Dogs: Carnivors, or are they?

What is a carnivore?
By definition, a carnivore is “an organism that derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet consisting mainly or exclusively of animal tissue”. Although dogs are considered carnivors, due to their domestication and their strict dependence on humans, not controlling your dog’s diet can lead to serious problems: allergic dermatitis, because of too much protein, weight problems, arthritis and even diabetes.

Nowadays lots of dog owners prefer feeding their dogs home-made food like cooked meat, bones or just any leftovers. What they don’t understand is that the food they give them does not represent complete or balanced diet.

A correct and balanced diet for your dog should consist in proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals and water in the right proportion. This proportion depends on the dogs’ breed, gender, age and other factors. Therefore the best solution for dog owners would be choosing a specialized dog food, that meets all your dog’s needs.

Nutrition mistakes
Buying a specialized dog food, dry or canned, also prevent the owners from making a serious mistake. There are many people who can’t resist their dogs’ “puppy eyes” and give them whatever there is on the table. Big mistake! There are many ingredients in our food that can seriously harm our pets health. For example, people have a tendancy to give altered food to their dogs because they are known for their “iron-stomac”. This can easily lead to an toxinfectious disease.

Bones represent a danger not only through their concentration in proteins that can lead to allergic dermatitis, but also by causing constipation or by braking into sharp pieces and doing serious damage on the digestive tract.

There are also some ingredients that people think couldn’t possibly hurt their dogs. Well, if you thought the worst pepper could give you is a sneeze you were wrong. Pepper or chili powder can harm the gastric mucosa and could even lead to gastritis.

Another apparently harmless ingredient that we use in our food is represented by onions. They contain toxins that, in a high concetration, can be fatal.

Last but not least I have to mention sweets, especially chocolate. Usually if the owner has a sweet tooth the dog will too. The problem is that chocolate contains cafeine and agitates the dog and is also toxic for the dog. If you give your dog sugar-based foods he will eventually prefer them to other foods and this can lead to malnutrition or diabetes.

Specialized dog food?
Although there are pros and cons in choosing a specialized dog food, most veterinarians will recommend doing so. Even if feeding your dog with home-made foods is cheaper and your dog preffers your cooking rather than dog food, the many advantages of the latter must be taken into consideration.

First of all the problem of dosing your pets food is taken care of when using dog food. All such products have recommendations on how much food your dog should eat reporting to its weight. The diet can also be adapted to the dogs special needs: pregnancy, young or old age, sterilised animals or ilnesses.

Another advantage is the fact that dry dog food is not easily altered compared to home-cooked food and therefore we can store the food for a long period of time, without the risk of causing a toxinfection.

Our dogs are like our children. We would all love to give them anything they want, but instead we must give them everything they need. A correct and balanced diet is the basis of a long and healthy life.

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