Your Dog's Diet and Food

An important point here is not to confuse what you give your dog to eat with the way you do it. A good diet consists in providing your dog a balanced and nutritious diet in the adequate amounts. The results of an adequate diet are normal reproduction, shiny hair, normal growth, etc.

You should learn how to feed your dog well, in the same way you do with yourself. One clear example of this is the abundant cases of overweight dogs. Curiously, in most case, obese dogs usually have obese masters.

You have to pay attention to the packaging of the food products you buy for your dog. They indicate the ingredients that have been used and the ages for which they were intended. The food for an adult dog is obviously different from the one meant for a puppy. Manufacturers spend a lot of money in investigating and determining the best food for our dogs.

In general, the use of homemade food accompanied by large quantities of supplements does nothing but damage the dog's health.

Each dog should be fed with his specific needs in mind. The necessary quantities of food to cover a dog's vital needs, or better said, to maintain a good health depends on the weight of the dog. We can clearly see this in the following comparison: the Chihuahua has an approximate weight of 1 or 2 kilos when full grown. However, the Saint Bernard has an adult weight that goes from 75 to 100 kilos.

Nevertheless, the veterinarian will be the one who determines what your dog should and shouldn't be fed. Not all dogs have the same activity; you can't compare a house to a shepherd dog or to a hunting or racing dog. Even dogs of the same genetic origin, similar activity and environment can have different ways of using the food. This can be the case of thin and obese dogs in the same breed house, and it can even occur if they come from the same litter.

Dogs should be fed based on the individual needs of each one and their physical conditions. In the following pages we will give you some advice on how to correctly feed your dog in each of their stages of growth.