I see very often articles, posts and comments concerning food for dogs and for puppies and a lot of pet owners wondering where to buy cheap food for their best friends. To me this question is both absurd and destructive. Cheap food for pets as well as for humans equals low quality food. If you want to buy cheap food for yourself, what do you get? Most often junk food which is full of calories, but has no vitamins, minerals or other nutrients that you really need. Cheap food fills up your stomach, but makes you sick on the long term.
Cheap food for dogs is exactly the same. Wondering where you can get it? There’s lots of it in most supermarkets, sometimes food that has been created as their internal brand and which sells with a price ten times lower than top quality food. How much vitamins and nutrients do you think you can find in a large can of 1-2 kg which costs only 1 Eur? Would you eat 2 kg of meat with that price? Would you be confident enough to even buy it?
On the long term, the cost saving done for low quality food compensates in vet bills. Your dog will get for sure teeth, stomach, kidney or even worse problems like cancer. Is such a cost really worth it? Would you do this to your child? Then, why do it to your best friend?
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| Our Troti |
Hoping I have convinced you to forget the idea of low cost dog food, I come back to the best dog food.
After adopting Troti, we started searching information about what to feed him. We went online and talked to vets and we found out that there are two ways to feed your dog correctly:
- Feeding your dog food prepared in the house. This is OK, but it’s really difficult if you really want to give the dog all the nutrients he/she needs. A strict diet must be respected and a menu must be carefully selected. You can’t just feed the dog everything you eat because humans and dogs have different needs. Remember to offer them plenty of calcium when they grow up and especially when their teeth change but make sure you select the correct sources. Cow’s milk for example is a bad idea since the dog won’t get any calcium out of it, but instead develop stomach problems and worms. If you decide to feed your dog food cooked in the house, consult a pet nutritionist to find out what’s allowed, in what quantities and proportions and what’s absolutely not allowed. Also, your dog’s age is very important. A growing puppy has different needs than an old one.
- Feeding your dog good quality dog food. We started with Pedigree which was estimated by our vet at 7 on a scale of 1 to 10; we fed him additionally vitamins at the beginning when we had just found him and his immune system was very low and then gave him calcium as advised by the vet when his teeth were changing (about 4-6 months old). Food designed especially for pets is easier for the owner to use due to the correct dosage on the bag/can and the exact quantity of nutrients necessary for your pet according to his/her age. After growing up with Pedigree, we decided to feed Troti Royal Canin when he was about 10 months old. Royal Canin was estimated by our vet at 9 on a scale from 1 to 10. We hesitated at first because the price is 3 times larger than Pedigree, but we could see a clear difference in about 1 month. Troti likes it better and he looks great – his hair is no longer falling off almost at all (except spring when he changes it) and it has never been shinier. People in the street stop me to tell me how great our dog looks.
So, having a healthy pet is like having a healthy child – feed him only the best. It’s worth investing in good food than paying later for medicine and treatments for difficult diseases.
Take care,
Geo
Also read:
http://training-troti.blogspot.ro/2012/02/what-did-we-feed-troti.html