Dogs don’t always make the wisest choice when it comes to selecting the food they want to eat. It’s strange because you would think that throughout the course of dog’s evolution, natural selection would simply dictate that when it comes to dogs, choosing the right kind of food comes naturally to them… But you’d be wrong. Dogs will eat anything. Wel, mine do anyway!

So how do you ensure that they don’t go anyway near unhealthy foods? What steps can you really take to keep your pet healthy? In this article, we’ll give you 5 tips that will make your life, and that of your dog much healthier.

Make sure you don’t bring unhealthy food at home.

Yes, I know, we’ve all heard this pearl of wisdom but we always thought it was solely intended for us, humans… Turns out, the same types of food can be just as unhealthy for dogs, as it is for us.

Make sure your beloved dog cannot access certain foods that you know are bad form him

Like butter for example.  My wife and I came back from a shopping trip one day and brought back a pound of butter she was going to use to bake a cake. It needed a little melting so she left it out on the kitchen counter for a couple of hours. When she came back to the kitchen a little later, the butter had disappeared from the counter, the wrapping paper was laying on the kitchen floor, and our dog had begun to evacuate the greasy substance from its tummy, onto the kitchen floor. Yes… Our beloved, oh so clever dog had decided that he absolutely needed to eat the butter.  All of it!

Make sure the diet you feed your dog is balanced

Whether you have a puppy at home, or an adult dog, ensuring that all nutritional elements of a healthy diet are present in the food you select for them is extremely important. Dogs (and humans of course) should eat a complete and balanced diet and the best place to start when selecting the right kind of food is to read the labels.  Check the package labels and verify the nutritional adequacy of the food you are looking at. A healthy dog food label should at least carry a mention that it has met the Association of American Feed Control Officials standards and requirements so that it may be considered healthy.

Make sure your dog is not overweight

We know exactly what this means.  There are types of food out there that are not inductive to weight maintenance, let alone weight loss. Here again, it is easy to use the human example of eating less and exercise more in order to lose weight. You might think that obesity is a challenge that only humans have to deal with but it estimated that 45% of dogs in the United States are either overweight or obese. Obesity in dogs brings the same medical conditions that we as humans suffer from, such as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure etc.… In addition to selecting food that contains fewer calories per portion than others, it is important that your dog doesn’t become a couch potato… Take it out for a walk. It’ll do it and you the world of good.

Free choice feeding is not the best choice

You may be familiar with the concept of filling your dog’s feeding bowl and leaving it out for him to use whenever he or she’s hungry. If you recognize this method as one that you use yourself, then you’re using the free choice feeding method and you’re not making the right choice. Dogs should eat smaller portions spread around at regular intervals during the day as opposed to having food being made available 24 hours a day. This free choice method is unnatural as in the wild, dogs will actually need to hunt for their next meal, and they’ll only generally hunt when they are hungry.  In addition, dogs can eat out of boredom, just as the rest of us. 

If your schedule prevents you from filling up your dog’s bowl 3 or 4 times a day, then there are timed automatic food dispensers that can help you get the right amount of food. Feeding your dog the right portion sizes is also crucially important.  If the label on the box you’ve spent some time examining calls for a certain weight of size per portion, make sure you follow the instructions.  Don’t destroy your efforts in choosing healthy food but overfeeding your dog.

There is an old say that we use in human language that goes like this: “we are what we eat”.  Add to this pearl of wisdom the following statement: “we are how we exercise” and we get nearer to the universal truth that, all things being equal, can define us all.  The best part of this is that it defines our pets just as well. By helping your dog to make the right choice when eating, and taking sufficient amounts of exercises on a daily basis, you will ensure that your dog will remain healthy and, most probably live a longer, happier life.

AUTHOR BIO

ABOUT Kathie Lukas

Kathie Lukas is a freelance writer. She’s a passionate pet lover her topic areas mostly cover pet health and pet grooming and loves to travel and has never ending love for food. She has completed her graduation in animal sciences from the Kansas state University. You can find her on twitter @iamkathilukas.

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