At what temperature should you serve dog food?
Navigating homemade dog meals and learning how to prepare them for the best digestion
Writer’s note on September 8, 2025: I had no idea that dogs weren’t supposed to eat tuna. My dog’s reaction to gobbling up another dog’s tuna meal made me get a couple cans. She loves Bumblebee tuna but was immediately sick from a couple cheaper brands. That should’ve been all the hint I needed. I misunderstood and stuck to one brand. According to American Kennel Club, I should’ve stopped giving her tuna altogether. Yikes! I have stopped giving her the occasional forkful of tuna altogether.
I watched Junee watching me, and I slowly moved the saucer further back on the counter. As a kid, I’d already laughed hysterically when my Labrador Retriever mix stole a pork chop from the kitchen counter of my childhood home. Just like that, my father was short one slab of meat on his BBQ grill.
Although my dog has free reign of my home, I understand pet owners who don’t allow their dogs in the kitchen. My current Hound mix is shorter than my first dog, but Junee is also crafty. I’ve seen her army crawl underneath my desk for a fallen piece of popcorn and steal a baby carrot out of my hand. Although I haven’t eaten meat in two decades, my dog regularly eats chicken, beef, (occasional) turkey and tuna. And I honestly couldn’t tell you which of these food categories she likes more.
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Even though we’re clearly not eating the same type of food (minus the popcorn and baby carrots), there’s one thing she and I both have in common. We’re both entirely too impatient to wait for food to cool off before we try to eat it. My mother has been baffled at the amount of times I’ve risked burning my mouth to eat something random fresh off the stove. While I’m bouncing collard greens from one side of my mouth to the other, she’s rolling her eyes and asking me for the millionth time, “Why don’t you just wait until it cools off?”
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And I’ve watched my dog do the exact same thing. I watched her lick a Round-To-It homemade dog treat to get it to cool faster instead of just waiting until it naturally cooled off. I refuse to put hot, wet food in her dish altogether until it feels room temperature under my hand. Otherwise, she’ll keep licking at it while eating the dry kibble on the other side of the bowl.
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But since she and I have the same level of patience, that made me wonder, “How hot should meat for dogs be — raw or cooked? Should canned dog food be heated? And should pet owners be microwaving or re-heating dog food on a stove at all?”