Since your dog is your friend, buddy, mate and in some instances, he is your very best friend, then “YES” you should consider natural dog food recipes in your dog’s diet. Your dog loves you and gives you unconventional love and is your constant companion. Most breeds just love to please you. You often find that after a long day at work, your dog just wants to please you. Dogs are especially valued as companions to many people, including elderly people and children. It has been said that they can even improve your mental health and create a calm, peaceful environment. Dogs are quite amazing and very intelligent and can be trained for seeing eye work, police work, rescue work, in entertainment and films etc. They can be taught to do tricks, dance, sit, play dead, fetch the paper, open the door, warm your feet and a lot more as well.

You have just gotta love your dog, the big eyes that just show love, the tail that wags when he sees you, the great greeting when you get home from a hard day, the companionship and company when you feel alone or sad. They just lift the spirits of millions of people worldwide. And to think that most people have no idea what is good for their dogs, especially when it comes to their diet. We have been so influenced by the advertising that we tend to think we are doing the right thing by our dogs, yet we are falling short big time. In fact, in a lot of cases, we are actually killing our very best friend and being so ignorant of the fact.

Why Read The Ingredients?

Just how many dog owners actually just buy what is on special and how often do you actually read the ingredients? We listen to our vets advice about dog food and that advice is often influenced by the commission he gets to promote that particular brand of dog food, not that it is even good at all. He even gives you some free samples. Why do you think that is? It is because the pet food company has made it to promote the product! Nothing else. The vet is a caring person, yes, but he is also out to make money from your pets. I have been very disillusioned by vets in general. How many times have you gone to your vet for a very small thing and came home with a lot of stuff costing heaps and it was not even what you went for but the vet said you need this and that and you wanted to do the right thing for your dog so you bought it all. Yep, it’s happened to me time and time again. And then they make you feel that you just do not care about your dog if you do not purchase what they are recommending. It is refreshing to find a caring vet who does not push all his expensive products on you. Right?

Maybe you are one that gives your dog table scraps or leftovers from your own dinner, I know I have been guilty of that. Most people just do not realize that a lot of human food is actually toxic or poisonous to our dog and can kill them. Some table scraps are fine, but do your research and these articles can give you some inside information that very few dog owners actually know.

It is often when there is a crisis, like your dog’s tummy is bloating, or they start itching madly, or their coat is not so shiny or some other reason that we start to look out the problem. And the problem is usually that the food is rubbish that they are eating.

Actually it is the same with us, and dogs are mammals too, so it is similar. When we eat the wrong kinds of food and do little or no exercise then we put on weight and slow down, we get bored, lethargic and lazy. Our skin and hair does not look healthy and our body aches. We have no energy and everything we do sees a huge effort. We get heart attacks, diabetes, cancer and other health problems and wonder why. Look at what most people eat regularly and you will see why. The same goes for our dogs. If we want our dogs to live a long healthy life, full of energy, vigor and fun, then we have to look at their diet as we should ours as well.

If We Are What We Eat – Are Our Dogs What They Eat?

You have heard it said that we are what we eat, and dogs are what they eat too. A dog just eats what is put in front of him, he has no ability to get his own (unless he is in the wild) so he depends on us to do what is right for him. He will get overweight the same as we do by eating the wrong diet and not exercising. In fact, when you are overweight you do not feel like exercising and it becomes a vicious cycle. You can see a lot of grossly overweight dogs too.

If it is important for us to watch what we eat, then it is equally important for our dogs too. The food we eat effects our skin and hair, and the diet your dog has effects his skin and hair too. We need to spend some time checking the ingredients in our dogs food as we do ours so we can be sure that we are giving them a really nutritious diet that will ensure a long healthy life with no medical problems like teeth problems, bad breath, infections , energy levels etc and the list goes on and on.

The ugly truth is that an unbalanced, unhealthy diet for your dog means a shorter, painful, unhealthy life. It is your choice. And I guess that most people are guilty of neglecting their own diet or the diets of their family members including little children, it’s no wonder that they neglect their pets too. It is often ignorance and just not knowing that these things are important at all. But that is not your excuse anymore …

Free feeding is a term that means that your dogs just grazes all the time when they are hungry, having no set schedule. This is often dangerous and some dogs just do not know when to stop eating and quickly become obese.

To sum it all up

Most dogs are considered to be part of the family so providing your dog a healthy diet can ensure that you have a healthy pet for a long time with little or no health challenges. This means that fleas are not usually a problem and therefore a whole lot more comfortable to have your dog inside and around children if you choose. Children can get diseases from pets so making sure your dog is healthy is of prime concern if you have children, babies or elderly at your home as well.

Source by Barbara E Underdown