Feed: Consider Letting Your Dog Choose His Own Food - AggScore: 14.0

Consider Letting Your Dog Choose His Own Food

Spend time at any pet store and the choice of dog foods to feed yourdog is in abundance. How do you know which to choose and which is goodfor your dog? The answer to that is simply, you do not, let your dogchoose. Although there are some basics that are recommended.

If you have purchased your dog from a breeder, ask the breeder whatthey recommend to feed your new pet. A good breeder should be able totell you what has worked best for their dogs. This is a good place tostart. However, if you have adopted your new dog, then it will be up toyou to figure out what is good for your dog and what is not. The dogwill certainly help you in determining the right food for him.

Always read the labels on a dog food package. What you want to look atis the first ingredient. You do not want to see meat meal, this can beanything within the food including road kill. Chicken Meal or Lamb Mealis a good start. You also always want to see the word meal; whole meatwithout the Meal is mostly water. Most nutritionists prefer chickenbased dog foods as they are easier to digest.

You may see corn or a type of corn product in the dog food. Corn is aprotein source the dog food makers use to keep the price reasonable.Some dogs like corn and others do not. If you see your dog startitching, licking his feet, scooting his butt, or getting frequent earinfections, this could indicate a lack of tolerance for corn. Beware ofwheat in a food. Wheat tends to be more of an irritant in dogs thancorn is.

You need to inspect the label for the sentence “AAFCO feeding trialsconfirm that (dog food brand) is complete and balanced for adult dogsor all life stages”. This sentence alone will tell you that the dogfood was fed to any number of dogs and was determined to meet thenutritional needs for all life stages of a dog.

When it comes to feeding your dog there are certain guidelines thatshould be followed depending on the age of your dog. For instance,puppies should be fed more regularly than adult dogs. Puppies should befed as often as four times per day and with a quality dog food gearedtowards puppies specifically. Adult dogs should be fed twice a day.

In general, feed puppies and adult dogs separately so you can be surethe amount they are eating each time and to prevent fighting. Set afeeding schedule for your dog, but not one to where they become anxiousif you happen to be late. It is a good idea to teach your dog to sitbefore placing the dog food in the bowl; this will prevent them fromjumping to get the food.

Nutritionists suggest only allowing your dog 15 to 20 minutes to eat then removing and disposing of the remainder.