"Bazzy Chicken" - For joint pain and itchy skin

OK before I start, in our house the words 'Bazzy Chicken' or more precisely 'chicken' must be muttered with great caution.  This is because my dogs love this so much they taught themselves the word 'chicken' immediately they realised this was a regular thing.  They also taught themselves how to read the clock too as they now seem to know exactly when it is 4pm and tea time. 

Doesn't sound to difficult does it?  Except it is now very difficult for us to have a normal conversation such as 'shall we have chicken chasseur for dinner on Tuesday' without a demented dog dancing around thinking he is in line for an immediate feed.  So Bazzy chicken is now referred to using the words 'flappy bird' as Basil has not yet figured out what they mean.  So a word of warning, just be careful what words you use to describe this as you may be making a rod for your own back.  Anyway, we digress. 

The health benefits of the spice turmeric have been known within the Ayurvedic alternative medicine system.  The benefits, although not formally recognised by say the US FDA, have widely written about and a quick search of Google will deliver many sources.  Even established health organisations such as Nuffield Health list the benefits as anti-inflammatory, beneficial for bones and joints, demonstrates anti-cancer effects and may improve skin conditions.  More information on their website here.

This recipe was passed to me when my older dog, Sandy started developing joint pain and the vet had prescribed a drug that was causing her to vomit.  We later discovered that it may also have negative effects on dog's livers.  Not only did she immediately show a positive improvement so that she could stop the vet's medication AND she was able to tell the time too.  More on that later...

So here is our recipe:

• Chicken - I usually use frozen chicken as it is more convenient to cook in small batches
• Turmeric
• Coconut Oil
• Freshly Ground Black Pepper - it is important that it is freshly cracked and not pre-ground to maximise the cucumin's potency.

You will notice that the coconut oil is usually fairly hard, so to make it workable, first switch on your oven to Fan: 180ºC, Electric: 200ºC, Gas: 6.  Add the coconut oil, turmeric powder and freshly cracked black pepper to an oven proof dish and place in the oven until the oil melts.  This is usually only a few minutes and in high summer you might find that the oil is very close to melting immediately.

Once the coconut oil has fully melted, remove the dish from the oven and mix the ingredients fully to create this burnt gold liquid.  Be extremely careful now because you will only ever get turmeric on your clothes once.  Once it's on, it's never coming off as my turmeric stained oven gloves testify!

Now add the chicken to the dish.  You can coat the chicken in the turmeric oil now if you wish but I leave mine until it's fully cooked.  It is important to cover the dish to stop the meat drying.  Cook for as long as the packaging recommends or until you are confident that it is fully cooked.  When using frozen chicken, I usually allow at least 45 minutes.

When confident that the chicken is fully cooked, remove it from the oven and cut the meat into appropriate sized pieces for your dog.  As Basil is a smaller dog, I opt for 1-2cm (½-1") sized pieces.  The mix the pieces into the liquid turmeric oil to ensure that they are all evenly coated. 

Serve or refrigerate immediately.  If there is any excess oil, I pour it into Basil's food bowl so it makes his dry food taste nicer.

We feed Basil with this twice per day: morning and afternoon in addition to his dry food but it really is your choice.  He gets approximately 5 larger pieces or a tablespoon full, see below.  It never lasts very long but the biscuits get left until later. 

A word of caution.  How can I say this politely?  As most dogs are not used to spicier foods you may want to introduce them to it gradually not to shock their 'delicate' digestive systems.

Whilst 'Bazzy Chicken' had an instant and remarkable benefit for our older dog Sandy who has since passed away, we have not seen such a dramatic change in Basil because he was relatively young at 8 year old when he started eating it.  He is 13 years old now and he still runs around with the young dogs and leaps over fallen trees etc. 

One downside is that it does appear to affected his memory because if one of us feeds him at 4pm (when he has reminded us), he will soon go and remind anyone else in the house that it's 4pm and he needs feeding.  So much so that we now have to tell each other to prevent overfeeding.  Hey hang on, that's not his memory!  Those pesky pups!