Edie MacKenzie On Dogs

Posts Tagged ‘Dog Food’

Poodle pups have special feeding requirements. A puppy’s stomach is not large enough to hold sufficient food in one feeding to provide his daily nutritional needs. When a puppy graduates from mother’s milk to solid food at about six weeks of age, he will require three to four meals a day, with the exception of Toys, who may need four to six meals. When he reaches about four to five months old, twice-a-day feedings may be sufficient. He can graduate to once-a-day meals at eight to nine months of age.

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Dog Food Secrets You Need To Know!

“In This Shocking FREE Video Report You Discover Why 87% of Dogs Die Too Early & 3 Easy Things You Can Do Today To Stop It Happening to Your Dog”

Dog Food Secrets

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Feeding The Poodle Pup: A pup’s nutritional requirements for growth and development are greater than those for an adult dog. If you opt to feed your Poodle pup a commercially prepared diet, feed one formulated especially for pups to ensure that your Poodle gets the nutrients he needs. A Poodle pup who eats a complete and balanced commercial puppy diet doesn’t need additional supplements. Adding supplements can cause nutritional imbalance. However, if you are supplying your dog with a home-cooked or fresh-diet meal plan, supplements may be necessary. Consult with a veterinary nutritionist.

Dry food can be moistened with warm water to encourage pups to eat. Milk can be used, too, but only in extremely small amounts. Cow’s milk causes digestive upset in some puppies and dogs. A tablespoon of canned food can be added to increase interest, as well. These are general guidelines for feeding your Poodle pup; consult with your veterinarian for more specific advice.

Feeding Adult Poodles: The adult Poodle is a mature dog, usually age one year or older. Healthy adult dogs who are not pregnant, nursing, or hardworking have somewhat low nutritional requirements. Feeding is fairly straightforward if you’re feeding commercially prepared kibble. Buy a complete and balanced diet made for the adult dog and give your dog the recommended amount once or twice a day. Add a tablespoon of canned food for taste if you wish. Adjust the amount according to the Poodle’s activity level and body condition.

Feeding Hardworking Poodles: Highly active Poodles use a lot of energy. The hard-working dog can require two to three time more kilocalories per pound of body weight than what is required for normal activity. To maintain good body condition and keep up his stamina, the hardworking Poodle must eat a high-energy diet.

Many veterinarians recommend commercially prepared “performance” diets for highly active dogs. Higher fat, higher-protein diets supply the working dog with needed calories. Because performance diets are higher in protein than maintenance diets, there s a misconception that the active dog just needs extra protein. However, all nutrients are required in greater amounts. Additionally, research indicates that moderately high-protein diets are unlikely to cause kidney damage – in spite of some breeders’ and owners’ beliefs that it does.

Feeding Your Elderly Poodle: Older Poodles (those who have reached the last 25 percent of their expected life span) are usually less active than adult dogs and pups. Thus, their energy requirements are reduced and they can gain weight easily if fed too much or fed a high-calorie diet. Some veterinarians recommend “senior” diets; foods high in nutrients but reduced in calories to keep a senior Poodle at a healthy weight.

A lot of people wonder what type of human food they should feed their Golden Retriever.  Even though many prefer to stick with dog food and only dog food, there are certain types of human food that a Golden Retriever will love – and is actually good for them.  Golden’s crave attention as we all know – and when they watch you eat it never hurts to give them a bite – as long as you know what they should and shouldn’t consume with their diets.

For your Golden’s health, feeding him foods such as chicken, raw vegetables, turkey, brown rice, fruits, and oatmeal are always great.  Even though we think of these type foods as “human food”, they are actually good for many animals as well.  All dogs have taste buds and noses, meaning that they get very excited when they see you with food.

If your Golden Retriever runs to the refrigerator when you open it up, he’s trying to tell you that he smells something good.  Even though he may run to the refrigerator, he isn’t begging for food as many think, he is simply wanting to have some real food.  Once your Golden Retriever starts to do this, you should give him some of what he wants.  Although most real food is great for Golden’s, there are some that aren’t quite so good.

