Despite the fact that dry foods are a full-fledged balanced diet, many dog owners are somehow striving to diversify and enrich their dog pets. Today we will discuss how to feed dogs, except for dry food, and which products are not recommended for dogs.
Does dry food need add-ons?
If you carefully look at the packaging of any dry food for dogs, you will see the “Complete Feed” or Complete Food in English. This means that this finished product is a completely balanced nutrition for all nutrients, replenishing all the needs of the animal for nutrients and does not need any additions.
The only addition, without which feeding with dry food is simply impossible is clean, fresh water in unlimited quantities. It should be changed more often, since the saliva of the dog and the remaining food often falls into the bowl of water, which leads to the reproduction of bacteria.
Other additions to dry stern can ultimately turn into a violation of the balance of nutrients and cause a deficiency or, conversely, an excess of any element in the dog’s body.
Products from the master’s table
Many dog owners are sometimes guided by their own preferences in food, thinking, since they eat something without consequences, then there will be nothing to the dog. In fact, thinking is so erroneous, because people are omnivorous, and dogs by nature are carnivorous predators, and not everything that is good for humans is good for the dog.
The food of people is replete with various spices, acute marinades, contains a large amount of salt and sugar. Often human foods contain a lot of onions or garlic, which in dogs can cause oxidative damage to blood cells (hemolytic anemia). The combination of dry food with fresh vegetables and fruits is fraught with digestive disorder and the occurrence of flatulence, the same consequences will be after feeding the dog with potatoes, pasta, bread, etc.
Digestive disorders in a dog are possible after treating with fatty meat or fat sausages – such products create a shock load on the pancreas. The chocolate contains aobromine that can cause severe poisoning in a dog, up to death.
In addition to health problems, the constant treats from the table are fraught with the occurrence of behavioral problems in dogs, provoke constant begging of tidbing pieces, disobedience, and a complete rejection of dry food.
Natural nutrition
Feeding a “natural” involves an independent compilation of a diet for a dog taking into account its physiological needs. Ideally dog food storage container, this is a good nutrition, but in reality it is quite difficult to balance all the nuclear nutrients necessary, too many factors affect the selection of ingredients.
With a combination of dry food and natural food, the risk of imbalance of nutrients, macro- and micronutrients is high, since it is impossible to determine the exact composition of the food prepared at home, and the products purchased in a store or in the market are very different in biochemical indicators. As a result, the daily diet of a dog can sin, for example, an excess of fats (or their lack), excess amount of carbohydrates, etc.
It is even more difficult to balance vitamins and minerals, since when feeding a natural, it is rightly recommended to give the animal special complex additives in these dosages. Dry food is already balanced in all these substances, and therefore a skew can easily occur in one direction or another.
In this regard, we do not recommend practicing mixing in the diet of dry food and natural food, and choose one type of nutrition and adhere to only it.
Wet feed for dogs
Full-time wet feed for dogs can be made by the basis of the diet, or you can successfully combine them with dry food, and this is perhaps the most preferred option. In fact, wet food does not particularly differ from dry food (provided that both dry and humid feed of approximately the same quality), except for moisture content: it can be up to 85% in conservatives, against maximum 10% in dry food.
In order to competently combine dry and humid feed among themselves, it is necessary to reduce the norm of dry food in proportion to the amount of humid feed. It should be borne in mind that wet food has a more intense aroma and attracts dogs more, so it can happen that the dog will completely refuse dry food in favor of wet.
Specialized goodies
The treats are not an obligatory element of the dog’s nutrition, but they are an important part of the relationship between the dog and the owner, help in training and teaching the animal, being a safe way to encourage the pet.
In the assortment of pet stores you can find a variety of goodies: sticks for gnawing, bones of veins, bars, sausages, pieces of jerky, biscuits and cookies. high-quality goodies will not harm the dog organism, the main thing is to prevent overfeeding – goodies should be no more than 10% of the entire animal diet and, like constant food, consist mainly of animal products.
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