Dog Health and Nutrition | Fundamentals of Puppy Nutrition

How and what to feed your dog and the quality of nutrition have everything to do with your dog’s health and longevity

This post is about kinds of natural foods you can feed your dog. I discuss 5 natural foods. You can use this as rough guide on how to supplement your dogs meals and also to help evaluate commercial dog foods. Be sure to see our articles on animal fats and carbohydrates and sources of vitamins and minerals.

Eggs: Eggs for feeding dogs can be bought by the dozen in the grocery store, by the hundreds from hatcheries or by the thousands from egg ranches.
Regardless of how many or where they are obtained, an egg should never be fed to a dog raw. Raw egg whites react with the vitamin, biotin, and prevent a dog from using it. In fact, feeding raw egg whites is the exact way scientists produce experimental biotin deficiency in a laboratory.

Milk: Much controversy has raged over feeding milk to dogs.
Milk has been accused of causing diarrhea and other digestive upsets. While it may produce these problems in large amounts, if milk is kept to about two ounces of fluid milk or two tablespoons of dry milk per pound of food, you should encounter no problems. The value milk when given in proper, limited amounts outweighs the risk of upset. Milk provides calcium and phosphorus in proper ratio, a host of vitamins and even protein comparable in value to whole egg.

Cottage cheese: Cottage cheese is little more than the major protein fraction of milk casein. It does not have the same value as the protein of whole milk because the lactoalbumin, normally present in whole milk, has been washed away in the whey. The value of the protein in cottage cheese compares favorably with that of horse meat. Cottage cheese offers the dog feeder an inexpensive, readily available source of quality protein for his dog.

Cheese: Another dairy product made from casein is cheese.
Cheese, unlike cottage cheese, also contains a considerable amount of fat. The fat makes cheese a valuable source of energy as well as of protein. Because they are made as human foods, and are sold in competition with other human foods, cheeses are among the more expensive protein sources for feeding dogs. For dog feeders who wish to spend the extra money, cheese is a worthwhile consideration.

Fish: Fish is not commonly used in dietary formulations for dogs, but there is no logical reason to eliminate it from consideration as a protein source for a dog. Indeed, fish protein is one of the better proteins, for the money, that a dog feeder can use. Fish, too, should always be cooked before being fed. In this case the heat destroys a chemical found in many fish that will destroy vitamin B1 (thiamine) if left unchanged.

For more information, see our recommended guide to complete dog health and nutrition.

 

 

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Related posts:

1. Dog and Puppy Nutrition–Rough Guide to Vitamins and Minerals
2. Nutrition for Dogs–Understanding Fats and Carbohydrates
3. Good Health Comes From Good Dog Nutrition
4. More on Vitamin and Mineral Sources for Your Dog
5. Common Causes of Protein Defciency in Dogs