Your Dog’s Dietary Needs
January 12, 2010 in Dogs
I am finding that more and more of my customers are having behaviour and medical problems due to their dog’s poor diet. Although we have many good convenient products to feed our dogs, the cheaper ones may be doing them more harm than good. Until about 20 years ago our dogs got a bone, a tin of wet stuff and our scraps for their dinner and believe it or not they were healthier then than they are now.
Dogs like all living creatures need food and water to survive. Food includes proteins, carbohydrates and fats. Dogs require vitamins and minerals in their diet as well and it is important to provide a dog with a well balanced diet that includes all the factors that they need to survive, it is just as important to provide the correct amount of the nutrients as it is to not give excessive amounts of as this can be dangerous and cause ill health- for example vitamin A can lead to malformation of the bones if given in diet in excessive amounts! Water is more important than most people realise, as well as quenching thirst it is a constituent of blood, eliminates waste through urine and helps temperature control.
As I said before in order to survive, dogs need water, protein, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, fibre and trace elements. It is important that a dog gets a nutritional balance of all these ingredients, whether you are feeding a home prepared diet, or a commercial bought dry or moist food, not necessarily in every meal but overall it is the balance that counts. For my customers that are interested in understanding their dog’s diets better I give them the following information about each aspects of their dog’s diet.
Function of minerals
Dogs require about 20 minerals, but some are needed in such small quantities the absolute requirements have not been established. These trace elements are present in the common foodstuffs and deficiencies are most unlikely. Minerals perform many different functions in the body such as the formation of bone, teeth, and cartilage, maintenance of fluid and acid/base balance, transportation of oxygen in the blood, normal functioning of muscles and nerves, and production of hormones. Minerals work with vitamins, enzymes, and other minerals in the body to produce their effects.
Vitamins
Although required in small amounts, vitamins are necessary for normal health and function. A vitamin is an organic compound which plays an essential part in the regulation of various metabolic pathways and is broken down in the process. Vitamins are distinguished from other compounds with similar functions in that the animal is unable to synthesis (create) replacements and must obtain a dietary source. Deficiency in all vitamins have some similar signs in common like poor appetite, general loss of condition and poor growth. Vitamins are generally classified into two groups based on how or if they are stored in the body. Fat-soluble vitamins are stored in the liver and fatty tissue, these are vitamins A, D, E and K and are all retained when fed in excess amounts. This is why you need to be careful when feeding food that contains vitamin A and D as excess is dangerous and can cause malformation of bones (vit A) and calcification of soft tissue (vit D). Water-soluble vitamins, these are vitamins Bs, folic acid, pantothenic acid, biotin and choline are stored in only very small amounts by the body. They need to be taken in daily, and any excesses are excreted by the body each day through urine, therefore they are not considered toxic in excessive amounts.
Proteins
Proteins are one of the most important elements for maintaining good health. All the tissues, bones and nerves are made up mostly of proteins and normal brain function depends on adequate amounts of protein being consumed in the diet. During digestion the larger molecules of proteins are broken down into smaller ones known as amino acids. Amino acids are necessary for the synthesis of complete body proteins and many other tissue parts as well as providing the substances used to send info around the brain. Of the 22 amino acids the body requires 9 and these are called essential amino acids, these are the acids that cannot be produces by the body. Protein levels in food are very important. In order to work out the true amount of protein content depends on the amount of moisture contained in the food. Dry foods contain little moisture whereas canned foods usually contain a great deal of moisture which can significantly alter the protein level from that displayed on the label. So it is important when trying to get an accurate amount of protein in canned foods by comparison to dry food you must calculate on an either dry matter basis or wet matter basis where the water content is constant for both.
It can be argued that food containing high levels of protein can cause aggression, excitability as well as lots of digestive problems. However more recent research shows this could infact be a myth and you would need take into account other variables to be more accurate. It could be that certain types or brands of food are more suitable for individual dogs and although an owner may have seen a difference in the dog’s behaviour after they switched to a lower protein diet, may they have also seen a change if they just switches to any other diet? It seems more or just as feasible to suggest cereal content/source, colourings or additives are more likely to be responsible for aggression or excitability.
Just because you may have worked out the protein content of a food it is of little use if you do not know the source of that protein. Most people assume protein only comes from meat but that is not true it also comes from grains, beans and vegetables. This is important as the source of protein is very important to a dog’s diet as protein from meat is of much more use to a dog than protein sourced from plant matter. One of the reasons for meat protein being so much better is because it contains all the amino acids in the right proportions required by a dog and in a form that is easily digested and assimilated. The problem with plant products is that they do not contain the full range of amino acids and may not be so usable by the dog and may also remain partly or wholly undigested leading to fermentation in the gut with the resultant release of toxins.
Fibre
Fibre is considered the non digestible portion of any food, and is responsible for firm stool formation, as well as digestive motility. As an example fibre consists of cellulose, lignins, inulin, and others. With the exception of chitosan, fibre comes from plants and whole grains. Although it is a type of carbohydrate, enzymes are unable to break down this carbohydrate, therefore making it a fibre. There are two different types of fibre, soluble, and insoluble, and if you imagined the skin on a fruit, that would be the insoluble portion, while the soluble portion lives inside. Both soluble and insoluble fibre is undigested and are therefore not absorbed into the bloodstream. Instead of being used for energy, fibre is excreted from the animal’s body.
If you found this article of interest and need any further advice on your dog’s diet please have a look at my website for more information and services.
