If you want to keep your dog healthy and happy, one of the best things you can do, for a start, is to feed him or her properly. When feeding your dog, balance is probably the most important thing to consider. If you feed him or her too much, they might become obese and thus suffer from some very dangerous diseases and conditions that are very similar to the ones humans and other mammals might get, including, but not limited to, heart disease, osteoarthritis, skin disorders, certain kinds of cancer, Cushing?s disease, and many more. Feed him too little however, and you might have a dog with nutritional deficiencies, that will struggle to do things a normal dog should do easily.
However, this does not answer your questions. Instead it raises more, such as: how do I figure out what is best for my dog? Unfortunately, the answer to that question is not an easy thing to do. Determining the correct amount of food you should feed your dog depends on a number of factors, such as their size, the type of activities they might be involved in, how much exercise they do daily, how many times do they eat a day, and so on.
There are many useful tips you can find on the internet, plus you can hear multiple points of view regarding this topic. Still, before you begin experimenting with dog food and meal times, you should first and foremost ask your veterinarian what to do first. You should find a professional and trustworthy veterinarian even before you buy a dog. That way you can start taking proper care of your new pet from the moment you buy or adopt it.
When it comes to food types, you can opt for either home cooked meals or food bought from pet stores. Due to inexperience and busy schedules, most people buy canned food for their dogs. Still, this is not much cause for concern, as there are many quality brands that you can buy off the market, and which provide your dog with a proper meal that has sufficient nutritional value. If you are unsure, you can ask your vet about the best food brands or look for reviews online (these prove to be pretty honest and accurate, most of the time at least).
One of the advantages of buying dog food is that the labels usually have a feeding guide attached. The amounts may vary, but they should not be taken for granted. Think of them more like a sort of guidelines. Use this information in tandem with your dog?s previous meal experiences. Be very careful when changing brands and always monitor your dog?s progress accordingly. Don?t just go by the advice on the label, because there have been quite a few people that have done this and ended up with an overweight dog.
As a general rule when it comes to food quantity, puppies require more (because they burn calories faster), therefore you should give them three meals a day. A healthy adult, meanwhile, can live with two well balanced meals a day.
Is Your Dog Overweight? Find Out How To Correctly Calculate Dog Food Portions
According to experts, almost 40 percent of dogs nowadays are overweight. This proves that dog owners do not pay attention to the amount of food their greedy pets eat during the day or miscalculate the dog food portions for each meal. Although commercial dog food contains guidelines indicating how much the dog should be fed according to its size, it is not very concise and can leave room for misunderstandings, causing your dog to get too much or too little food.
Meal portions are usually calculated taking into account the breed of the dog, its weight and the amount of daily physical activity.
Puppies that have not yet reached 8 weeks of age are usually left in the care of their mothers ? it is not recommended to separate the mother and the puppy earlier, or else it will lead to eating disorders caused by the mourning of losing its family too soon. Starting with week 3 of life, puppies should try and learn to eat some solid foods, which will then gradually be incorporated in their meal schedule. In their early puppyhood, puppies usually tend to eat little and very often, in order to develop physically rapidly, so the caloric intake for a puppy is three times higher than the amount needed by an adult dog with little exercise.
Starting from week 6, your puppy can be fed 3 to 4 times a day with food that is rich in proteins, calcium and following a balanced diet, while after 8 weeks of age the young dog will gradually assume the feeding schedule of an adult dog - twice a day.
A small sized dog weighing between 3 to 10 kilos will need 75 to 200 grams of food per daily servings, while a medium sized dog with a weight of 10 to 20 kilos will eat 200 to 400 grams of food per daily serving. Large dogs like Labradors or Pointers will eat 400 to 600 grams, while extra large dogs like the St. Bernard or the Great Dane will tend to eat more than 600 grams per serving.
Depending on the body weight and the amount of physical exercise the dog enjoys, the calories necessary for the dog?s good health can vary greatly. For example, a 10 pound dog performing physical exercise 1 hour per day will need 296 calories, as opposed to a same weight dog exercising for more than 4 hours a day, in which case it will need 545 calories.
What the dog eats is also important. Depending on the dog?s preferences, they can go with canned food, as they usually like the moisture and the soft taste; dry food, which is packed with all the minerals and proteins you need to ensure your dog the best nutrients; raw food; or choose a mix between the three. They like meat and should be fed accordingly, avoiding wheat and corn as much as possible.
If you have trouble calculating the right dog food portion for your lovely pet, the internet is now offering various tools (a dog food portion calculator) to help you determine how much your dog should eat. Give your dog the chance to be fit and healthy again by choosing how much you feed him wisely!
