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Dog NutritionDog nutrition - put yourself in charge!
Optimal Dog NutritionSo what is optimal dog nutrition? Unfortunately, there is not one simple answer or formula to answer this question. As with people, dogs need proteins, as well as certain fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals to keep them healthy. Some factors involved include your dog's tolerance to different kinds of foods, the dog's age, and the amount of vigorous exercise your dog gets. You will need to experiment.When it comes to the actual foods, if you are feeding your dog cooked or raw food, much will depend on the age of the food and how it is grown. Although unadulterated (i.e., organic) meats and vegetables would seem most desirable, if the vegetables are several days old, they will have lost nutritional value and it might be better to use thawed frozen vegetables that you puree, cooked or raw. For kibble diets, you want to read the labels very carefully. Anything that comes in a bag and does not look like food you can grow is likely to have lost or altered many of the nutrients during the processing. That's why some of these things are added back in. However, it is generally less than what was lost. They also have to use preservatives for long shelf life, but several artificial preservatives are toxic. Any kibble containing ethoxyquin (used as a pesticide and to make artificial rubber), BHA, BHT, propyl gallate, and TBHQ (suspected carcinogens) or polypropylene glycol (a.k.a. antifreeze!) should be avoided at all costs. Natural preservatives are usually made from Vitamins C and E and will have words that say tocopherol or ascorbate. Here's a great site that rates different types of kibble and tells you which ones are best nutritionally: Dog Food Analysis Some people maintain a raw food diet is closer to what dogs would naturally eat and therefore healthier. Other dog owners provide cooked foods for their dogs to eat. We strongly recommend you read labels and other materials carefully so you can make an informed choice as to what you feed your dogs. Interested in learning more how to make your own homemade dog food? See our pages on Cooking For Your Dog and Canine Raw Diet An issue related to dog nutrition is Dog Weight Many dog owners choose vitamin or bone health supplements for better dog nutrition. We have started using them with Comet since his life-threatening illness in February 2010 (see below). Our Dog Nutrition StoryWe have tried a number of things with our dogs. Cheaper kibble has definitely given poor results, showing up as frequently emitted loose stool, skin and fur problems including a susceptibility to fleas, and possibly contributing to F.B.'s arthritis period.A better kind of kibble (found in PetSmart, not at any grocery store) did help with F.B. and Comet for years. However, even so, it was recommended we change to a different bag when our dog emptied the last one so that all nutritional bases would be covered. Since Comet's hemorraghic gastroenteritis episode, he has absolutely no tolerance for cheaper types of kibble (which have rendered fat added to make them smell good) but simply throws it up. Exercise seems to play a huge part in how much food he will keep down, and we believe not exercising him properly for two days contributed to his acute illness. We also think that F.B. developed bloat because he was slowing down on his walks and we did not reduce his food intake enough. We've been experimenting for six months to see what Comet can handle now, and feed him four times a day with about 1/3 cup of cooked brown rice, 1/4 cup of raw veggies, and 1/2 to 3/4 cup of raw meat (chicken breast, beef liver, hamburger) and sometimes some cooked fish. He also gets Vitamin C, selenium, acidophalous (probiotics), and a regular multi-vitamin, plus one or two soup marrow bones to chew on daily. His coat remains soft and ungreasy, his eyes are bright, and he is maintaining his weight, which is about 10 pounds less than he weighed before. We tried Comet with a total raw food diet during our yearlong stay in Florida, but he started refusing the food, and we suspect it was too rich for the amount of exercise he was getting. Since we were fixing to travel, we switched him to a high-end kibble again. We think he would have done alright on that kibble and the occasional healthy treat, except we became anxious about the expense and went to the cheapest PetSmart variety, while at the same time he was getting a number of high-fat treats such as hot dogs, cheese, cottage cheese and some raw bacon from someone who thought dog nutrition was overrated. It turned out that all that fat was definitely too much for Comet's system. If you have someone in your family who is poo-poohing good dog nutrition in the name of loving the dog, tell them it cost us $1,000 for 24 hours of very basic emergency veterinary care, and we are having to spend far more on Comet's diet than previously. It probably also aged him by a year or more. Sadly, it is unlikely he will ever be as strong as he once was... Update September 2010: Comet had another round of vomiting and symptoms similar to the gastroenteritis on August 21, except that he had very little bleeding from his rectum. He had lost more weight despite efforts with the better diet. He passed away during the night. We now suspect that he might have had cancer, but getting a diagnosis was beyond our means... He would have been 12 on November 1.
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