Forget playing with homemade stuff now. You may need to find out the essentials. Waste of time and effort if the problem is the type of proteins you’re getting.
My dog is majorly allergic, including foods. She is VEGETARIAN, because she is allergic to ANIMAL PROTEIN, period. She is a case where simply changing from processed dry to homemade beef or lamb would NOT help (in fact, probably make it worse).
Even if dogs aren’t allergic to all animal protein, they can be allergic to specific types. That is why there is not only “lamb” available, but duck, venison, etc.
We tried these, too, after seeing Tara get better on vegetarian, 1st. Unfortunately, she got worse again so is sticking to vegetarian. But some dogs should be fine with certain particular animal proteins.
Another possibility is that many dogs suffer a bit from corn allergy - and many processed foods employ corn meal. Ensure you go away from corn meal - there ARE processed foods (such as mine) that don’t use corn at all.
My vet brand is IVD - currently owned by Royal Canin. Unfortunately, you can only get it through certain vets, or order it from Canada.
BTW, my dog LOVES the IVD vegetarian; once had to try her on Natural Recipe veg because IVD ran out, and she didn’t like it much (smelled like clay to me). But she’d eat IVD right up.
We've seen all the "duck and potato" foods but I feel like in trying other foods we're just changing too many variables with each test. We'll never figure out which thing it is or was. That's why we wanted to get down the the simplest diet and see, whether it's rice and beef, chicken, turkey, eggs, whatever. And then add to that one thing at a time. I want to be rid of the ingredient lists full of who knows what additive.
I, too am a fan of Royal Canine! It saved my little dog’s life! She got ulcerative colitis, and had to go in to intensive care at a Critical Care Veternarian Hospital (2 1/2 hours away).
She no longer can have ANY human food - not even a speck. She eats the “Calorie Control CC High Fiber” from Royal Canine. She gets canned twice a day and then the dry (for ‘treats’) when she is a ‘good girl’.
And, she hasn’t had a sick day since she started on it, three years ago.
Here is their Website: http://www.royalcanin.us/
Here is their phone number: 1-800-925-8426