Thread: Dog Food
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Old 04-22-2009, 08:09 PM
DoggyDiva DoggyDiva is offline
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Default Re: Dog Food

I wouldn't advise to feed a puppy anything except a good quality dog food. As puppies grow quickly they need a lot of protein (AAFCO nutrition profiles state that puppy food should contain 22% protein, on Dry Mass basis). So during the growing and maturing time you don't really want to be filling then up with vege that has very few of the building blocks pups need to grow healthily. Giving veg as an occasional treat wouldn't hurt i just wouldn't suggest it every day for every meal.

However once she reaches 1 or 2year old i think it would be great to add a little veg to her diet. Any dog should still be fed mostly dog food (or a home prepared equivalent that has been properly balanced and planned by a nutritionist), but there are many studies that show a little veg has great health benefits to dogs. For example broccoli has shown to have anti-carcinogens that help ward off cancer in both humans and dogs. Also a lot of holistic dog foods are using potato instead of the usual fillers (oats, rice and worst of all corn etc.) so that would be fine too. I think some dogs have problems with tomatoes so might be wise to stay away from them.

Of course if you are going to be feeding non-dog food to your pup you need to remember the big no no foods that are lethaly poisonous to many dogs. The main ones are Onions, Chocolate, Grapes/Raisins and Garlic. Also stay well away from Corn and Soybean as they are high up on the allergies list for dogs.

Hope that is all helpful, there are also loads of doggy cooking recipes around if you feel like getting more creative, just sometime you need to use some common sense and doggy knowledge to figure out which ones really are good for your dog and which are just junk food (just the same as with dry kibble/wet dog foods).
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