Egg whites

If you feed your Golden Retriever a large amount of egg white in his diet, he will get a deficiency in biotin, which is a B vitamin, due to the amount of avidin, which is a very destructive substance.  If you are feeding your Golden Retriever egg yolks, you shouldn’t worry as the effects of avidin will be offset by the high biotin levels that are found in egg yolks.  You can also feed your Golden egg shells as well, as they contain a large amount of protein.  If you want the best for your Golden – try feeding him raw eggs – with the shell intact.

Any form of Chocolate

We all know never to feed chocolate to any type of animal.  Chocolate contains bromine, which is very toxic to both dogs and cats.  Unsweet chocolate is by far the worst to feed to your Golden Retriever, as it contains a large amount of bromine.  Bromine is a very harmful chemical, one that normally leads to death of your animal should he be fed any type of chocolate.

There are other foods out there that can be good or harmful to your Golden Retriever.  If you have any questions, you should always ask your veterinarian.  Your vet will be able to recommended real food that is beneficial to your Golden, as well as foods you should avoid.  You can experiment with real food if you like – although you should never allow your Golden Retriever to consume any type of chocolate.

Evaluating Todays Dog Food

Evaluating a dog food is a simple and straight-forward procedure of comparing certain characteristics of one food with those of other types of foods that are available to feed your dog. 

Regardless of whatever procedure you learn and use in order to effectively evaluate your dog’s needs should have enough built-in flexibility that innovative dog feeders can adapt it to best fit your own situation and further reduce their margin of error.

When making an evaluation, the four characteristics of a satisfactory dog food, discussed below, should be used as the minimum standards that any food must meet. These four basic standards are:

1) A dog food should contain sufficient energy for daily activity.

2) A dog food should contain adequate nutrients, in proper relationship to each other.

3) A food should contain ingredients that are usable by a dog.

4) A food should be acceptable in a sufficient quantity to fully supply items 1 and items 2 above.
Evaluating a dog food is a simple and straight-forward procedure of comparing certain characteristics of one food with those of other types of foods that are available to feed your dog. Regardless of whatever procedure you learn and use in order to effectively evaluate your dog’s needs should have enough built-in flexibility that innovative dog feeders can adapt it to best fit your own situation and further reduce their margin of error.

When making an evaluation, the four characteristics of a satisfactory dog food, discussed below, should be used as the minimum standards that any food must meet. These four basic standards are:

1) A food should contain sufficient energy for daily activity.

2) A food should contain adequate nutrients, in proper relationship to each other.

3) A food should contain ingredients that are usable by a dog.

4) A food should be acceptable in a sufficient quantity to fully supply items 1 and items 2 above.
Evaluating a dog food is a simple and straight-forward procedure of comparing certain characteristics of one food with those of other types of foods that are available to feed your dog. Regardless of whatever procedure you learn and use in order to effectively evaluate your dog’s needs should have enough built-in flexibility that innovative dog feeders can adapt it to best fit your own situation and further reduce their margin of error.

When making an evaluation, the four characteristics of a satisfactory dog food, discussed below, should be used as the minimum standards that any food must meet. These four basic standards are:

1) A food should contain sufficient energy for daily activity.

2) A food should contain adequate nutrients, in proper relationship to each other.

3) A food should contain ingredients that are usable by a dog.

4) A food should be acceptable in a sufficient quantity to fully supply items 1 and items 2 above.

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Dog Food Secrets You Need To Know!

“In This Shocking FREE Video Report You Discover Why 87% of Dogs Die Too Early & 3 Easy Things You Can Do Today To Stop It Happening to Your Dog”

Dog Food Secrets

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Dog Food & Supplements

Pet food manufacturers have made it quite easy for the average dog owner to feed their pets without having to be an expert nutritionist. All of the work has been done by the modern manufacturer.

Since it isn’t possible for manufacturers to list all of the nutrients in dog food and their required percentages as published by the NRC (National Research Council) on their labels, the terms “complete diet”, “nutritionally complete”, “balanced”, and “balanced diet” are used.

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Dog Food Secrets You Need To Know!

“In This Shocking FREE Video Report You Discover Why 87% of Dogs Die Too Early & 3 Easy Things You Can Do Today To Stop It Happening to Your Dog”

Dog Food Secrets

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This tells the consumer that the dog food inside the can, bag or box, contains all the essential vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates and fats the average dog needs to satisfy his daily requirements.

