The tradition of preparing meals for dogs at home stretches back further than many might assume. In 1966, the celebrated food writer M.F.K. Fisher reviewed pet cookbooks in The New Yorker. Decades later, Jeffrey Steingarten documented cooking chef Daniel Boulud's "French Country Soup for Dogs and their Owners" for his own dog in Vogue. French food writer Frédérick E. Grasser-Hermé published a dog recipe book in 2001 and hosted a launch party where canine guests were served bone marrow topped with caviar. Judith Jones, the legendary editor behind Julia Child, capped her career in 2014 with a book devoted to cooking for her Havanese. Martha Stewart blogged in 2022 about the farm-fresh foods her dogs eat, and influencer Nara Smith has continued the tradition into 2026.
A Growing Movement Rooted in Crisis
With over 87 million dogs kept as pets in the United States, canine wellness has expanded into territory that includes red-light therapy and longevity pills. Yet food remains the most emotionally charged topic for many owners. According to American Veterinary Medical Association surveys spanning more than a decade, an estimated 3 to 8 percent more owners now cook for their dogs than before.
Jonathan Stockman, a board-certified veterinary nutritionist and assistant professor at the UC Davis Weill School of Veterinary Medicine, traces the trend's modern origins to what is known as the "melamine crisis" of 2007. That year, a company called Menu Foods, responsible for producing 1,300 recipes across various private-label contracts, incorporated wheat gluten contaminated with melamine, a type of plastic. Dogs and cats began dying mysteriously, and the cause was traced to this ingredient. The result was the largest wave of pet food recalls in history.
Marion Nestle, professor emerita at NYU and a prolific author on public health, was inspired by the event to write Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine. She explains that while recalls still occur regularly, none since Menu Foods have matched the scale of animal harm. Most incidents, she says, stem from lapses in safety protocols rather than deliberate contamination. Dry food, she notes, is not sterile and can serve as a growth medium for pathogens such as Salmonella if companies do not rigorously maintain a culture of safety.
The fallout from that crisis fueled demand for alternatives, giving rise to both home cooking and commercial fresh-food brands like The Farmer's Dog, which launched in the mid-2010s with vacuum-sealed meals marketed as made from "human-grade" ingredients.
Influencers, Cookbooks, and the Daily Reality
On Instagram, the duo known as @TheCedLife — Joelle Jay and R.A. Young — share elaborately prepared dishes like "pawella" and salmon coconut curry for their two small dogs. They published a cookbook called The Dog's Table at the end of 2025 and maintain a Substack called Precious Kitchen. Young acknowledges that their fanciest content is designed to grab attention, but stresses that their actual day-to-day recipes rely on simple batch cooking. According to Young, all anyone needs is a freezer, a pot, and seven to eight store-bought ingredients to hit all the major nutrients.