for your dog, or letting them out 15 times with diarrhoea, you don’t want to be clattering about in the kitchen. Your poorly or post-operative pooch wants your presence, for comfort and reassurance. The guilt! It happened to us many times over the years, and we wished we could just buy a ready-made recovery diet. So years later, it was the first meal produced by Canine Catering.
We use human-grade chicken breast and long-grain rice cooked in homemade bone broth. We add arrowroot and parsley for their gut-protecting benefits, anti-oxidants, vitamins and minerals.
Now, when our dogs are back from the vet, we can snuggle up with them on the sofa, and soon they’re in a deep and restorative sleep. And after all that caring, so are we.