5 Essential Reasons to Study Your Dog’s Diet

It can be easy to believe the claims on dog food packets cant it? That this particular dinner will help your dog live a long, healthy, and happy life, is one of the biggest promises that we encounter on canine chow!

Dog food can be deceiving though and we can’t always believe the pledges on the label. Which is why it’s essential to at least learn what the ingredients in your dog’s dinner are and what they mean. There are many reasons to study your dog’s diet, here are some of them:

1. Meat in dog food may not be as you imagine it to be. If the word "chicken" is tucked away in a bag or packet of dog food it can be easy to think that the chow is made from quality meat. "Chicken" can mean anything though, any part of the chicken; inclusive of beaks, feet and bones. A lot of dog food is made from the animal parts that are deemed unfit for consumption by people. The generic description “meat” is more worrying still as it doesn’t even define the animal used.
2. Derivatives are another worrying word to find in dog food. Meaning literally “derived from” any kind of derivatives in food can mean the body parts of an animal that were simply not fit for consumption. Even vegetable derivatives can simply mean peels or pulps that would normally be thrown away.
3. Meal is another active ingredient in dog food. Meal is the descriptive word for bone. Bones are dried and ground to a fine powder then put into dog foods to add calcium to the diet.
4. Chemicals, additives and colouring in a dog’s food really have no good result. Artificial chemicals are added to make poor food taste palatable whilst colours are added to ensure dog food looks nice to owners. It’s important that you know what is going into your dog's bowl and if you don’t know what the chemical names mean, look them up. Chemicals in dog food can be responsible for everything from behaviour problems to seizures.
5. Fillers are another common additive to dog food. Whether wheat kernels, peanut shells or similar bulking foods they are only there to make the food fill your dog’s stomach as cheaply as possible. Fillers have no nutritional value and can cause severe allergies therefore it’s much better to leave them out of your dog’s diet if you can.

So what can you do about your dog’s dinner? It’s important to read every label and know exactly what everything on it means. Taking control of the food that goes into your dog’s body is taking control of his health and even his lifespan.

Your dog’s body needs good food in order to regenerate healthy cells, maintain strong organs and keep a healthy body and mind. A good doggy diet will provide all of this and keep your best friend healthy for a long time to come.