The Importance of Feeding Your Dog a Balanced Diet
The importance of a healthy, well-balanced, nutritionally-complete diet
for dogs has become increasingly clear recently. Unfortunately, that
understanding has come at the cost of some ill pooches. Health issues
are commonly caused by one of two culprits: commercial dog foods having
too little (or too much) of a nutrient, or well-meaning owners putting
their dogs on diets that lack the appropriate nutrients or contain
dangerous ingredients.
Providing a balanced canine diet can be tricky because, despite being fellow mammals, the nutritional requirements of canines and human beings aren’t the same. Commercial formulations are generally preferable to homemade because they have been engineered specially for canine physiology. The trick to ensuring that your pooch eats healthy dog food is finding the right commercial formulation, and that can be harder than it seems.
Homemade Diets
There are two popular classes of homemade diets: raw and cooked. The philosophy inspiring the raw diet seems like it’s sound: Dogs have very recently (as the timeline of life goes) evolved from wolves, and wolves evolved to eat raw meat. Therefore, dogs are evolutionarily predisposed to eating raw meat (and bones and fruits and veggies), like the little wolf-creatures they are.
The thing is, look at a Chihuahua; as closely related as domestic dogs remain to wolves, they’ve all undergone a good bit of divergent evolution. Not only can raw dietsbe nutritionally insufficient, they canalso be downright hazardous. Raw meat poses an infectious pathogen risk to both dogs and humans. Additionally, bones pose a choking hazard, can break or damage teeth, and are capable of obstructing or perforating a dog’s digestive tract. Human food and human grade dog food aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Cooked dog meals eliminate the pathogen risk but are still virtually always, like raw diets, nutritionally incomplete without supplementation. And that supplementation practice can be extremely complex. The cook has to be aware what specific nutrients a dog requires, what nutrients are in each meal to begin with, in roughly what quantities, and how much of those that aren’t there that need to be added. Precision counts too, because while nutritional deficiencies can have long-term health consequences, too much of a vitamin, mineral, or protein can be toxic.Recently, a study found 95% of homemade recipes to be nutritionally unbalanced. Plus, there’s the risk of cross-contamination from all those human foods that are poisonous to dogs.
Commercial Dog Foods
Considering all of the risks, research, and hassle accompanying attempting to formulate your own balanced dog meals, several times a day, every day, it’s a small wonder that commercial preparations are far more popular. But sadly, as mentioned, those commercial foods are also not without risks.
To clarify, a good portion of commercial dog foods are safe. But there have been issues. Specifically, nutrition-related incidences of commercial food issues include those with too few nutrients, excessive levels of nutrients, or recipe formulations that have been demonstrated to be insufficient. For instance, a number of higher-end “grain free” brands were recently linked to an increase in canine dilated cardiomyopathy, which can be fatal, likely due to a deficiency of taurine. (Fortunately, taurine can be found in animal livers such as beef liver and turkey liver.)
The point is, even the commercial brands can make mistakes, which adequately demonstrates the risks of people without doctorates in veterinarian nutrition making up meals for their dogs. The best bet for fresh, safe, delicious, nutritionally-complete dog food is to find a reputable provider of cooked, human grade dog food with a formulation that’s overseen by a veterinary nutritionist.
About Grocery Pup
Grocery Pup was founded by dog lovers, and for them, on the principle that dogs deserve safe, healthy, nutritious, delicious food every bit as much as we do. To reach as many of our furry friends as possible, they specialize in quick, convenient, reliable home delivery of their amazing human grade dog meals. Every bite of Grocery Pup’s canine cuisine, which includes sensitive stomach dog food, has been vetted and approved by a veterinarian nutritionist. And all of it is prepared to tail-wagging perfection with flavor-sealing sous-vide technology in a human-grade kitchen.
Sniff out a new level of delicious for your pup, at Grocerypup.com
Providing a balanced canine diet can be tricky because, despite being fellow mammals, the nutritional requirements of canines and human beings aren’t the same. Commercial formulations are generally preferable to homemade because they have been engineered specially for canine physiology. The trick to ensuring that your pooch eats healthy dog food is finding the right commercial formulation, and that can be harder than it seems.
Homemade Diets
There are two popular classes of homemade diets: raw and cooked. The philosophy inspiring the raw diet seems like it’s sound: Dogs have very recently (as the timeline of life goes) evolved from wolves, and wolves evolved to eat raw meat. Therefore, dogs are evolutionarily predisposed to eating raw meat (and bones and fruits and veggies), like the little wolf-creatures they are.
The thing is, look at a Chihuahua; as closely related as domestic dogs remain to wolves, they’ve all undergone a good bit of divergent evolution. Not only can raw dietsbe nutritionally insufficient, they canalso be downright hazardous. Raw meat poses an infectious pathogen risk to both dogs and humans. Additionally, bones pose a choking hazard, can break or damage teeth, and are capable of obstructing or perforating a dog’s digestive tract. Human food and human grade dog food aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Cooked dog meals eliminate the pathogen risk but are still virtually always, like raw diets, nutritionally incomplete without supplementation. And that supplementation practice can be extremely complex. The cook has to be aware what specific nutrients a dog requires, what nutrients are in each meal to begin with, in roughly what quantities, and how much of those that aren’t there that need to be added. Precision counts too, because while nutritional deficiencies can have long-term health consequences, too much of a vitamin, mineral, or protein can be toxic.Recently, a study found 95% of homemade recipes to be nutritionally unbalanced. Plus, there’s the risk of cross-contamination from all those human foods that are poisonous to dogs.
Commercial Dog Foods
Considering all of the risks, research, and hassle accompanying attempting to formulate your own balanced dog meals, several times a day, every day, it’s a small wonder that commercial preparations are far more popular. But sadly, as mentioned, those commercial foods are also not without risks.
To clarify, a good portion of commercial dog foods are safe. But there have been issues. Specifically, nutrition-related incidences of commercial food issues include those with too few nutrients, excessive levels of nutrients, or recipe formulations that have been demonstrated to be insufficient. For instance, a number of higher-end “grain free” brands were recently linked to an increase in canine dilated cardiomyopathy, which can be fatal, likely due to a deficiency of taurine. (Fortunately, taurine can be found in animal livers such as beef liver and turkey liver.)
The point is, even the commercial brands can make mistakes, which adequately demonstrates the risks of people without doctorates in veterinarian nutrition making up meals for their dogs. The best bet for fresh, safe, delicious, nutritionally-complete dog food is to find a reputable provider of cooked, human grade dog food with a formulation that’s overseen by a veterinary nutritionist.
About Grocery Pup
Grocery Pup was founded by dog lovers, and for them, on the principle that dogs deserve safe, healthy, nutritious, delicious food every bit as much as we do. To reach as many of our furry friends as possible, they specialize in quick, convenient, reliable home delivery of their amazing human grade dog meals. Every bite of Grocery Pup’s canine cuisine, which includes sensitive stomach dog food, has been vetted and approved by a veterinarian nutritionist. And all of it is prepared to tail-wagging perfection with flavor-sealing sous-vide technology in a human-grade kitchen.
Sniff out a new level of delicious for your pup, at Grocerypup.com
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