Diet and Nutrition
Deciding what we feed our puppies and dogs is one of the most important choice we can make for them.
A dog’s diet is just as important to him as our diets are to us. In the same way that us humans need to have a good, nutritious diet to stay healthy, so do our canine friends. A person who eats nutritiously well is more likely to be able to fight illnesses, diseases, and combat viruses – this is the same for dogs too. Food plays an extremely important job in the body and mind of every dog and how they adapt and develop. What a dog eats can affect their general well-being, health, welfare and even the way they feel.
Making sure your puppy or dog gets a balanced and nutritious diet is key to improving their cognitive development and will also help to develop focus and learning retention whilst your dog is in training with us!
A poor-quality dog food can cause a depressed dog, hyperactive dog, anxious behaviour, poor skin and coat condition and long term health problems amongst other things.
Every dog needs and deserves to be fed the right fuel to help them stay healthy and happy. Food provides the nutrients that enables the body to repair itself, grow new cells and stay vital.
Feeding your dog a good healthy diet will strengthen them from within and this will help avoid the niggles and ailments that a bad diet can bring, along with their associated vet bills. When a dog eats the right vitamins, minerals and other nutrients the immune system manages potential problems much easier.
Remember, good and bad health both begin in a dog’s food bowl!
What Dog Food Options Are Available?
There are 3 options available to you when choosing your dog’s diet.
Home-cooked: This is fresh food that is designed to be a whole food diet from organic ingredients. This will provide the best nutrition for your dog. It can be supplemented with a carefully selected kibble or wet food to increase variety.
Raw: The aim of raw is to fulfil your dog’s natural needs and nutrition from their evolutionary background. Traditionally the diet is made up of 70% meat, fish and bones and 30% raw vegetables. The food can be given fresh or in ready-made raw meals.
Commercial: Dog food that is bought commercially, but it must be a brand that is created with the dog’s health and nutrition needs as its core value.
What you choose, may depend on your lifestyle, available time, inclination and cost. Many people, for ease, choose to opt for commercial dog food, however, the growing popularity of home-cooked and raw feeding is now rising as food manufacturers are now producing ready-made fresh and raw meals too.
Why is it important to know the ingredients of commercial dog food?
There is currently no independent governing body that regulates dog food. This means that no-one is checking whether the food that we provide for our dogs is good for them.
Despite the clever, nicely packaged tins and bags, what really lurks in some commercial dog foods is pretty terrifying! It is important to read the packaging and not be fooled by the pictures or claims the packaging makes. A lot of the huge corporations that make dog food might claim that they have the dog’s health in mind, but how can they when most of them have no training or understanding of canine health and wellbeing – their only qualifications lie in marketing and business?
Due to the fact that so many companies have realised the potential to earn from making cheap dog food, vets and trainers are seeing many more behavioural and health issues in dogs and sadly, owners are unaware they may potentially be causing these issues by the choice of food they are providing their dog with.
You need to ensure that you know what ingredients are used in dog food in order to choose a brand that truly does have your dog’s health and wellbeing as their priority. Consider the following:
The meat: What is the meat content? Where is the meat coming from? How is it prepared? Is it ethically produced? Do you need a single source protein diet?
Fillers: How much of these are included in the food (most of these have no nutritional value at all)! These can include wheat, oats, rice, corn and corn kernels, peanut shells, beet pulp, corn syrup.
Flavourings: These are only added to make the food taste nice, there is no nutritional value in them.
Artificial Colourings: These have no nutritional value and are only used to make the food look better to the dog owner, they exist only to sell the food and can often be harmful to your dog.
Anti-nutrients: these include any substances that prevent vital nutrients being absorbed by the body.
Generally, the better the quality the food is, the more recognisable ingredients will be shown on the packaging and there will be less baffling long words included. Dog food that is designed with health and wellbeing as priority will have total clarity of ingredients on the packaging.
You need to ensure that you choose a brand that is nutritious and meets your dog’s essential dietary needs. If you don’t, you could be buying dog food that includes meat which is not fit for human consumption, sometimes is barely meat at all, meat from animals that are suffering or are ill before being killed or meat that has been heated to such high temperatures that no nutritional value is left in it. The dog food could also be full of grains, filler and artificial flavourings, chemicals or anti-nutrients!
If you know what is in the ingredients of commercial dog food you can avoid the bad ones and choose the good ones – those with good nutritional value. This means you can help your dog to maintain a healthy, fully functioning body and mind!
How to choose a good dog food
Providing your dog with a good variety of food types, each with its own nutritional value, you can easily maintain the balance required to create a healthy, fully functioning mind and body.
You can check how good your brand of dog food is on the All About Dog Food website. I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND you check your current brand of food on this website (even if it has been recommended to you by your breeder, vet, friends or relatives)! Personally, I wouldn’t recommend feeding any brand of food that scores less than 80% on their nutrition rating scale. You may also wish to read their informative article Why Dog Food Matters.
At Happy Buddies, we recommend a few excellent brands but our two favourites are:
Click here to view their All About Dog Food Nutritional Rating
Freshly prepared, perfectly portioned meals for puppies, adult dogs and golden oldies. These complete meals are made with human-quality meat and vegetables, gently cooked to create simple, tasty and complete meals. They come in different tasty flavours and all are created with the right balance of vitamins and minerals and very nutritious.
They also cater for dogs with weight issues, fussy pooches, pancreatitis suffers, sensitive stomachs, dogs with intolerances or allergies, diabetes or skin issues and those that suffer with flatulence!
There are no nasties, no grains and no harsh temperatures.
If you are a Happy Buddies client, you can get 75% off your first box and 25% off your second box! Contact me now to get your special client discount code!
If you are not a Happy Buddies client, don’t worry, you can still get a great discount of 50% off your first two boxes – just click here!
Click here to view an example of Natures Menu All About Dog Food Nutritional Rating
A healthly range of food and treats for your puppy and adult dog. They specialise in the raw diet but also provide very tasty dry and freeze-dried food options too.
Natures Menu produce high quality, real, wholesome food which is free of artificial colours and flavourings. Their raw food is a complete, balanced and nourishing diet and their dry dog food options deliver a high meat protein, no grain, low carbohydrate diet with the power and taste of raw in every bite.
If you are a Happy Buddies customer, you can receive £15 off and free delivery on your first order (minimum spend applies). Contact me now to receive your discount code. .
We also sell some Natures Menu and Natures Variety items in our own Happy Buddies DOG SHOP!
Harmful foods!
Finally, it is worth mentioning, as we are talking about food, that there are quite a few human foods that are dangerous for a dog, sometimes they can have fatal outcomes. The following foods should be avoided completely.
Chocolate
Caffeine
Onion
Garlic
Chives
Alcohol
Avocado
Grapes
Raisin
Macadamia nuts
Cooked bones
Corn on the cob
Xylitol (Sweetener)
Citrus
Salt
If your dog does eat anything from the list above, call your vet immediately and keep a very close eye on them. Don’t wait for symptoms to occur before calling the vet as time can be of the essence with some of the items, however, symptoms of poisoning can include panting, vomiting, loose bowel movements, collapse and bright red gums. Poisoning from any of these foods can quickly escalate to a veterinary emergency so don’t wait until it is too late – seek advice immediately.