The nutritional requirement for puppies, however, is somewhat different than that required for adult dogs. The diet of the adult dog is usually referred to as a “maintenance diet” where a puppy diet is referred to as a “growth diet”.

In 1974 a regulation went into effect that required all dog food manufacturers to specify on their labels whether the product is complete and balanced for the adult dog (maintenance), complete and balanced for puppies (growth), or complete and balanced for growth and maintenance both. Since all manufactures comply with this regulation, the only thing left to the consumers is to read the label on the dog food.

Among the varieties of canned, bagged, or semi-moist dog foods, there are certain drawbacks, as well as advantages. This is true even though they are nutritionally identical if advertised as “complete” and/or “balanced”.

Because canned dog food may contain up to 78% moisture, a dog necessarily has to eat a larger quantity of a canned product to get the same volume of food that he would get if fed a dry product. It takes three pounds of commercially prepared canned dog food to be equivalent to one pound of dry food.

But manufactures do not fill a can two-thirds of the way with water, then top it off with a little dab of dog food. The moisture content inside the can is there by the very nature of the ingredients. For example, when a human buys a thick juicy steak, he’s buying well over fifty percent moisture. The butcher didn’t inject that moisture into the steak with a hypodermic needle.

The moisture content in canned dog food serves a definite and useful purpose, both in processing and in the dog’s digestive system. The drawback to the consumer insofar as canned dog food is concerned, is usually one of economics. It can be very expensive due to the large quantities of canned dog food most normal to large sized dogs will need to eat to get in their daily caloric and nutritional needs.

Dog Food & Supplements

Of the twenty six nutrients needed by dogs in their dog food, none can be left out of the ration, or added at inadequate levels, if optimum growth and performance are expected.

Because the nutrients interact with each other, they must be included in precise ratios. If a large excess in the dog food of one nutrient occurs, then the quantities of other nutrients in the ration must be increased accordingly. Otherwise, a deficiency of certain nutrients exists.

This can be a dangerous situation.

————————————————————–

Dog Food Secrets You Need To Know!

“In This Shocking FREE Video Report You Discover Why 87% of Dogs Die Too Early & 3 Easy Things You Can Do Today To Stop It Happening to Your Dog”

Dog Food Secrets

————————————————————–

A good example of this is the relationship between calcium, phosphorus and vitamin D. All effects are interrelated.

The ratio of calcium to phosphorus must be maintained at 1.2 or 1. If additional calcium is added to the dog food, creating an imbalance, there would be an inefficient assimilation of these minerals.

The result could cause a disease known as rickets.

Considering that vitamin D acts as transportation for calcium, one can begin to see how these three elements are connected and their importance in dog food.  While a deficiency of calcium predisposes to rickets, an excess of calcium will do likewise.

In adult dogs, the condition would be referred to as “paper bones”.

A more common example is an excess of fat in the diet. If fat increased to high levels in the dog food, then fat will satisfy the energy requirements of the dog before the requirements for other nutrients are met. The result would be a nutritional imbalance. An increase of fat requires a corresponding increase in vitamin B12.

Of particular concern are those professional breeders who attempt to bred over-sized, large boned “super dogs”. Nutritional experts state that certain supplements such as oils, enzymes, and minerals should be used only under a veterinarian’s supervision or recommendation. This is especially true of calcium and cod liver oil (vitamin D), both of which are frequently used by breeders during growth. In excess, they can cause serious problems, particularly with bone development.

In this regard, it should be added that excess vitamin and mineral supplements may be the aggravating cause of heart problems, hip problems, and lower the all-around health of a dog.

With the hip dysplasia problem being so rampant, and no longer confined to just one or two breeds, professional breeders must become more aware of the dangers up upsetting intricate balances with their “home treatments” and super “bone builders” (genetic inheritance notwithstanding).

Drugs have a very definite place in our society. It is the misuse and abuse of drugs that creates a problem. Likewise, vitamin and mineral supplementation has an important place in the dog world, but misuse and abuse outside their dog foodcreates a dangerous problem.