The best understanding of dog food nutrition and how it helps your dog be healthy comes from examining the digestive system of carnivores.
Dog Food Nutrition Comparison Between a Carnivore and Herbivore?
When comparing this type of digestive system to that of an herbivore, you will see that there are major differences in organ sizes, lengths and the overall digestive process. This is because the two food sources, meat and plants, must be processed in different ways in order to best assume all nutrients available.
For carnivores, this means the stomach is large for long term digestion and the colon short for the quick elimination of wastes. When comparing these organs of the modern dog to those of early times, it has been found that there has been little change during their evolution.
How Your Dog Evolved – Some Dog Food Nutrition Facts
It is true that roaming in packs eventually gave way to dogs becoming domesticated for work which in turn led to their role as companion animals. However, the changes in roles initiated little change in their physiology. The habit of gobbling large chunks of food commonly seen in dogs today is a throwback from times when dogs did not have the opportunity for feedings on daily basis in a timely manner.
Because survival was key, the stomach of a canine is designed to adeptly handle this type of consumption. As dogs feasted on their prey, they took in not only meat but bone, cartilage, hair and sinew that could all be digested in the highly acidic stomach cavity. This natural dog food nutrition provided a dog with all the vitamins and minerals they needed to flourish for millions of years.
Homemade Dog Food Nutrition and Your Dog
In general, once a dog consumes a maximum nutrition dog food meal of raw meat it will stay in the stomach for approximately eight hours. Upon moving to the intestines, large doses of hydrochloric acid further process the meat to kill off parasites and bacteria. Only then can the intestines get to work using enzymes to absorb and transport the right nutrients to the right places.
Other organs, such as the pancreas and liver, will also join in so that the digestion process is completed appropriately and in its entirety. Unfortunately, there are aspects in the issue of dog food nutrition that do not help, and even hinder, a dog from getting the fundamental nourishment it needs to stay healthy.
Dog Food Nutrition Comparison With Commercial Canned and Packet Pet food
The first concern with today’s commercial dog food nutrition is the fact that most formulas are anything but meat at all but a grain or cereal base. Just the same, meats or meat by-products are nothing more than a substance that is comprised of rendered animals. Even if either one of these things could be considered a viable source of nourishment for the canine system, the cooking process almost immediately destroys any enzymes necessary for healthy digestion.
This means there is nothing to help transport vital nutrients to where they are needed in the body. As the dog’s digestive system cannot be expected to adapt or evolve overnight, it must get what nutrients it can from its dog food diet. However, this nourishment is so highly inadequate, it cuts the national average canine lifespan down to between ten and thirteen years rather than extending it to the seventeen to nineteen years it should when consuming a fresh food diet.
Watch the video below to further understand what dogs need to thrive not simply survive.
Dog food nutrition is key to your dog either subsisting on commercial grain based fast food or excelling on fresh food. Get my free report below and discover the difference it could make to your dogs life.
About Dan
