Supplementing Commercial Dry Dog Food

[Rott-C]

I recently went to the website provided by Carina43 in a previous thread and got some wonderful info regarding supplements for those of us who use commercial dry dog food. The only problem for me is that I am unsure of ratios and it does not give those. Some examples that I would like to implement (I do know that all of these are not necessary and I wouldn't do all of these at once either) are canned salmon, eggs, yogurt, cottage cheese, canned pumpkin, vitamin C, and vitamin E. This is for a nine week old puppy that currently eats about 1 1/4 c. dry kibble twice daily. Schatzi and I thank you in advance for your expertise.:D

[Rott-Wiley]

If you tell me how much he weights I'll look it up for you. The values I have are for feeding a raw diet but it should give you an idea of where to start.

[lblax]

if your feeding a quality comercial food none of the supplemants are needed.. if your dog has special needs such as bad hips digestive problems bad coat and such then you supplimant for that....... but if your dog is otherwise healthy and you are feeding quality kibble you are justn throwing away money supplementing there diet......make sure the dog food you are feeding contains chelated vitemans and minerals they are better absorbed

PS

Some examples that I would like to implement (I do know that all of these are not necessary and I wouldn't do all of these at once either) are canned salmon, eggs, yogurt, cottage cheese, canned pumpkin, vitamin C, and vitamin E.

if your food has omega 3 and 6 fatty acids and you have no coat problems you dont need the salmon--------eggs sometimes are highly allergic ------- yogurt and cottage cheeze help the digestive track most dog foods have a amino acid in it to do the same thing ------ and ive never seen a dog munching on a pumpkin.. so you see what im getting at if your dog doesnt have any probs spend the money on training instead of supplimenting

[chivas]

I think canned pumpkin is used mainly for help with stools. I know cat people use it alot to help with hairballs. But I bet it can be a great treat, possibly raw if they will eat it. My new girl loves raw apples and carrots and broccoli, hmm maybe I should try and see if she will eat raw pumpkin, its loaded with good vitamins and I would think would make a healthy snack.
Kim

[Rott-C]

Rott-Wiley, Schatzi weighs in at about 15 lbs. She seems to be getting bigger everyday! I was reading about supplements but this particular site recommended using food to supplement instead of supplements made just for that purpose. Any help you can give is welcome.

[Rott-Wiley]

There's a lot of different opinions out there. One of them is that the heating process used to make commercial dog food destroys all the vitamins that are in it. Here is some info taken from, "Holistic Guide for a Healthy Dog" by Volhard and Brown, D.V.M. This is for a 10, 25, and 50 pound dog.

Vitamin C (mg) 40 | 100 | 200 -- twice daily
Vitamin E (IU) 40 | 100 | 200 -- twice daily
Vitamin B complex (mg) 12.5 | 25 | 50 -- twice daily
Bone meal 1.33 (t) | 3.5 (t) | 2.5 (T) -- once a day

Part of my dogs diet also includes: 3 days fat free natural yogurt, 2 days fat free cottage cheese, and 2 days raw eggs. I buy fat free cause she gets enough of fat from the lean hamburger I feed as part of her diet so I try to keep it balanced.

[moondog]

Calcium is not destroyed by heat and supplementing a diet with calcium where it is already present in sufficient amounts can be detrimental. Adult dogs have the ability to eliminate excess calcium, but for puppies and growing dogs the excess calcium is absorbed and can be very harmful to bone development. Do not supplement kibble with calcium!

I'm far from a kibble expert (I home-cook), but it's my understanding that the high quality manufacturers do a nutrient analysis on the content of a commercially prepared food AFTER processing, in which case there would be no lack of essential nutrients and no need to supplement.

If a label says "formulated to meet.....yada,yada" this means it has not been thoroughly tested after processing. A calculation of the nutrients needed for nutritional adequacy was used in the formula, but a nutrient analysis was not done on the finished product to guarantee those nutrients are present and biologically available for absorption.

If a label says "provides complete and balanced nutrition based on.....yada, yada" this means it has been thoroughly tested after processing. In this case they have either done feeding trials or have tested the nutrient profiles of the finished product and can guarantee the presence of nutritional adequacy.

[Rott-Wiley]

Originally posted by moondog
If a label says "provides complete and balanced nutrition based on.....yada, yada" this means it has been thoroughly tested after processing. In this case they have either done feeding trials or have tested the nutrient profiles of the finished product and can guarantee the presence of nutritional adequacy.

Not that I'm trying to argue the point but that's not the way I understand it to be. Doesn't a bag of Purina say that on it?

[moondog]

It's a point worth arguing! I warned you I wasn't a kibble expert :D and I'm only referring to the vitamin/mineral content, nothing else. If Purina has a statement guaranteeing that their product provides complete and balanced nutrition, they have done the testing. My reference for that is from the chapter on History and Regulation of Pet Foods in "Canine and Feline Nutrition" by Case, Carey, Hirakawa and Daristotle. However, I will swap my reference to "high quality manufacturer's" for "thorough manufacturer's"! :D

[Rott-Wiley]

Well, if I understand it correctly, all the manufacturers need to do is include the vitamins as an ingredient in the food. And I'm only talking about the vitamins here. Heat distroys vitamins, that's a fact. To compensate for that the manufacturers include more vitamins. The problem is, if the heat distroys the vitamins, does it really matter how many you put in if they are going to be destroyed anyway? Who can you believe on this?

[Rott-Wiley]

Here's this information taken from the site listed below:

SUPPLEMENTS FOR COMMERCIAL DIETS

Following are several commonly recommended supplements for feeding along with commercial dog food. However, you may want to consider supplementing your commercial diet with food, rather than (or in addition to) supplements. See the section below on Foods Used to Supplement a Commercial Diet for more information.

SUPPLEMENTS FOR COMMERCIAL DIETS

Unfortunately, I don't know the source of this information.

[moondog]

You can believe the manufacturer's who do testing on the product AFTER processing and adjust their formula accordingly to meet required nutrient profiles. Those are the only companies that can state on their labels that their product has been tested and by what standard the testing was done to provide complete and balanced nutrition for a particular life stage.

This statement can only be used if testing was done and the food meets the established nutritional requirements:

"Animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures substantiates that Wuf-Wuf provides complete and balanced nutrition for all life stages."

This statement means nothing, because no testing was done to see if their formula ultimately met the nutrient levels:

"Wuf-Wuf is formulated to meet the nutrient levels established by the AAFCO's nutrient profiles for dog foods for all life stages."

[Rott-Wiley]

Fortunately I don't feed that much kibble (only 40%), partly because of this reason. I don't believe them!

Did you read that site I posted above?

[Rott-C]

Rott-Wiley,

The site you listed is the site I got my info from. I will be looking into raw diets, and home-cooked diets before too long but for a little while longer I will continue the kibble. I use Iams but haven't taken the time to see how they tested as moondog was speaking about. I do good to cook meals for my family so I'm not sure they would appreciate it if I took on the task of preparing Schatzi's food before theirs:D . One quick question: I read that if you could buy good quality puppy kibble for large breeds, you should. Supposedly this allows them to grow at the proper rate. Iams does make a large breed puppy food but when I compared the list of ingredients the large breed formula didn't list as many meat sources at the top. I believe corn superceded of of the meat sources. Any ideas? I'm learning, and I want to do what's right for Schatzi.

[Rott-Wiley]

Ever since Iams was bought out years ago (and the formula changed) it is on the low end of the quality food lists that I have seen.

IMO, I also would not feed a puppy a large breed growth type puppy chow. Several other people on this board agree with that. You may want to start a new post with that as a topic and get some feedback on it.