Yes, Kibble is bad for your dog! Kibble is essentially fast food for pets. No pet will ever reach its full potential in terms of well-being if it solely consumes dry kibble. This type of pet food is loaded with carbohydrates and undergoes extensive processing, further compromising its nutritional value.
Over the past few years, numerous dog owners have opted for raw dog food as an alternative to traditional pet food, with remarkable outcomes. Providing dogs with a diet that mimics their natural eating habits ensures they receive nutrients from sources that are easily digestible, ultimately enhancing their overall well-being.
Raw dog food is a diet for canines that includes raw meat, organs, and bones. This type of diet provides essential nutrients and enzymes, increases energy levels, and supports brain functions. Dogs thrive on raw food rather than overly processed kibble, making it the healthiest option for your furry friend. The diet may include organ meats such as liver, kidney, and hearts, as well as whole chicken, beef, pork, and seafood.
Dr. Bilinghurst along with other esteemed scientists, has dedicated numerous years to researching pet health. Through their extensive studies, it has become evident that feeding raw food to pets surpasses the benefits of artificial, burnt, brown, crunchy, over-processed kibble. The advantages of raw feeding are directly linked to positive outcomes such as improved coat health and increased lifespan. Dr. Bilinghurst is renowned as a pioneer in developing nutritious programs for dogs.
To help you better understand the benefits of feeding raw food to dogs, you need to know how your dog digests food.
Humans must cook meat to eliminate pathogens and aid in digestion, whereas dogs can safely consume and digest raw meat due to their ancestral traits inherited from wild wolves. Dogs possess stomach acid, bile, and digestive enzymes that are potent enough to neutralize pathogens and process raw meat efficiently.
Here are some physical features that support the idea that dogs are carnivores by nature:
Their Mouth
- Digestion starts in your dog’s mouth. The mere action of chewing distinguishes dogs from creatures that are adapted to consuming plant matter. This distinction is attributed to two factors: saliva composition and tooth structure. Unlike other animals, dogs lack the presence of the digestive enzyme Amylase in their saliva, which aids in initiating the breakdown of carbohydrates.
- Dog teeth are designed to interlock like a pair of scissors, serving the purpose of tearing and slicing flesh rather than grinding it.
Their Stomach
The subsequent carnivorous phase of the digestive process occurs in the stomach. Canine stomachs are characterized by higher acidity levels compared to those of humans and other omnivores, enabling them to effectively process the bacteria present in raw meat as well as break down bone and connective tissues.
Here’s why:
Dogs have a larger stomach cavity designed to hold dog food for longer than ours. Within this environment, the food and bone are subjected to an acidic bath, which effectively breaks them down into a substance called chyme. This chyme is a sticky amalgamation of high-quality pet food, stomach acids, and digestive enzymes, and it is prepared to progress towards the intestines for additional breakdown, absorption, and elimination.
Raw meat is the ideal diet for dogs, as long as it is nutritionally balanced. Merely feeding your canine companion muscle meat without incorporating organs or bones would result in nutritional deficiencies. Therefore, it is essential to offer food that contains the appropriate proportions of muscle, organs, and bones.
In fact, a recent study at the University of Helsinki found that puppies fed raw food are less likely to grow up to suffer from canine atopic dermatitis compared to puppies fed kibble.
How Much to Feed
To ensure a balanced raw food diet for your adult dog, it is advised to provide them with 2% to 3% of their body weight in food. For instance, if your dog weighs 25 lbs, they will require approximately 0.5 lbs or 8 oz of food per day. This calculation can be easily determined using the following formula: (Dog’s weight) x 0.02 = (food weight).
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