YummyHealthyDogFood

You may be feeding your dog the healthiest dog food, the best homemade meal, or even the most expensive organic diet, but are you sure its getting all the vitamins and minerals it needs for proper growth? This article will simply guide you and help you better understand what your dogs needs are, and where it can get them.

Vitamin C: probably the most important vitamin, it has a lot of benefits for your dog. It keeps the immune system up, its plays a major part in bone and tissue formation, prevents cancer, and may prevent arteriosclerosis. Dogs with vitamin C deficiency experience loss of teeth, weak bones, bleeding, bad breath and more. Vitamin C has also shown to resolve dysplastic hips and arthritis in dogs. It is an antioxidant, and contrary to rumors, it does not cause kidney stones, but prevents them.

Vitamin E: First off, if you buy vitamin E from the pharmacy, make sure it is natural kind and not the synthetic one. The richest source of vitamin E is wheat germ. It is also found in vegetable oils, cereal, nuts, egg yolks, and carrots. What it does for your dog is help it in using up fat and keeps oxygen from destroying other nutrients in the body. It improves blood flow by increasing the blood vessels diameters and supplying injured areas with blood in order to stimulate healing and prevents blood clots.

Vitamin B: It maintains the health of your dogs’ eyes, nerves, skin, hair, liver and mouth, and gives it a boost of energy.

Vitamin D: Deficiency in vitamin D leads to rickets, a bone deformity. Enough of this vitamin will prevent osteoporosis and promote normal teeth, bones and growth by absorbing calcium and phosphorus. It forms naturally on the skin when exposed to sunlight. The prime source is cod liver oil.

Calcium (with or without phosphorus): This improves the growth and formation of the bones and teeth, making it especially important for puppies. You can get calcium without phosphorus from lamb meal and fishmeal, calcium with phosphorus from bone meal, and just phosphorus from meat, eggs and milk products.

Magnesium: for muscle and nerve cell membrane stability and the structure of the bones and teeth. Found in bone meal, lamb meal and wheat and oat bran.

Potassium: mainly the moving function of your dog. It is abundant in soybean meal, unrefined grains, yeast, and rice and wheat bran.

Iron: For your dog’s energy and metabolism. Found in meat, peanut hulls and soy mill run.

Copper:  Tissue formation, iron metabolism, and blood cell formation. This is specially found in liver.

Zinc: For your dog’s protein and carbohydrate metabolism, function of your dogs skin and healing of wounds. Found in meat and fiber.

There are many vitamin and mineral supplements for dogs available in the market, but before buying them, you should always consult with your vet first. Some dogs have special needs that need to be addressed, and your vet will know what best suits your dogs needs according to breed and weight. Along with the right diet, giving your dog the necessary vitamins and minerals vital to its health will give you and your dog a long lasting relationship.

The dog food industry today has grown to be so large and diverse that it’s difficult for dog owners to decide which type of dog food diet provides a balanced set of nutrition for their pets. There are three major categories of dog food types available to them, which are as follows.

First, there are the commercial dog foods, which often come in kibble form or in cans. Such dog foods are being produced by dog food manufacturers who put a lot of research into the types and amounts of nutrients that dogs need, as well as offering these nutrients in forms that can easily be absorbed by a dog’s digestive system. Commercial dog foods offer ease of serving and long shelf life, and come in different variations for all stages of a dog’s life.

Over time, commercial dog foods have been blamed for the rise of common dog illnesses. Today, for instance, more dogs die of medical conditions instead of old age, which was the prevailing cause of death only decades ago (back then, owners fed their dogs table scraps). There are also accusations that some dog foods include questionable ingredients in their mixes, such as colorings, preservatives, and low-grade meat.

The commercial dog food industry has responded to these claims through the introduction of organic dog food. Organic dog food products contain ingredients that were raised naturally and were untouched by hormones, preservatives, antibiotics, and pesticides.

When thinking of feeding your own dog a commercially-made dog food product, it’s often wiser to select the premium and organic brands over bargain brands. While these products may be more expensive than others, it subjects your dog to a much lower level of risk and may let you save up on veterinary bills.

The second kind of dog food diet is the BARF diet, the acronym in which stands for Bones And Raw Food. Australian veterinarian Ian Billinghurst presented this idea in a book a few years ago, in which he suggested that raw foods such as whole meat and fish carcasses, yogurt, raw eggs, fruit, and vegetables imitates the kind of food that dogs naturally ate while in the wild. In effect, the BARF diet is the antithesis of commercial dog foods.

There has been some controversy regarding the BARF diet and some of its components. For instance, feeding dogs raw eggs and raw meat may subject them to illnesses, which may include salmonella. Bones may also splinter and injure a dog’s digestive tract. So far, it seems that the BARF diet has failed to elicit enough attention and interest from dog owners, who instead lean towards the surety and convenience of commercial dog foods – or the third kind of dog food diet.

The third kind of food diet is the organic/natural dog food diet. This diet forms a sort of “middle way” between commercial dog foods and the BARF diet, in which it advocates feeding dogs with foods only suitable for human consumption. Meals in an organic/natural dog food diet involves cooked meat, fresh vegetables, fruit, and starch foods.

To date, there has been no scientific study on organic/natural food diets and whether it does have positive effects on a dog’s longevity. There have been stories, however, of dogs living well beyond their breeds’ normal life spans.

In conclusion, it may not matter which diet type you choose for your dog. The best you can do is to ensure that he gets the most balanced set of nutrients you can give him. This means enough protein foods (meat), carbohydrates (rice, pasta, potatoes), vitamins and minerals (fruit and vegetables), and water.

Vitamin and mineral supplements are the most important components in any dogís feeding. If there is a balance in the vitamin and mineral supplements, then the animal will have a healthy life and hence, the immunity is not compromised in an unwanted way.  This simply means that there the dog will be more disease resistance against various diseases. 

Pet owners should know that vitamins A, D, E, and K are the fat-soluble vitamins and others are water-soluble vitamins. Vitamins like thiamine, pyridoxine and cyanocobalamin are important for the functions of nervous system.  Deficiency of vitamin A leads to night blindness and skin lesions and deficiency of vitamin D leads to the softening and weakening of the bones. 

These problems are many a time encountered by the dog owners. Among these, vitamin A toxicities may occur if you feed them in excessive amounts, like vitamin D. Hence, give emphasis on this while you are using these vitamins in the dogs. Cod liver oil from selected fishes has more vitamin A in them and are universally good feed for dogs.  

All dogs may not need supplements of minerals or vitamins to live well for the moment, but it is important for their future.  If they become sick or aged or very young without proper feeding, supplementations are required for the upkeep of health status in them.  However, one has to follow the instructions of veterinarian in this regard.    

If the dogs are fed with fish in frozen conditions, then they may be suffering constantly from vitamin B1 deficiency and hence, such dogs need to be given specifically B1. Careless supplementations of minerals may lead to diseases and hence, veterinarians always need to be consulted on the supplementation of minerals or vitamins.  

Minerals like calcium, magnesium, zinc, manganese, iron, copper etc. are given more emphasis in addition to sodium and potassium. Zinc is related to skin health and potassium is related to the muscle health and calcium with phosphorus is related to the bone health. 

However, if you feed the dog with chicken, mutton or beef along with required vegetables, artificial supplementation of mineral or vitamin tablets may be highly reduced but supplements need to be thought of when you are not able to maintain a balanced nutrition as this happens with most of the dogs, due to multifaceted causes.