6 Tips to Follow When Buying Healthy Dog Food
Thinking about what to feed your dog can lead to a lot of concern and doubt. Diet is one of the biggest contributors to the well-being of a dog’s physical and mental health, so it’s important to choose dog food carefully. Given here are some tips to follow when you want to buy healthy dog food.
- Don’t fall for reviews
Forget the marketing hype when you want to buy something healthy for someone or something under your care. It’s essential to educate yourself about the ingredients that can affect your pet in both positive and negative ways. Then, you’ll know which brands and food items to avoid and which ones to buy. Read the ingredients on the label of a dog food product and search them up. You can also observe how your pooch reacts to it and how much of it they are allowed to eat while staying healthy. - Avoid shelf-stable foods
The world has convinced us to believe that shelf-stable food is a great and easy solution for feeding your dog without any hassles, but these foods aren’t good. They contain no live enzymes and rely on synthetic supplementation. While it’s okay to occasionally feed your dog these food items, do not make it their staple diet. One of the best tips to ensure healthy food for your dog is to avoid shelf-stable food as much as possible. - Avoid cooking meat for dogs
All animals are used to eating food fresh and raw. When we cook our food to kill germs and microorganisms that may cause harm to the human body, we also lose a lot of beneficial nutrients in the process. The same applies for dogs, except that dogs aren’t used to consuming cooked food. When meat is cooked, it releases carcinogenic chemicals that can more easily affect animals than humans. - Avoid foods that contain gluten
You may sometimes notice that your dog’s poop and fart give out a very bad odor. This may be a result of gluten in dog food, which is the dried residue from corn added to pet food to avoid unstable fats from turning rancid. This strains the liver and kidneys of your dog as the waste products are retained. Corn gluten can harm your dog’s organs, even in small quantities. - Replace rice with lentils
Many dogs are allergic to grains like wheat that contain gluten, and they don’t require grains to survive. If left in the wild, they thrive on protein from animals, which can be obtained from green lentils for your pet. So, when buying healthy dog food, a tip is to opt for protein-rich foods. Lentils have high protein content and are also rich in minerals and fiber. - Do not overfeed
Feed your dog based on its weight, and help your pooch maintain a healthy weight to keep health issues at bay. You may love your dog and may pamper them with treats, but limiting these treats works in your favor and your dog’s, as they are just empty calories. You can also try making your own treats at home that do not have any harmful chemicals.