we actually made our dog's food for about 9 months, but that was a lot of work.

Same here... after the vet put her on rice and boiled chicken/ground beef to overcome something, we decided that seemed like a good basis for a diet, but she tired of it quickly, and since it was so much effort, it was back to commercial food.

right now we've got her mostly on natural balance, dick van patten's brand

We've tried that too, and she really likes it... I like that some of the proceeds got to animal shelters too (though I'm always wary of unspecified "portions" as donations), but the stuff is really hard to find around here.

We've also considered that BARF (bones and raw food) diet that some swear by, but all the evidence I've seen about concerns this regimen raises seem scientific, while all the stuff I've seen supporting it seems mostly empirical, so we're steering clear of that.