Dog Health - Nutrition and Obesity

Nutrition and Obesity

Feeding table scraps to a dog is generally not recommended, at least in excess. Just as in humans, a dog's diet must consist of the appropriate mix of nutrients, carbohydrates, and proteins in order to give them the minerals and vitamins that they need. While the exact ratios vary, the food you buy for your dog should be about 50% meat and 50% veggies of some sort. If you must choose a food that contains grains, try to find one with rolled oats, barley, quinoa, millet, or brown rice. Dogs get ample correct nutrition from their natural, normal diet; wild and feral dogs can usually get all the nutrients needed from a diet of whole prey and raw meat. In addition, a human diet is not ideal for a dog: the concept of a "balanced" diet for a facultative carnivore like a dog is not the same as in an omnivorous human. In addition, table scraps often consist of fat rather than meat protein, which in excess is no better for dogs than it is for humans. It is not uncommon for people to overfeed their dogs by giving them leftover human food, such as ice cream. Dogs will usually eat all the scraps and treats they are fed: usually too much food. While not all human delicacies are acutely toxic to dogs (see above), many have the same chronically unfortunate results as they do for humans.

The result of too much food is obesity, an increasingly common problem in dogs in Western countries. As with humans, obesity can cause numerous health problems in dogs (although dogs are much less susceptible to the common cardiac and arterial consequences of obesity than humans are). According to a study published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine, the prevalence of obesity in dogs is between 22 and 40 percent.

Note that owners may not be at fault. Obesity can be a sign of other serious ailments such as Cushing's disease which is characterized by weight gain, appetite increase and lethargy in primarily older dogs.

A modern trend in canine diets is raw feeding of whole meats, bones and little filler material.

In addition to being bad for your dog's health, the feeding of table scraps directly from the table (as opposed to taking scraps after the meal or giving them in the dog's food dish as a treat) can lead to trained begging behavior on the part of the dog. It may even encourage the dog to reach up and take food directly from the table (another trained response) ! These are normally seen as undesirable behavioral traits in a dog.