It feels overwhelming to see a table full of indulgencies and make your loved ones savor the delicacies. Just like humans, food is an essential element for dogs too. It can be tempting for your dog to have the treats you provide him occasionally or as a great training aid. But, you cannot always over-indulge your dog or provide him wrong type of treats as it can unbalance his diet. One of the imperative elements of dog care is to feed him a balanced diet.
People often agonize about choosing the right option among the myriad of options when it comes to selecting the right food for their dogs. It is important to make sure to provide a complete diet that covers all the nutritional needs of your pet instead of just feeding him complimentary snack treats.
There is a plethora of options to choose from so it might be hard to ensure the right pick for your dog. Therefore, here’s a rundown to help you provide a balanced diet to your pooch.
Wet Food or Dry Food?
Wet food comes in foil trays, pouches or cans. The wet food is moist and your dog might find it to be entrancing. When feeding moist food to your dog, serve it at a room temperature. Dogs aren’t as fussy as cats, so they enjoy having wet food. Dry foods such as kibbles give your dog something to crunch on which is also better for his teeth. Therefore, dry or wet, both offer nutritional value to your pet. To make your dog’s meal interesting you can either choose to mix the dry and wet food or feed them rotationally.
Creating a Balanced Raw Diet For Your Dogs
According to the evolution of dogs, it was found that dogs were the hunter-scavengers. This made them opportunistic about hunting food. The dogs were obsessed for food hunting in a way that they were prone to eat assorted diet of bones and raw meat or certain types of fruits, vegetables too. Citing number of studies, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) discourages feeding raw or uncooked animal proteins as it contains potentially deadly pathogens that can detriment your pet’s health. Just because your pup gobbles up all the raw meat that doesn’t mean it is the right diet for him. It is strongly recommended to check the ingredients and vitamins before feeding raw meat to your dog.
How About Feeding Bones?
It is gnarly to break the bond between dog and bone. Though, raw bone are an excellent source of vitamins and minerals, giving whole bones to your dog advances the risk of broken teeth, internal punctures or choking. Say a big NO to cooked chicken bones because the sharp, splintered bone can puncture your dog’s gastrointestinal tract that causes extreme pain and infection. You can provide lamb or beef to your dog as long as they are large and raw.
Should You Feed Scraps/ Human Food To Your Dogs?
You can trust your dog to guard your house, but never trust your dog to guard your sandwich. As far as nutritional diet is concerned, a dog’s needs are very different from the human diet. You cannot just feed the table scraps from your meal or share your snack with your furry buddy as an occasional treat. There’s a gamut of different human foods which are misfit in your dog’s diet such as chocolates, processed foods, salty or sugary snacks, poultry bones that can harm him.
Food for the Vegetarian Dog
If you follow vegan diet for health, environment or ethical reasons, you may dislike feeding meat-based product to your dog. Therefore, it becomes essential to make sure that your pooch is interested in eating diet full of enough proteins, calcium and vitamins. It is advisable to seek veterinary advice before restricting your dog’s diet to fruits and veggies. You would never want to constrain your pet from experiencing different flavors and textures. Hence, you can consider feeding him rotational diet that includes varied food forms without making a full switch. You can also provide meal mixtures that make an interesting meal for your Fido. Moreover, consider to ask your vet to make the right food choice.