Having the correct knowledge of what to feed your dog can be very confusing. Every expert out there has his own favourite canine diet and there is such a vast selection of dog food available that it can be quite overwhelming for the first time dog owner to decide what to feed.
In fact lets be honest even us seasoned dog owners get caught up in all the different facts and opinions and who knows what is what? Think of it—-Fresh, tinned, dried, vacuum-packed ..the list is endless. Obviously a puppy has a different food requirement from an adult dog so make sure that you feed the puppy the correct puppy diet from the vast range of food available.
The majority of pet shops and many vets will probably advise feeding your new puppy or dog on a complete dried food which is considered nutritionally balanced. Some will suggest tinned food or vacuum packed meat products. These types of food are many and varied and are advertised as suitable for most dogs.
In fact most of the advertising will suggest that it is the only way to feed your dog if you want him or her to have a long and healthy life. To discuss each and every type of manufactured food product would be a major book in itself so lets look here at another choice…the Natural diet.
This diet is structured on what your dog would eat in the wild and what wolves eat in the wild today. It is a diet based on raw meaty bones and what most people fed their dogs until the dog food manufacturers got hold about 30-40 years ago. It is the diet that your dog is designed to eat.
They have the teeth to tear,shred,rip flesh and crunch bones and their stomachs are designed to digest both raw meat and raw bones. Remember that dogs are carnivores and their diet would be mostly meat and bones. They may eat the stomach contents of prey ,that is the vegetable matter but it is not a vital part of their diet and they do not need it.
Most vets will recommend one of the commercial diets as the instructions are on the packet and they do not have the time in a normal consultation to go into the benefits of natural feeding and the quantities needed. Some vets sell dried dog food and so will recommend it. Some pet food manufacturers sponsor Vet colleges so therefore the alternative ways of feeding are not given priority or even discussed and veterinary students do not learn them.
In fact to be honest many dog owners are told that raw uncooked bones are bad for their dogs. The convenience of opening a tin,or scooping out a couple of mug fulls of dried food is simple, requires no thought and suits the busy lives that many owners now lead.
The fact that there is now a massive multimillion pound industry which effectively tells dog owners that they the owners couldn’t possibly work out how and what to feed their dogs on their own,has lead to increasing numbers of dog owners accepting that the manufacturers must know best and being drawn into buying commercially prepared food and artificial bones.
All tinned and processed foods have been cooked and the resulting changes in the structure of the food means that the dogs digestive system has to work much harder as it was designed to digest raw ingredients. Then there is the major effect that cooked processed food has on the dogs teeth.
The majority of dogs fed on an artificial diet will develop dirty teeth and infected gums and will have to be attended to by a Vet several times through their lives.The processed food gets stuck in the teeth causing infection. Just take a look at at your own teeth after you have eaten a biscuit…..that’s what your dogs teeth look like after eating dried pellets.
Even using artificially produced teeth cleaning products will leave a deposit on the dogs teeth.! Bacteria enter the body through the diseased and infected gums and teeth and this can set up chronic infections which later may result in liver,heart or kidney problems.
Cleaning your dogs teeth is not going to remove all the gunge and honestly who is going to clean their dogs teeth twice a day! ..imagine it? By eating raw bones the dogs floss their own teeth naturally in the ripping and shredding action.
The only teeth that need to be artificially cleaned are the canine teeth which are the teeth designed for killing the prey and are not involved in the ripping and grinding motion. Try cleaning your dogs teeth with an electric toothbrush…believe me it works! If you start when they are a puppy I can assure you they will get used to it.
