Are you worried about providing your dog with the best possible food?
You're not alone in your doubts; luckily, we are becoming increasingly conscious of the fact that the food we give our pets will have a huge influence on their state of health, since adequate nutrition not only allows us to prevent multiple diseases but also to respond to the specific requirements of particular diseases or life stages.
Planning the best diet for your dog includes choosing a good store-bought food brand, but also ceding to its demands and feeding it some of your own food. However, is that the best choice?
In this AnimalWised article we will explain everything you need to know about combining homemade food with bought food for dogs.
Is homemade food good for your dog?
If you are wondering how to combine homemade food with store-bought dog food, you should first explore the effects of natural food on your dog.
Is homemade food harmful to your dog? Of course it isn't. In fact, a chicken breast is much healthier than processed dog food that contains bits of chicken among many other things. The difference is in the degree of processing that both foods go through - store-bought food is much more heavily processed.
There are certain foods which are prohibited for dogs, such as particular fruits and vegetables that they shouldn't eat. However, there is still a wide variety of food that your dog will love, such as the sources of animal protein and carbohydrates in the form of cereals and tubers.
So far we can say that homemade food is not harmful to your pet. However, this does not mean that you can give it a diet based only on human food. A completely homemade diet for dogs requires the supervision of a canine nutritionist, since you otherwise run the risk of not meeting your dog's nutritional requirements - something which is much easier to do when you give it dog food or a balanced diet.
All in all, you can feed your dog homemade food but it's better to combine it with other diets.
Is balanced feed suitable for your dog?
This issue continues to arouse much controversy. Even though store-bought dog food ensures that all of your pet's nutritional requirements are at least met, it's also true that the quality of these nutrients is often questionable.
The nutritional composition of dog food varies enormously from one product to the next, and you need to pay attention to the labels. Dog food that does not provide a detailed breakdown of its ingredients should be avoided: You should only choose a brand that tells you exactly what your dog is eating.
If you would like to give your dog a completely natural diet but you don't have the resources to adequately monitor that type of diet, another good option can be organic food for dogs. You will ensure that it does not contain any substances that could be toxic for your dog's body.
Should you mix bought food with homemade food?
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, giving your dog homemade food on occasion is an excellent choice, since natural food is digested much faster than dog food. However, this is the main reason why you shouldn't mix dog food with homemade food.
If you mix homemade food together with dog food, the homemade food will be stalled by the slow digestion of balanced feed, causing improper fermentation in the stomach which will cause gases and increase the risk of suffering stomach torsion.
You should only make such a combination when the homemade food comprises only 5% of the processed food. Still, we must stress that making this mixture is not a good idea.
How to combine dog food with homemade food
You can't mix both types of foods at once; instead, you should alternate them. Below we will give you several tips which will help you to appropriately combine the bought and homemade foods:
- Your dog should eat prepared dog food at least once a day.
- You can replace the remaining meals with homemade food.
- The natural, homemade food that you give your dog should be based primarily on animal proteins, and it should also include good sources of carbohydrates.
- If your dog is overweight, it's important that you reduce the quantity of both homemade and bought dog food.
If you want to read similar articles to Combining Homemade Food with Bought Food for Dogs, we recommend you visit our Homemade diets category.