Cheffo Doggo

Learn / Choosing tools

How to choose a homemade dog food app

⚠️ Bias disclosure: we make Cheffo Doggo, so we're not neutral. That's exactly why this page is a checklist instead of a ranking — use it to judge any app, including ours.

The one-sentence test: a good homemade dog food app does the arithmetic and the safety screening a human won't reliably do by hand — and points you toward your vet, never away.

The six-point checklist

1. Toxic-ingredient screening on every recipe. Chocolate, grapes/raisins, onion, garlic, xylitol, macadamia nuts, and the rest of the list should be hard-blocked by the system — not left to your memory on a tired Tuesday.
2. Personalization to your actual dog. Weight, age, life stage, allergies, medications. A recipe for "a dog" is a blog post; a recipe for your dog is a formulation. Allergy screening especially should be automatic once entered.
3. Real portion math. Calories from RER/MER (see the portion guide), translated into kitchen units — cups and grams, not abstractions.
4. Batch scaling. Nobody cooks for their dog three times a day. Cook-once-feed-all-week scaling with storage guidance is the difference between a plan you admire and a plan you follow.
5. A path to your own vet. The right model is an app that produces something your veterinarian can review — a clear one-page summary of ingredients, nutrients, and portions. Red flag: any app claiming "vet-approved" recipes generically. Approved by whose vet, for which dog?
6. Honesty about limits. Dogs with kidney disease, pancreatitis, or other medical conditions need a board-certified veterinary nutritionist, and an honest app says so instead of pretending software covers every case.

How Cheffo Doggo measures up

Point by point, same order: every generated recipe runs through a toxic-ingredient database; recipes are built per dog profile (weight, age, allergies, medications — with food-drug interaction flags); portions are computed and shown in kitchen units; full meals, weekly batches, toppers, and treats all scale; every recipe can be exported as a one-page summary and sent to your own vet for review — approvals show as "reviewed by Dr. X" only when a real vet actually reviewed it; and we're lightly-cooked only, with medical-condition cases pointed at professionals.

Pricing, since you'll wonder: the first treat recipe is free, no card. Premium is $8/month or $59/year, with a 14-day no-questions money-back guarantee.

Questions to ask any app (or blog, or spreadsheet)

• What nutrient standard are recipes formulated against?
• Where does calcium come from, and is the Ca:P ratio computed?
• What happens when I enter an allergy — is it screened everywhere, or just noted?
• Can my own vet see exactly what I'd be feeding, on one page?
• What does it refuse to do? (An app with no refusals has no safety model.)

Keep reading: Is homemade dog food safe? · How to balance homemade dog food · Lightly cooked vs raw vs kibble