Pet Exchange Corner

By Dr. Cliff Faver
January 30, 2020
In my 32 years of practice, there was one trending worry among my clients that was frequently communicated. This concern, expressed in lots of ways, nearly always translated to this bold statement: “My pet dog is getting fat and I can’t understand why, because he is a picky eater.” Now, to a lot of people, this problem of obesity correlates directly to overfeeding; however, there are several other causes that aspect in.

Can we, as humans, all rely on the same diet to maintain our healthiest body weight, regardless of lifestyle, activity level, age, etc.? The answer is no. So why would we think otherwise with our dogs? 

Many clients would state that they feed their dogs two cups of food a day, not understanding the reason for weight gain. rather than make a blanket statement that two cups is ideal for your dog, I would prompt a conversation asking about the lifestyle, age and activity level of the dog. Also, what type of food are you supplying for your dog? There are various aspects that come into play when figuring out the cause of the weight get in our canine companions.

To feed a pet dog correctly, one must calculate the kilocalories that your individual pet dog must eat (including snacks) and then adjust it accordingly for activity. My benchmark statement is, “you must take what the directions state on the bag and drop it by 10%, then adjust in accordance to how the pet dog does”. lots of of the recommendations on the bag are excessive. pet dog food makers have done an acceptable approximation of food needed for the weight of the dog; however, they are also in the service to sell pet dog food, therefore, in my opinion, lots of of them continue on the lofty end of the scale on their suggestions. 
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Many pet dog owners choose to free-feed their dogs and they will successfully prosper on the method; however, a lot of of us are not that lucky. Some dogs naturally regulate their body weight and food intake, but lots of do not know when to stop eating. A substantial issue is human interference. A statement that I received from a client of a grossly obese pet dog was that his pet dog was such a picky eater that he had to add canned food to his diet to encourage him to eat (hmm?). top dressing (adding canned food or goodies) is a common tool lots of owners do to “love” their pet dog into obesity. 

Another common error is supplying several different pet dog foods so the pet dog doesn’t get “bored”. Boredom is a lot more of a human worry (and often a cat one) a lot more so than a pet dog issue. If consistency is maintained, then we will see a minimized issue with obesity, because dogs would eat out of need, not out of want. The additionally you vary their diet, the a lot more they will crave variation—ultimately leading to progressive weight gain. variation can also be detrimental if you have a pet dog with food allergies, because the a lot more proteins the pet dog is exposed to, the greater the chance of an allergy development.

Several clients believe that, in buy to benefit from the lack of nutrition in certain foods, it is needed to supplement with alternate foods. This common error by assumption can be avoided by feeding your pet dog a high quality food from the start. In the modern era, a lot of of our diets are nutritionally sound—at least on paper. The substantial issue is the bioavailability. In the past, lots of of the diets were animal checked (as provided on the AAFCO statement); however, because of the boosted costs of animal testing, a majority have fallen back into the formulated category (as provided on AAFCO statement). This indicates that the diet meets the qualifications (nutritionally) based on a computer model, but crucially no guarantee that it does in reality (bioavailable). alternating diet to fix this issue is a lot of absolutely not the answer because there is no way of genuinely balancing the diet in correlation to the deficiency—unless you can pinpoint the exact insufficiency.

Another area lots of consumers are not aware of is how things are provided on the AAFCO (American Feed control Officials) statement, which has led to confusion. The AAFCO statement is on every bag of food and is crucial to be aware of and educated on. The three main categories from the AAFCO statement (in addition to animal checked and formulated) are the life stages in which the food is created for. The two categories of the past were adults (not senior), puppies and pregnant bitches. Recently, another stage has been added which is for ALL LIFE STAGES. In buy to get this classification with AAFCO, these diets need to meet the most stringent criteria, which is the nutritional benefits needed for puppies and pregnant bitches (why not just say that?). So unbeknownst to lots of consumers, they are feeding their older pet dog food that is geared towards puppies, thus adding to the obesity issues.

The a lot of consinull