What are your best "real food" kibble toppers?

[Calypso]

As much as I'd love to feed raw or home prepared, it's just not happening right now. I'm feeding a good quality grain-free, but I'd like to add in some more real, unprocessed foods. Here's what I've come up with so far, let me know if you've got more or if you'd avoid any or feed minimally. I'm avoiding grains because Pixel does better without. And anything anti-inflammatory for Havana would be good.

- Whole chicken from the pressure cooker
- Eggs, raw or cooked
- Plain yogurt
- Cottage cheese
- Cooked or Vitamixed greens

They already get fish oil and I should get back to adding a pro-biotic. I know not to make the topper more than 1/4 of the total meal. Anything else? I feel like I should know this, but now that I'm doing it, I don't feel like I know anything at all!

[UpwardDog]

I buy the 6 pack of pink salmon at Costco to use for kibble topping. I also crumble the Orijen or Stella and Chewy's dehydrated raw on top.

[JudyL]

Around here it's leftovers from our meals that don't contain foods harmful to dogs. Tipper had a helping of venison stew that also had potato, corn, green beans and carrots mixed in with her kibble earlier today. This week's additions for her included a variety of stuff including ground beef, cottage cheese, cooked egg, chicken/rice/veggies. All small additions, of course. Mine get less additions, if any, but Tipper is 17.5 now, has always been very picky, and is getting worse. If it isn't "just so" she might refuse it all. She can't afford to be missing many meals at this point.

[LisaT_II]

Toppers for Jazz's meals include bone broth and for some reason she LOVES goat colostrum. I mix in different veggies on different days, and she seems to really like fresh ground flax. These top her homecooked foods, picky because of her IBD.

[LisaT_II]

...Btw, sauerkraut is in the rotation, which she likes if she doesn't get it frequently. Just thought I'd mention that, since it's not often mentioned!

[whiteboxerboy]

Mine get a mix of pureed carrots, apples & kale. I also give them coconut oil, raw egg, bananas, pumpkin or sweet potato & plain nonfat yogurt; raw or roasted lamb from their lamb shanks.

[KatrinH]

Great topic. Ranger currently gets a canned food, which he is tolerating well. I was going to get it balanced by Sabine, but company is being difficult and I can't get the info. Since I cannot do a homemade at the moment, I will stick to it and hope to just work with toppers.

Do you tend to try and balance these too? So just feed a variety of different things? And how often/much each? Is it possible to "unbalance" if I feed too much topper or too much of one topper?

I need to try which oil he tolerates, otherwise I am thinking:
eggs
potatos
cooked veggies (beans, broccoli, etc.) whatever I make I just make more: oh and I'll buy him some beets, I made him some over christmas and he LOVED them
canned fish (salmon, maybe tuna or sardines too?)

[emmas_mom]

Sardines. Cooked ground bison or sliced 'fast fry' bison steak. Hard boiled egg whites (she doesn't like the yolks). Grated cheese when she's being really picky. Mitzi goes through times when she won't eat anything at all, but these are the things that most often tempt her to get to the dog food below. When she's feeling great, one of her favourite things is whatever greens are in my salad (usually baby kale or baby spinach) with a very light dressing of an oil of some sort. Never had a dog that liked leafy greens before!

[UpwardDog]

I forgot the number 1 fav here: it's a raw mix of beef, beef tripe and beef organ. Sam actually gets up from his waiting place and sits and drools for it haha.

[connie]

Yesterday I made a big stockpot of kibble topper, with these ingredients:
--half a pound or so of Canadian bacon that I did not like the one time I tried it, and that had pretty good freezer burn;'
--a package of frozen chopped broccoli;
--a package of frozen dinner vegetables (no onions in the mix);
--a box of pasta, I think elbow macaroni.

Dumped it into the stockpot, filled with water, brought it to a boil and then simmered it for about an hour. All the dogs had it last night on their dinners, and now it's in the fridge and will be kibble topper for the senior dogs for the rest of the week. I think the total cost of the ingredients was somewhere around $5.

Also at the local Mariano's today, found packages of what they call 'end meat' -- the ends and scraps of roast beef, and of turkey, that had been sliced in their deli, shrink-wrapped (separately) and marked for sale at $1.19/pound. End meat = kibble topper and nosework/training rewards!