Dog Nutrition

Dog Information

When you have a dog at home you always think of assuring him the comfort, happiness and health he needs. Nutrition and food clearly enters in these categories but it is often relegated towards other things. If you take a minute to think about it, we usually feed our dogs the easiest way: we buy any sort of canned food, we put it in their bowl and that’s it. But there is much more to do when it comes to your dog’s nutrition and this is simply because giving him a good diet and food is the base for your dog’s health, energy and joy. There are some things that you will find absolutely useful and here we are going to discuss them so take a pen and a paper and note down these advices and recommendations.

First of all there must be a slight mention to the canned and processed food. Some types of semi moist food are not really recommendable for our dogs since they tend to have an important amount of salt and sugar. They are concentrated and tasty products but can produce different types of diseases related to the liver, teeth, skin and many others. Try to avoid them as much as you can. The most recommendable processed food for you to buy is the dry one, since they are quite cheap in comparison to canned food and are easy to take to wherever you go. The dryness also provides a great dental exercise to your dog. As you surely know, you can find these in different flavors and tastes so choosing for the one your dog loves the most won’t be a hard thing to do. However, if your dog tends to suffer from urinary tract problems or liver complications dry food may not be as good as in any healthy dog and here canned food (which has a higher amount of water) will be better.
 
Another important thing to take into account is that in many occasions we believe that human food is adaptable to dogs and pets but this is not always true and giving our dogs the same food we eat can even produce serious conditions to their health. In this sense, some things you must avoid are: alcoholic drinks (this is a seriously unintelligent thing to do since they can produce coma an even death), baby food (in case you think that processed baby food might be healthy for puppies and this is because it contains products than can be toxic to dogs), coffee or chocolate (since they contain high levels of caffeine and this can damage your pet’s heart system), spoiled food or whatever leftovers you find (they can cause vomiting and diarrhea), raw eggs (because Salmonella diseases is easy to get from them), and finally some sugary or salty meals that can affect the cardiac system and usually cause obesity.

Remember this is a very basic guide, for more information ask your Vet.