When we first moved to the suburbs with the dogs one of the first things we acquired was a freezer.  We had lived for a long time in a city apartment and we had never had anything bigger than the freezer on top of the refrigerator. We did have two dogs and one child, though. The dogs had always been happy with Kirkland Lamb and Rice Dinner. [The child is nineteen now and we still don't know what he will eat from day to day] Like Hank, the Cowdog, complained we were pretty much feeding the dogs co-op dog food so they weren't exactly eating us out of house and home, but suddenly we had a lot of storage room in a freezer and it seemed like a good idea to make the dog's food as well as ours. Shopping at Costco makes a lot of ideas seem to fit well within fiscally responsible home economics.

     The meat counter at Costco is about 60 yards long and packed with burger, stew beef, pork, ground turkey and on and on. Costco also sells rice and oatmeal in coffin size containers and prewashed vegetables to which dogs are partial like brocoli and carrots. Now this is what I used to do. I would buy the largest package of ground beef and the largest package of ground turkey or pork and either oatmeal or rice and a bag of brocoli and/or carrots and go home and fire up the oven to about 350.

     The meats would go into the giant turkey roasting pan in a compact heap just as they came out of the plastic wrapper and into the oven. About an hour or so later I would add either the rice or the oatmeal and the vegetables and break up the meat and chop/mix everything together in the pan until they were pretty well mixed and then put it back into the oven until the various liquids and fats had been absorbed into the grains. This whole thing - which I believe a New Hampshire friend calls 'trainwreck' - would then get measured out into 8 ounce plastic baggies and frozen. It was used to supplement the dry food.

     The dogs liked it, but the neighborhood kids found it irresitible and would get bowls and line up for it when it came out of the oven. There was no added salt or sugar or seasonings of any kind; just ground meats and grains and vegetables chopped together. It did taste quite good, I have to say, and they loved it and thought it was funny that they were eating 'dog food' and so went home and told their parents. I didn't see many of those children at our house ever again and some parents never really spoke to us again except when they couldn't avoid it at school functions. I didn't figure out why for several years. I guess they thought I was feeding the little darlings horse meat Alpo right from the can or resented the idea that the neighbor's dog food was tastier to their children than what they got at home. I don't know, but I like to flatter myself with the last one.

    Time went by and every so often I made the dog food and sometimes I didn't and after a while I just stopped. The dogs missed it, however. The kids might have missed it but they weren't coming around so much anymore and had grown into teenagers who didn't care for real food when frozen grocery store pizza was available to them 24/7. They hadn't been allowed to eat anything at our house for sometime anyway and when they did stop by by would accept only fruit or something that came in a wrapper like a Three Musketeers bar.

    So the dogs missed it and got older and their teeth started going to hell and their breaths smelled like carrion so I started cooking for them again. I don't do the  trainwreck anymore, but I think they like what get and they sure smell better. Costco sells a hugeous piece of beef; it's about the size of bowling ball and weighs at least as much. I bring it home, cut it up into small stew beef pieces and bag it in 8 ounce baggies and put it in the freezer. Every night or so I thaw out a portion, cook it in a frying pan and split it between the two animals and augment it with some dry food. The vet says maybe we should feed them just beef as he thinks it is better for their teeth. Maybe so. It doesn't cost anymore than buying canned food and I know they REALLYREALLY like it. A dad can tell.