A good diet goes a long way in providing immunity and good health to your dog. Just as humans need a healthy diet for sustenance, similarly, your dog requires extra dietary care.
A well-balanced diet combined with proper maintenance and care for dogs can ensure they can enjoy a healthy physical condition, prolonging their life.
Overfeeding and underfeeding are equally harmful to your beloved pet because in both cases it can contract life-threatening diseases and this will lead to a painful and shorter life span.
In this post, we’ll guide you with 5 amazing ways to provide the best diet for your dog keeping it healthy and fit.
Ways to Ensure You are feeding Your Dog a well-balanced Diet
A dog’s daily diet is extremely crucial for bettering its life for the present and future. Today we’ll tell you what you need to add to your dog’s daily food intake for a well-balanced diet.
Feed the Right Combination of Nutrients
A combination of essential carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and minerals are needed in your dog’s diet, nevertheless through organic homemade meals or through store-bought dog food. The nutrients your dog needs rely on factors like its activity level, energy consumed, age, etc.
When commercial-grade food is concerned, make sure you purchase one marked as ‘complete food.’ A commercially produced dog food that comes with this level ensures it includes all essential nutrients at the proper percentage, and your pet will require no ad-on.
Do not consider supplementary food as the main diet as they are manufactured as dog treats and cannot meet its nutritional requirements alone.
Introduce Fresh Whole Food
Feed your dog complete food to ensure there is no inflammation or malnutrition for your beloved pooch. Whole foods like fresh veggies and fruits are a great source of essential enzymes and can help your dog lead a healthy and active life.
Processed and cooked dog food is devoid of nutrients mainly because cooking denatures proteins and other vital minerals in the food, so think twice before buying shelf-stable dog food.. The commercially manufactured food often lacks natural nutrients and includes synthetic chemicals that are harmful to your beloved pet.
Whole food contains all-natural nutrients, and when they enter the pet’s digestive tract, they get absorbed easily.
While giving whole food is a great way to meet its nutritional needs, food like grapes, resin, mushrooms, garlic, onion, nutmeg, unripe tomatoes, nuts, etc., can be toxic to your pet and can even cause kidney failure!
Introduce vegetables, chicken, meat, fishes like salmon, oatmeal, green beans, apples, eggs, banana, carrots, pumpkin, grains, or even a limited amount of rice to ensure a healthy and well-balanced diet. Never give your pet a meal which is seasoned with spices or salt.
Consider giving him raw food and avoid cooking or boiling meat. When processed food is concerned, always consult your vet before proceeding to feed your dog store-bought dog food.
Besides the risk of losing beneficial nutrients, cooked meat can cause other health issues as well. When you cook meat, fish, etc., it induces a carcinogenic chemical named heterocyclic amines. It can make your canine more susceptible to cancers.
Never Give him Human Diet
Human dietary requirements differ from dogs; feeding your dog snacks that you would enjoy is a mistake. Everyone knows how a simple snack like chocolate can be lethal to a dog.
The nutrients your dog needs to lead a healthy life are totally different from human nutritional requirements. Moreover, some human-grade food like dairy products, chocolates, etc., are detrimental to your pup’s digestive system and can sometimes cause havoc to them. Setting a proper diet will prolong your dog’s life.
Feed a variety of Food Containing Antioxidants and anti-inflammatory Agents
Giving commercial food to your dog requires research, so always go through the ingredients very carefully to evaluate if it contains any ingredient that can cause inflammation in your dog. Inflammation is the leading culprit of inducing many chronic diseases and premature aging in your pet.
Never give your dog processed food, as it causes inflammation, it can make your furry friend suffer from issues like osteoarthritis and pancreatitis.
You can feed your dog commercial food too but after choosing one that contains no inflammatory elements and is made of all-natural whole food.
Antioxidants are another vital element that helps your dog fight off premature aging and congenital diseases. Whole food is an excellent source of antioxidants.
Always Provide Water
Never overlook the importance of giving your dog ample fresh water. Water constitutes 60-75% of the canine’s body, regulates body temperature, and helps digest food. Dogs can suffer from dehydration, digestive issues, and kidney diseases, if it is not given the daily water amount and if left unchecked, these issues can even be fatal!
Dogs are reluctant to drink stagnant water, consider buying a pet fountain which motivates dogs to drink their daily recommended amount of water.
Though dogs eating wet and raw food need to drink less water than those who live on dry intake, make sure that your dog is always hydrated with daily freshwater intake.