Dog Obesity Tips | Dog Diet & healthy dog nutrition

Dog Obesity Problems

The nutrition of your dog is the most important aspect of taking excellent care of your dog. How well your dog eats is a massive factor to the life span of your dog, as well as your dog’s quality of life. Finding the right food and following the right guidelines is challenging though as owners are inundated with new information daily; much of this is simply added to the ingredient list meaning that owners feel as though they need a PhD to understand what they’re feeding their dog! It is further layered by the fact that there are hundreds of breeds of dogs, all of which have their own types of food for the best nutrition and how many owners know instinctively what nutrition their breed (or mixed breed!) requires.

Talking to your vet helps, but it will still be confusing. Furthermore, your dog’s nutritional requirements change by age, meaning that they will need more and/or less vitamins, minerals, etc, as well as food meant for any health conditions your dog develops. You should talk to your vet about your dog’s specific needs, but there are some general guidelines that can be followed right now:

Feed at the same time every day

Sticking to a feeding schedule ascertains that the food is fresh. Leaving food in a bowl all day not only cuts down on the freshness, but also allows the dog to ‘graze’ all day, leading to obesity. Instead, feed on a schedule and take away the leftovers.

Knowing how much food your dog needs

This is tricky because there are all sorts of things to sort through when figuring out how much food is appropriate. Some of these factors include the amount of exercise your dog gets, your dog’s metabolism, and your dog’s genetic background. The ideal is to feed your dog enough to maintain its correct body weight and the best way to know this is to ask your vet. You can also ask your vet about low density calorie dog food (diet dog food) which will be digested more quickly and give your animal more energy from less food.

Feeding your dog table scraps.

Don’t. It’s a bad habit for the human and it encourages mooching and other bad manners (such as snatching food from hands-something that is especially dangerous when there are children around). Some foods also cannot be digested by the dog, leading to illness, obesity and even death.

Exercise

One of the best ways to control your dog’s weight is through exercise, just like with people. Exercise also stimulates your dog’s brain and cuts down on boredom. It’s also a good bonding activity between you and your pet.

Chubby dogs may seem cute, especially when they are puppies, but it’s not healthy, so take the feeding of your dog seriously and you can greatly extend its life and happiness.

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