Dog Food Diets, Changing From Commercial to Raw, Enhancing Dog Digestion with Probiotics

Well, most of you wouldn’t be reading this article or you wouldn’t have subscribed to this newsletter if you hadn’t considered changing your dog’s diet or you already have!

Most of us look to improve our dog’s health and want to learn to feed the best diet we can. This may include switching dog food brands, trying new supplements, adding fresh food to their dog’s food or taking the ‘plunge’ into a home cooked or raw diet. This month, we will look at all of these options to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Commercial Dog Food

Most people started learning about the differences in pet food back in the 1980’s. Marketing hit a high note on dog food, and people became better ‘consumers’. The internet helped to reach a new ‘plateau’ in learning, and people learned to know the difference in labels, ingredients and learned to understand protein and fat content.

For those still learning how to understand and evaluate commercial food, here are some good websites to help you on this subject:

Raw and Natural Nutrition for Dogs, Revised: The Definitive Guide to Homemade Meals!

Lew Olson's newly revised book is filled with an abundance of new topics and information. Whether you are new to home feeding or a seasoned raw feeder, have a senior dog or a new puppy, a pregnant mom or a toy breed, this book presents all the information you need to make the best nutritional decisions for your dog.

http://www.doberdogs.com/foodcht4.html

http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2001/301_pet.html

With this in mind, note that commercial pet food is advertised as “complete and balanced,” as it is designed to be the ‘sole diet’ for that dog. With more media on recent pet food recalls and pet illness, many are realizing it may not be safe to limit a dog to one food source as one food source does not offer a dog a variety of proteins and other foods. Variety in foods offers different proteins so there is better amino acid diversity, along with a broader selection of minerals, vitamins and fats. Even if a dry food is the only way you can choose, then it might be suggested to change brands of foods or the type of protein with each new bag. Perhaps begin with feeding a chicken based food with one purchase and then switch to a beef or lamb based food with the next purchase. Before the food runs completely out, buy the new brand, and mix the two together for one week before changing over completely to the new food.

Some people worry about digestive upset when switching foods. This seems to occur more with commercial foods. To help with the switch, add the Bertes Probiotic Powder and the Bertes Zymes. Probiotics help keep the good flora and fauna in the digestive tract for firm stools and less gas, and the animal based enzymes in the Bertes Zymes help with fat and protein digestion in the stomach.

Mixing Fresh Food with Commercial Food

For those feeding commercial dog foods who are considering switching to a home cooked or raw diet, a good stepping off point is to add fresh food to the commercial food. When you add fresh food to processed dog, the best way to start is to add animal protein and fat. You don’t want to add grains, vegetables or fruit, as the commercial pet food is already high in carbohydrates. You can add up to 50% of the diet in fresh food without adding calcium. More than that would require adjusting the diet with additional calcium. For complete information and recipes on this you can view my article on adding fresh food to kibble here: https://k9nutritionwithlew.com/mixing-fresh-food-with-kibble/

Home Cooked Diets

If home cooking seems like a good idea, but you don’t know where to start, you can find directions and recipes here: https://k9nutritionwithlew.com/cooked-diet/

For healthy dogs and puppies, switching to a home cooked diet is usually a smooth transition. But if you are changing diets due to health issues, you can add home cooked to kibble (commercial dog food) gradually and ease your dog into the change. Again, using the Bertes Ultra Probiotic Powder and the Bertes Zymes can help during this change. Both of these will help with the digestion of the new food and help prevent gastric upset. As with switching dog food brands, slowly add some home cooked foods to the dry food and each day gradually add more fresh food and less kibble. The digestion aids can probably be phased out after two or three months after the change.

Raw Diets

Raw foods can be added to either commercial food or home cooked foods during the transition to a raw diet. The only exception would be the raw meaty bones, which should be fed separate from dry dog food. While many dogs do fine with this, some dogs don’t do quite as well as the bones compete with the digestion of the dry food.
Gastric juices are excreted on the lining of the stomach and both foods, being heavy, gravitate to this area. This can cause some undigested food to be present in the stool. So, you can mix muscle meat and organ meat with kibble, but feed raw meaty bones as a separate meal from kibble for the first few weeks.
Instructions for feeding a raw diet can be found here: https://k9nutritionwithlew.com/raw-diet/

As with the home cooked diets, most dogs have no trouble moving right over to a raw diet. I have taken in several rescue dogs and since all I have is raw food, everyone is fed this diet. All of them have taken to it quite readily, with no gastric problems. But, if you want to move more cautiously, you can move slowly as outlined above.

Remember, the biggest error made when switching to home cooked or raw is over feeding. Most dogs enjoy it so much, we tend to over feed. And over feeding is the number one cause of diarrhea. Secondly, watch the fat content on the switch in diets. It may be wise to cut off or drain extra fat in the beginning as this is the second most common cause of diarrhea.
Additionally, extra fat can cause gas. Again, Bertes Ultra Probiotic Powder and the Bertes Zymes will help with this as well.

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I hope everyone finds these tips and suggestions for changing diets helpful.

Happy Valentine’s Day and may the Groundhog bring us an early Spring!

Remember . . . Keep your dogs away from chocolate. Chocolate is toxic to dogs!