Canned Dog Food - Which are the Benefits and What is the Downside?
Have you been thinking about adding canned dog food to your dog's diet but every time you pick up a can, your brain has a complete meltdown at the thought of trying to decipher the data on the label? Well, don't quit, because reading and understanding those labels are a crucial step in making sure your feeding your puppy right and with just a little help you can get the practice the labels and find some great benefits of feeding canned dog food to your dog very quickly.
Beneful Wet Dog Food
Feeding canned commercial dog food can certainly have it's good things about your dog's health nevertheless it can also have a downside according to your dog's personal needs. One of the first considerations is obviously taste. If you have a picky eater, canned food is a definite plus since it is generally very tasty. It may also hold health benefits if you have a dog that is experiencing kidney issues because canned pet food is high in water content, so that it will help your dog use the bathroom more frequently. Along the same lines, it's easily eaten because it's soft and it's easy around the stomach for those with digestion issues.
Around the downside, one of the main problems with canned food lies with having a larger dog breed. Should you dog requires a great quantity of food/calories each day, how much canned food needed to meet that need will probably be large and expensive over a dry dog food diet. It's also important to note that dog's that do not have any dry dog food or chew bones in their diet are going to need regular dental hygiene because their teeth are not getting cleaned properly with hard foods. Additionally it is possible that too much wet dog food can disagree together with your dog's tummy and cause diarrhea.
When you have considered the basic considerations of feeding your dog canned dog food, you should think about the actual ingredients of numerous wet dog food brands. This is going to require you to perform some label reading. This really is easier than you believe if you know what to look for. To start with, identify a food which is formulated for your dog based on life stage or size in line with the label.
Then you should begin looking for a protein source or meat one of many ingredients. Your meat source should invariably be one of the first three ingredients on the list because ingredients are listed in accordance with weight, largest being first, so you will want your meat source being at the top. You should know that if you have a fresh ingredient like chicken because the first ingredient this doesn't always mean that there's a wide range of chicken in the can. Ultimately, there's a great deal of water in fresh chicken, this makes the weight of the chicken to go up. However, if the first ingredient listed is chicken meal, you already know that the dog food includes a large amount of it.
When searching for your meat source, make certain it's a whole meat source, not just a mystery meat. Below are a few of the statements which can be used on dog food labels which can be misleading:
With Chicken Flavor - Flavor is detectable but doesn't have to have any actual Chicken meant within the product
With Salmon - The item contains at least 3% salmon. If you buy a product that says "now with real beef" it could only have 3% real beef within it!
Beef Dinner - The item must contain no less than 25% Beef.
Liver For Dogs - No less than 95% of the product must be liver or 70% including water
When you check out your meat/protein source, you have to make sure the dog food has the other basic nutritional needs including carbohydrates. The five basics of these energy requirements are protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals.
Protein - Usually Meat - Needs to be approximately 20% of the diet
Carbohydrates - Rice, Corn, Wheat, Soy Should be approximately 50% of diet
Fats Approximately 9-15%
Vitamins - A, B, C, D, E & K Complexes.
Minerals - Calcium, Potassium, Sodium & Magnesium & Other Trace Elements
Choosing to feed your dog a whole canned dog food diet is definitely something you should research and check with your vet before beginning. Many dog professional suggest feeding both a dry dog food and canned food diet together to supplement each other. The important part is to make sure you are feeding quality commercial dog food products and reading your puppy food labels because feeding your puppy healthy will ensure that they live a quality life and live an extended lifespan.