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Dog food could be simple if we didn’t have a large selection. The trend is going in the direction of healthy nutrition. There are more and more dog owners who want to feed their dogs based on breed. however, most people continue to struggle between the choices of wet or dry food. What are the differences? Which food is better for our dogs? What is breed appropriate, and whether this offer is still contemporary? What will you learn in the following article? Ultimately, it should be the welfare of our animals, which decides the type of feeding. So with breed-appropriate food, nothing can go wrong, right?
Breed appropriate is a word that is used exclusively in the context of animal husbandry. By definition, “Sufficient to meet the needs of a particular species.” In my perception, it sounds like just the minimum that we have to provide for our animals. Because the word demands some variability in this definition. Demands for simple survival or demands for a happy and fulfilled life. For you and also for your dog, I hope that your claim to your life is the same as your dog’s life.
If we want a content and happy dog, we have to deal with their specific needs. The deeper we delved into our dog’s world of needs, the greater his chances are for an all-around happy dog. So the responsibility for the dog’s life lies quite clearly with their leader. Because if we are aware of the degree of dependence of our dogs, namely that they can not even meet the coverage of their basic needs without a human to help them, the extent of our responsibility becomes clear very quickly.
Nutrition is important because it influences a dog in all areas. It influences a dog physically, mental well-being, health, and vitality.
Now many owners, especially first-time dog owners, struggle to interpret their dog and how they communicate with us, also they fear doing something wrong. The offer on the market with its diversity does not necessarily offer an orientation and if you look for advice on the Internet or professional circles, you quickly find that there is more than one opinion and a lot of different beliefs. I can understand very well that in this area one or the other feels completely overwhelmed.
In such instances, I always advise you to look at how would it be in nature? How was at the origin, when man had little to no influence or how would it be without human influence? Because our bodies and today’s needs, have evolved to these through certain circumstances and in these circumstances.
It is undisputed that dogs descended from the wolf and thus also belong to the carnivores. The digestive system of the dog has changed only minimally through domestication. The dog of today is still the carnivore and has been for many thousands of years in the past. And even if today some dogs are fed vegan thus purely vegetable and this might seem impossible. The body of our dogs are quite clearly aligned to meat-containing nutrition and to change a carnivore to a herbivore in a such short period is unrealistic! So species-appropriate, therefore, is in my understanding only to do what the dog has evolved in its natural state to eat.
So now we know that our dogs need a meat-based diet first and foremost. And most of our dogs are supplied via dry or wet food (canned food) from retail stores. Both types of food come from the industry, where the question of naturalness quickly arises. With dry as well as with wet food there are serious differences in quality, which are just reflected in their natural composition and also in the price. What you should pay attention to in detail when choosing dog food, I will describe in a separate article. In the further course, it is now simply about the difference between dry and wet food.
The main difference can already be heard or read because it is the consistency. Dry food is drier and brings by this fact some advantages. Larger packaging units are possible, which means that dry food is often offered for a lower price. It has a longer shelf life, is easier to store, produces less waste, and is quick and easy to serve. No wonder with this range of advantages, dry food is one of the most common and popular feeds.
But unfortunately, the dry consistency also has disadvantages, because the dryness of the food is very absorbent and leaves an unnatural dryness in the dog’s stomach. As a carnivore, dogs belong to the gorgers and do not chew their food. The food, therefore, enters the stomach unchewed, where it soaks up stomach acid like a sponge and swells enormously.
A dry stomach has a harder time with digestion, so it can be assumed that the food is uncomfortably heavy in the stomach. The risk of gastric distention increases, after feeding with dry food. Due to the resulting dryness in the stomach, the body is stimulated to produce more gastric acid, whereas dogs fed with dry food more often suffer from heartburn or hyperacidity. The acidity makes the dog more susceptible to bacterial infections due to the altered PH of the stomach acid. If we now compare the advantages and disadvantages, it is noticeable that the advantages are to be assigned to humans and the disadvantages go on the dog account.
This is easy to explain because the industry addresses the decision-maker human when it comes to selling their products. Dry food is a breed-appropriate food if it is only about getting the dog full. But it is also an industrial product that has been increasingly geared to human needs. If one asks the dogs, the evaluation for dry food does not turn out so favorably.
A look into nature and back to our original dog, which fed by hunting prey animals, makes it clear that not only the meat content is important, but the meat also carries a certain moisture content. Thus, the predatory dog does not absorb liquid exclusively by drinking, but also through food. A portion that is lost when feeding dry food and the argument why I prefer wet food.
Wet food now seems alone from the terminology, to be the better alternative. But of course, there is also a pro and con side. Because the smaller packaging units, are more expensive and cause more waste. Also, you should pay attention to the ingredients and the meat content in canned food, the quality differences are also serious here. A low meat content and a high concentration of chemical substances in dog food I consider at least equally questionable as to when we feed our dogs dry food.
For me, a breed-appropriate diet means not only enough food, but it should also be natural and balanced. This is at least the standard I set for the nutrition of my dogs.
Nutrition is a very important basic building block when it comes to a healthy life and also simple satisfaction. Like us, our dogs need energy for various processes in our bodies. For this, we need to supply our body not only with sufficient food but also an appropriately diverse diet. Because without going into too much detail, the body of our dogs also needs proteins and various vitamins and minerals to keep the various processes in the body going and to meet the energy needs.
About one-fifth of what we supply to our body in oxygen is through breathing or in food. Eating and drinking alone cover the needs of our brain. Even though our dogs’ brains are smaller than ours, this ratio remains about the same in dogs. Here it becomes clear how important good nutrition is. Because a dog that is poorly nourished may have difficulty concentrating, staying calm, or may get frustrated. Which we can certainly well understand when we think of our moods when we are hungry.
Our dogs do not have the choice, we decide for them what they eat, so it is also our responsibility to provide them with the best possible nutrition we can afford. Therefore, when it comes to food, we must not make it too easy for ourselves.
