Hi Sue, first thing we have to know that canine cancer diet needs to be very low in carbs, NO grains, high protein, high good fats.

Even some good quality commercial food contain grains and relatively high carbs.  If you are looking into commercial food, Innova EVO is by far the top of the "good quality" brand, with low carbs, no grains. The have canned food, with 95% of meat, such as rabbit, duck, venison, ...

That said, nothing is better than homemade whole food.  Imagine people having "good quality" TV dinner daily ... ewww!

If you are not ready to take a leap of faith to raw yet, homecooked food for Nova is fine too. 

PROTEIN: Cooked chicken meat, beef, pork are common choices.  Fish like sardines, mackeral are high in omega-3. Good.

FATS: fish oil, omega-3 oil.

VEGGIES: Lots, preferrably raw, any cruciferous veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, cabbages) is good for anti-cancer, celery, tomatoes, moderate carrots,  juice them and then mix the pulp (as fibre) back with the juice.  The reason is that dogs cannot digest (breaking the plant cellulose to get the benefit), but by juicing the veg, the cellulose are broken and that they can get the nutrients.

Any food which is high in sugar, or starch/carbs which can "easily" (i.e. highly processed carbs) be converted to glucose should be avoid in all cost.   Sugar feeds cancer.

BARF:  The only difference between the above homemade diet and BARF is raw meat/bones instead of cooked meat.    Raw chicken backs/ribs, chicken meat, beef, beef ribs with cartilages, marrow bones, are good.  Bones have to be raw, cooked bones especially chicken bones are hard and brittle and can be splintered.  For chicken backs, I'd make sure they are big enough so that Nova needs to chew a few times before swallowing.   As for beef bones, they are hard even in raw, I would suggest the size big enough just to let her finish up all the good stuff surrounding the the bone, and then either throw it away or leave it as a chewing toy for them.  If you are not comfortable with bones, you can just give raw meat.   You make sure she eats at one spot, without carrying the raw chicken all over the house, or hide some bones under the couch!

Dogs' stomach acid is many times stronger than humans and can handle raw with no problem.  However, Nova being used to commercial food, and because she is recovering from surgery, and later on receiving chemo.  I would suggest easing her into homemade "cooked" meal for now even though raw is more beneficial in general.

Also, the other thing is that they tend to lose appetite the first couple of weeks after surgery, and if you switched her diet drastically, you wouldn't know if she really didn't feel like eating or simple didn't like your cooking.  🙂

Wouldn't hurt giving her a seared beef strip, or a cooked chicken meat to test it out.  Not every dog likes raw veggies, you will have to experiement with that as well.  Feel free to test out if she like raw bits and pieces occasionally, so you have an idea when you can gradually switch to raw.

As long as you are determined to improve her diet, there has got to be a balance point you can find for her so that she enjoys the food, and is healthy for her.

Good luck!

I am not familiar with Nature's Variety.  Just went to their website, it sounds like some raw meat, veggies mix, with some healthy herbs?  I think that would work, but I imagine it would be more expensive than getting the ingredients yourself from grocery stores.  Nova and your other Dane can have the same meat you get from the stores.  They also like organ meats too, such as liver, hearts.

If you get the Innova EVO kibbles, you can mix with human grades meat, raw or cooked, and veggies.  Innova EVO canned food is very expensive (in my opinion), not to mention you need to feed about 3 cans or more for Nova's size daily.  I only used EVO canned food as the last resort when Genie didn't feel like eating her regular BARF, and EVO cans could really raise her eyebrows.

If she hasn't been wanting to eat kibbles, maybe that is a good opportunity to slowly switch her to at least cooked food.

Your other Dane would be thankful if you switch her out of the grain-based kibbles.

If Nova was not in health crisis as most tripawds in this forums are having, I would have suggested switching cold turkey.  We have to proceed the switch cautiously. Try not to use microwave oven, not even for thawing the frozen food.  If you feed raw, leave the frozen meat in room temperature overnight.

Hey Sue,  Here is Top 50 FAQs on BARF, and some links about glucose & cancer.

Hope they help!