Top 7 Feeding Mistakes
Mistakes in feeding with dog food
Despite the fact that industrial feeds are known for being well-balanced to provide the dog with healthy development, it happens that due to non-compliance with simple rules, owners can harm the health of their pet.
So what should you not suppose to do?
Switch your dog from natural food to dry food too quickly, or change dog foods too often
The dog's stomach needs time to adapt to a new diet, so the transition from a natural diet to dry food should be smooth. You can start with adding a little number of granules into a meal your pet usually eats. Then, you can gradually increase the proportional ratio.
The same applies to transferring a pet from one dog food to another. Although granules may look identical, they often contain different mineral complexes, as well as vary in proportions of fats and carbohydrates.
Overfeed
Recommended portions are usually indicated by manufacturers. However, it often happens that dog owners ignore these recommendations, as it seems to them that the dog does not eat enough, which leads to obesity and serious health problems for the animal.
Mix dog food with natural food
Dog owners should remember that industrial dog food already contains all the trace elements necessary for a pet, so there is no need to feed the animal with something else, even when having the best intentions. Mixing dog food with natural food can result in the development of diseases such as gastritis and ulcers.
Ignore the dog's needs in the water
Since dry food contains almost no water, adherents of the industrial diet should always be aware of the animal's increased need for clean water.
Mistakes in feeding with natural food
In addition to feeding pets with products from the list of prohibited foods, adherents of a natural diet make other mistakes. The most common include:
Table feeding
You have to prepare food for your dog separately from yours. When feeding the dog the same foods that the owners eat, there is a high risk of developing negative health effects caused by the consumption of too fatty, fried, salty foods by the animal.
Wide variety in food
The diet of our furry friends has to be well-balanced, yet monotonous. As we wrote earlier, the dog's stomach must adapt to food to digest it. So constant attempts to diversify the diet of your dog often can lead to various stomach issues.
Overfeeding
Sometimes dogs refuse to eat. And that's okay. There can be many reasons for this, ranging from fatigue to lack of appetite caused by too big previous portion. And the mistake that owners often make is an attempt to feed their furry friend with at least something. Due to this, the animal becomes not only capricious (because it knows that if it refuses to eat the usual food, it will get a 'snack') but it can also suffer from the owners' excessive love, earning some serious health problems.
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