Diet for Dogs – Dog Food and Home Made Dog Food

Diet for Dogs – Dog Food and Home Made Dog Food

Hi, everyone!

How are you? I hope all is good and if you are facing something adverse, I will pray for you.

Let’s quickly review our last article”Back with a Bang“. In our last article, we have provided you information about our expansion. We provided a brief introduction to the range of products and brands that are available at our store. In this article, we are going to provide you detailed information about planning a daily diet for your canine pet. This article will solely be dedicated to diet management only and general care information will be provided in next article. So, let’s start.

To most owners, as I came to know by dealing with customers at my Pet store in Jaipur, planning a proper nutritious diet is a big challenge. Yes, it’s a bit time constraint-munching exercise, yet the effort can be reduced to a great extent with little planning, balancing between needs and choices, pre-scheduling and a little bit of preparation in advance. If anyone really cares about their dogs, then this whole exercise is a must. It’s fun, though. If you really like to provide an all natural diet to your then this planning will surely benefit you.

Eating crushed boiled eggs and rice in chicken stock

Preparing the whole diet with all natural ingredients is time-consuming, always. Challenging environment of work usually provides a little scope for preparing meals for your pooch especially on a busy day at the office. In such cases, various brands of dog food come into play. There is a wide choice of both dry and wet feed. One can use any of them depending on their personal preferences. In general, the wet feed is always more fulfilling and satisfying to dog then dry feed, but that is relative to various situations, mood, and taste of your dog. I will try to provide an honest and detailed elaboration of this topic later in this article. For now, just look into the best option of properly planned and cooked meals for your canine pet.

As I stated earlier, preparing a properly balanced meal for a pet dog, is a big challenge. Not because of some technical issue or availability of the raw material, but because of the great diversity found in the canine world. There are more than 700 recognizable breeds, more than 350 pure breeds, and uncountable mongrel options. Also, there is as much diversity in living conditions and environments that dogs accompany their owners. Consequently, it is practically impossible to provide a pin point formula or recipe that would cater all needs of dogs. We will move ahead taking consideration of general nutrition needed for every canine to sustain a good quality of life.

Speaking in general terms, you need to provide them with an average balance of all macro nutrients like proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. All of these have a specific purpose in a dog’s life, similar to the purpose they serve in a human body.

Protein will be used by muscles and all major organs in large amounts during growing years. When grown these are needed for proper functioning of all organs. Proteins will also be utilized in the production of enzymes for digestion and production of amino acids in different forms and functions. Particularly, proteins are the building blocks of any living organism’s body, so your dog needs that, that too a big chunk of its diet. It’s a big problem, especially in India where a majority of the population is vegan.

Particularly starting approximately 30-35% protein is needed for optimum growth and development. You can reduce or increase this amount to some extent depending upon breed and activity of your dog. Here I will give three different routines I used to follow. As stated in my first three articles I had a varied experience with dog breeds starting from German Spitz, I had kept Dobermans, saint bernards, German shepherds, Labradors, and Dachshunds. So, as you can imagine, it was a big challenge in the morning that what should I do? Needs for Doberman are different from that of a small spritz. The Dachshund has different diet and requirement of my Bernard is overwhelming. I kept German shepherds for professionally competing in FCI shows and to supply puppies to different government agencies.

It is like a chaos in the morning in my house.

Some day I will post a video of our morning routine. You will laugh to your guts. Haphazard, everywhere. My wife running with eggs in her hands, I am washing chicken, my mum shouting, my son playing with dogs. It is so much chaotic, but I love my animals more than the pain the discomfort they serve me.

Okay, getting back to our topic.

To manage easily I divide weekly diet into 21 parts. Seven breakfasts, seven lunch, seven dinners. As in the case of us humans, breakfast is always heavy and rich in fats and carbs. This is essential because of two reasons.

First, there is a long gap between dinner and breakfast. I usually give them first feed of day at around 6:30 am and I serve them dinner at around 9:30 pm. Approximately there is a 9-hour gap from dinner to breakfast.

Secondly, I take them for a jog. Distance is decided according to the breed. For example, Spitz and Dachshund are taken for 750 meters light jog. Then my wife brings them back to home. I continue to take shepherds, Dobermans, and Bernard for more. Then taking one repetition of the path I take daily I drop Bernard at home. In this, she had already run for around 1.8 km. This gives shepherds and does a little rest for 8-10 minutes. Then I take them for one more round, this time it’s a run. I ride my bicycle and they run alongside. This all is completed by 6:00 am. Yeah, its early and its best.

So as you can imagine, they all are exhausted. They are hungry and by 6:30 am they all are waiting for their breakfast.

What do I serve? Let’s see.

• Sundays are reserved for lamb meat.
• Weekdays I provide them a mixture of whole deboned chicken with marrow, eggs, rice, slices of pumpkin, potatoes, bottle gourd, peas and chicken fat.
• All mixed up in a large vessel.
• Sometimes spitz and dachshund do show a little attitude but otherwise, I didn’t have any profound problem to get my dogs to eat that lump.
• In this whole mixture, there are 22 pre hard boiled egg whites, 900gms- 1kg chicken, 2 coffee mugs full raw dried rice and a large bowl of chopped veggies.
• Later I sprinkle tidbits of egg yolks from above … as garnish. 6 each for large dogs and 2 each for spitz and dachshund.

I know this is not easy to make and definitely a chosen daily routine but I personally believe this is the best. If you don’t exercise your dogs that much and don’t prefer to prepare their meals by hand then you can always choose a pre prepared dog food. There are numerous brands available in the market that provide you with many options to choose from.

Pre prepared dog food comes in two forms dry or wet. Each type is having its own unique advantage. This I will discuss in coming articles. For now, let us move ahead in this article.

Next, comes the lunch time.

For this, I don’t have any fixed menu. I usually give then different types of treats like dog biscuits, chicken or lamb jerky, Indian bread with curd or buttermilk, oats in milk and many other combinations.

My main purpose is to provide them with a light refreshment to move ahead in the day and this I provide them around 2 hours prior to their evening walk and playtime.

In the night at dinner time, I feed them the dry nugget type of pre prepared market dog food. I keep 4 different brands. Little one ( Spitz and dachshund ) are choosy, so I feed them different food every day. Large breeds are not inclined or selective towards any particular brand. In feed my shepherds, dobes and Bernard with a 24-25% protein maintenance dog food.

For their micro nutrients diet, I give calcium and multivitamin tablets to them. One each to small breeds and two tablets of each calcium and multi vitamins to large breeds.

Please remember that preparation time of day’s first diet can be reduced considerably if you utilize night time for boiling and shelling eggs, use precut whole chicken and cook vegetables and rice altogether in a large, deep vessel by boiling all contents in the morning.

I hope this will help you in organizing your dog’s routine. Please send me your suggestions and comments. They are extremely important for me. Your comments and suggestions will help me greatly in improving this blog and also organizing my pets better.

Thank you very much for taking out some time from your busy routine to read my work.

Rishabh Pathak.