Natural Dog Food

Natural dog foods are one of the major pet food fads in the market today.



Some of these are quite convenient to feed your pet as well but some of these can seem a bit odd. There are some pet foods that are even purported to be vegetarian. Now, at this point one should take a step back and consider the animal in question and its real diet.



Dogs are naturally carnivorous and because of this being the case for thousands of years, the dog’s digestive system has adapted to a pure meat-based dog diet. This is not the same case as in humans that are essentially omnivorous, with a heavy leaning towards still being herbivorous. The main difference in the biology of these three groups is the length of the digestive tract that is longest in herbivores to allow for greater digestion time and shortest in carnivores because meat is easier to digest.

What happens when a dog eats a plant diet is diarrhea and malabsorption since it does not have some of the intestinal bacteria that is required to break down plant material. This makes vegetarian dog diet a rather dangerous proposition. Meat therefore is the way to go. Another aspect of going natural is to understand that adult dogs do not require to eat cooked food like humans. This is one of the biggest mistakes that people can make and they end up feeding high-carbohydrate or high-fat foods from added sugar or cooking oil. Some types of animal matter is also not natural to a dog. Chicken and fish are some types of food that dogs can sometimes indulge in but these are not really as nutritious for a dog as pure meat is.

Now even when you decide to go completely natural and feed your dog mutton or beef, it is useful to bear in mind that even these can contain a high amount of fat. When you are preparing homemade dog diet, try and ensure that you avoid the fatty parts of the meat. It is also important to understand that though a dog does not eat plant material, fiber is something that dogs do require in minute quantities. For this, a few whole wheat or bran biscuits will ensure that your dog does not end up suffering from constipation. Never try and feed your dogs spices and herbs because these are toxic to animals.