Mealtime, their favorite time of the day

Mealtime, their favorite time of the day!

One of the first things any new dog owner questions is what to feed their new furry friend. It doesn't matter if it is a large or small breed, pure bred or multiple mixed breed, brand new puppy or even older adopted or rescued dogs. We all want our dogs to have a healthy diet. 

We know as people that our diet and exercise are closely linked to our health and longevity. It's no different for any dog. Unfortunately, commercial dog food companies will play on peoples ignorance to what they put into their foods and spend a whole lot of money on advertising in order to get the unsuspecting public to buy their food. You may think that any commercial dog food that is regulated by the government is supposed to be good for my dog. That is not entirely true. While it's true your dog will not get sick from eating Ol' Roy on an immediate basis, they will in the short term suffer from skin, ear, joint, coat and digestive problems (just to name a few). In the long term - - well there usually is not much long term for dogs fed these commercial and inferior dog foods. These are the dogs that keep the veterinarians in business with all those aforementioned ailments. Not only that, they tend to have a much higher stool volume, as well as looser stools, which means more clean up and messier clean up. Gross!

You may say that buying the more expensive food costs a lot more. Well, today yes, it may cost more than buying something off your grocery store shelf, however you will be paying far, far less in vet bills in the long run. And yes, there is long run for dogs fed a healthier diet. Not only will your dog live longer, they will be healthier for a much longer time with far fewer visits to the vet for problems. The added bonus, because their bodies are able to use and absorb the nutrition from the better quality food, not only will they have better formed, firm stools, they will also have a greatly reduced stool volume. 

So what's the best thing to feed your dog? Really, the very best you can do is to prepare fresh food from the grocery store, just like you would eat, for your dog. Have you heard of the BARF diet? BARF stands for Biologically Appropriate Raw Food.  If you think about it, this is what dogs in the wild eat. Commercially available dog food was not readily available in the US until the 1950's. Before that, dogs ate the leftovers of what people didn't eat and they lived forever! Natures Farmacyhas an easy and free to download diets for dogs and cats. If you simply can not prepare your dogs food, there are several good "super premium" variety's available. Grain free is the best option and some of those higher quality foods are made by Oirjen, Bravo, Natures Variety, Blue Buffalo, Fromm's, Wellness, and Natural Balance. There are others and we will keep adding to our links-to-stuff-we-love page as we continue to research what are the healthiest foods out there.  Even with the higher quality foods, no food really contains everything for a dog to help build a healthy immune system and to fight off environmental combatants such as free radicals. We feel strongly that there are certain supplements that every dog should be on for optimum health and longevity.  Be sure to read the supplements page for updates. Some things are vital every day for the life of the dog, some things are specific for certain problems and other things are just a good idea to add for overall health. Not too worry, we dont want to over supplement or go broke trying any more than you do, so we try to keep it simple