Tuesday night we had an open and honest discussion on pet nutrition with pet owners concerned about giving their pet the best quality diet they can. Gerry, from the Wisconsin based company Stella & Chewy’s, was the key speaker for this event and discussed options for feeding a biologically appropriate diet for your dog or cat.
If you weren’t able to make the seminar we will give you an overview of what we discussed, and are more than happy to discuss these ideas with you further in the store.
Biologically Appropriate Diets for Dogs & Cats
The theory behind these diets has to do with the ancestral heritage of dogs and cats. Dogs are descended from wolves and, despite the extreme visual difference between them for some breeds, they are are almost genetically identical. Cats are descended from African Wildcats (also known as Desert Cats), and again are nearly genetically the same. Due to these genetic similarities, logic follows that a diet similar to their ancestors would result in a healthy happy pet.
Cats, and their wild ancestors, are object carnivores. This means that they collect the majority of their nutritional needs from meat sources. Included in that majority is most of their water intake since domesticated cats descend from desert cats that did not have the availability to drink water frequently. What this means is that the moisture content in your cat’s diet is very important to their overall health. Wet foods can be one option to increase your cat’s water intake, but there are other options such as freeze dried/ dehydrated foods (that you rehydrate), or raw foods.
Dogs, in contrast, are carnivores. They collect the majority of their nutritional needs from meat sources, with the remainder coming from fruits and vegetables. Wolves have this same nutritional need, and mainly get their non-meat needs met from either the stomach contents of prey animals, or from occasional foraging for plants or berries. What this means for your dog’s diet is that regardless of the type of food you feed, a high content of quality protein is important for the overall health of your dog. This also shows that ingredients such as grains should be kept to a minim as part of a dog’s diet since they have a low nutritional value, and are not necessary to a balanced diet for most dogs.
Really good info – I wish every dog owner would read it and realize that feeding their dog a food that contains high amounts of grains is NOT good for their dogs… Thanks for posting.