The old adage you are what you eat is not only true for humans but your dog as well. So by going the extra mile for your pet and getting high quality pet food, you will be rewarded in many ways. For instance:
By feeding your dog good nutritious food, it will:
- Add years to your dog’s life
- Increase their quality of life
- Reduce frequency of veterinarian bills
- Produce a happy pet that looks better than most
- Strengthen their immune system
What type of nutritious food? My experience has been to use a no-grain dog food. This results in:
- Slim trim dogs with lots of energy
- Less allergies if any
- Significantly less illness if any
- No smelly poop
- Tiny and easy to pick up stools
Feeding your dog a raw meat diet is really the way to go. You can purchase raw frozen food and defrost the night before. Because the food is high quality meat, your dog will not need anywhere near as much food. In other words, they will be satisfied by eating substantially less food as long as it is high quality. Additionally, their coats are shinier, they have more energy, their digestive system works smoothly, and they tend to exhibit a greater sense of well-being, attentiveness, and calmness.
Only put their food down for them to eat twice a day, once in the morning for 5-7 minutes and once in the evening for 5-7 minutes. Then put it away. If you leave pet food out all day, they smell the food and their digestive system never stops. Thus, you are doing them a favor by controlling accessibility to their food. And if they don’t gobble their food down right away, they probably don’t like it. So experiment with different meats like chicken, beef, fish, rabbit, venison, lamb, duck to see what they prefer. Dogs have likes and dislikes just like us. The same food every day for months and even years is not only boring, it’s unhealthy.
It is not a problem for your pet to go 1-2 days without eating. This draws on the wisdom of your animals instinctual feeding habits in the wild where food is not always readily available. It also gives their digestive system a rest, so that when they do eat, the food is optimally digested without excessive amounts hanging around in their digestive system resulting in sluggishness.
Last, feeding your dog is a huge training opportunity! Prior to feeding them at the same time each day, allow them to sit and wait so they learn discipline and how to hold back. Then release the food to them. Your pet will look forward to eating and will actually get very excited to please you by showing you how disciplined he or she can be.
For more on dog feeding, watch for my video blogs on this topic.
