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The ideal doggy diet

October 7, 2020

In a world where dog owners have so many feed types to choose from, understanding what the ideal doggy diet is can feel like a tall order. The most commonly found types of feeds are kibble and tinned wet foods, but both of these are nutritionally suboptimal. The dog food industry in the USA alone is worth over $20 billion a year, and has become commercialised at the expense of quality ingredients and overall nutritional value. The animal food industry is weakly regulated, allowing manufacturers to produce and market low-quality products offering questionable benefits to its consumers.

Kibble and tinned wet feeds are cases in point of this. As its form is biscuit-like, kibble naturally lends itself to having a lower than necessary protein component, and high proportions of cheap fillers such as grains and other carbohydrates. Tinned wet feeds are actually primarily composed of water, and only contain a small proportion of meat relative to their overall mass. Given that they are cooked before being tinned, their meat content also suffers nutritional loss. All this then begs the question of how should we optimally feed our dogs?

While there has been some evolutionary divergence between the Grey Wolf and today’s domesticated dog, both animals have relatively similar nutritional requirements and physiologies. Both the Grey Wolf and today’s domesticated dog can be classified as scavenging carnivores. While their diets should primarily be based on lean muscle, it may also be supplemented by other forms of carbohydrates and vegetable matter which will have been scavenged, i.e. roots, berries, and fruit.

Over the years we have been working with dogs, the MyDog Nutrition team has found that the raw food is the best doggy diet. Uncooked lean muscle supplemented with ground bones, fur, organs, and some vegetables offer dogs maximum nutritional value, be they pets or working animals. This mimics Grey Wolves’ natural wild diets while avoiding unhealthy additives and processed foods. A raw diet is the best way to maintain a healthy weight, and if carbohydrate free can even lead to ketosis and the associated benefits this offers.

Supplements can also play an important role in any dog’s diet. Assuming that a dog is following a healthy and balanced diet, supplements offer a more efficient way to provide them with targeted nutritional benefits. Supplements concentrate ingredients with specific nutritional benefits, and deliver them in more concentrated amounts than would be present in usual feeds. For example, we concentrate collagen in our Rejuvenate supplement specifically to promote joint health in working and pet dogs.

While canine nutrition may appear intimidating and confusing, the MyDog Nutrition team has years of experience in expertly formulating diet and feed plans for thousands of pets and working dogs. If you would like to find out more about how our knowledge and experience in this field can help your dog live its best life, we would be happy to work on this with you. For more information, please email information@mydognutrition.co.uk.

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