Canning Dog Food

When I was 12 years old, my mother and I struck an agreement:  I could get out of weeding the garden if I learned how to can up the bounty it produced.  After dragging out the dog-eared copy of the Ball canning book and reading up on hot water bath canning, I processed what would be the first of many quarts of tomatoes during that long-ago Wisconsin summer. 

I was hooked.  I've been canning ever since.

Not only do I save money, but home-canned goods are the ultimate in convenience food.  Pop open a quart of chicken and I can quickly put a tasty meal on the table:  soup, chicken and dumplings, chicken and biscuits, pot pie, curry, sweet and sour, barbecue...the list goes on and on.  Plus, foods I can myself are free of preservatives, and most of the time, organic.  Since I canned it, I know what went into it.  I also receive an enormous amount of satisfaction from my well-filled larder, a small bastion of security against an uncertain future.

As food prices rise nearly weekly, I've been doing a good deal more canning lately.  OK, I've been doing a lot more canning.  It's starting to get a bit out of hand, not because there's too much food but because I am running out of storage space.  When I ran out of room in the kitchen cupboards and bedroom closets, I had Smoky build me some shelves at the end of the hallway.

When the hallway shelves were filled, I migrated to a table in my office. 

 

 

As you can see, the table is now at maximum capacity.  I have no idea where I will put the overflow.  As it is, the six quarts of dog food I processed yesterday are on my office desk. 

 

 

 

 It seems hard to believe, but the desk was once a tidy place where could one do actual work instead of a craft and project staging area.  (And let's get it straight, here:  what you see under the table of canned goods is not laundry. They are old sheets to tear into strips for rag balls.  Just so you know.)

 

 

 

Yikes.  At any rate, I am more excited than you can imagine when we can finally transfer the canned goods larder to the farm and into the cold room and its abundance of lovely, study shelves.

 

But back to dog food.  We currently have two dogs, a three-pound maltipoo and a bruiser of a pit bull.  While the maltipoo's dietary needs are quite dainty, the pit bull is a bottomless...well, pit.  When we move to the farm we will be getting another dog, so being able to feed our canine crowd if going to the store were not an option is important.

 

Whenever I process meat or poultry for canning, I invariably wind up with a small mountain of scraps:  meat bits, gristle, fat and skin.  I save them until I have a batch big enough to can. 

 

 

I chop it all into small pieces, discarding large pieces of fat.

 

 

I figured I would need five quart jars.  Here they are, washed and waiting on the counter.  I can almost all my meat using a raw pack, as it is so much easier than managing hot vats of liquids and greasy jar funnels.  Sterilizing is not necessary, as the time spent in the pressure cooker kills any harmful bacteria.

 

 



I fill the jars up to the first ring line and wipe the rims with a cloth dampened with vinegar to remove any grease.  I didn't add any water, but if you want more yummy dog gravy, then go ahead and a cup or so of water to each jar.  Don't fill beyond the first ring line or you may have greasy liquid boil up and get between the lid and the jar rim, spoiling your seal.

 

 

 

I processed for 90 minutes at 13 pounds of pressure (the right amount for our elevation).  After the pressure returned to zero I removed the jars, still bubbling, from the canner.

 

 

 

 

 

When the dog food cools, it will have a layer of fat at the top; just mix it in.  We do not feed this food straight to our dogs (it's very rich), but spoon a little over their dry food and stir it up.  It could just as easily go over rice to feed them, if rice was all you had.  A little goes a long way, the dogs love it, and I made it for free out of scraps that are usually thrown away.  Wahoo, what a bargain!