Question by …: do dogs prefer diet food or just less of their regular food?
when they’re on a diet
Best answer:
Answer by ladystang
depends on dog
What do you think? Answer below!
4 Replies to “Q&A: do dogs prefer diet food or just less of their regular food?”
Comments are closed.
i would give them a little less than their regular food because diet food can make some breeds of dog sick.
and dogs dont realy need to go on a diet unless perscribed by a vet.
hope i helped
Chances are you’re feeding your dog above what the recommended allowance is for the food you’ve been feeding. Or, you’ve been giving treats and/or table food.
First see if you’ve been feeding the food properly. If you’ve been feeding more, cut back to the recommended amount and stop giving treats/table food.
If you’ve been feeding the right amount, then slowly exchange his regular food with a diet food (say if you feed one cup twice a day, give half cup of regular food and half cup of diet food for a week or two and then stop the regular food and only give the diet). If your dog eats/likes the diet then continue with it. If he won’t eat it then switch back to the regular food (same thing, do half and half and then switch to only the regular).
You could also try exercising the dog more to burn off excess calories.
Most diet foods are pretty horrible quality. They contain things like cellulose, which is sawdust. They have so many fillers that the fillers actually bind with the little nutrients in the food which block absorption of almost everything. Dogs can end up with malnutrition on diet foods. You are much better off feeding less of the regular food and increasing exercise. You may want to consider switching to a lower fat and low carbohydrate food. One great food that would work is EVO Weight Management. It’s not really a diet food as it is designed for both overweight and non-overweight dogs. The bag has two different feeding charts, one for weight loss, and one to maintain a the current weight. I have also heard vets recommend adding canned green beans to the regular food as a low carb filler so the dog still feels full on less dog food.
Add: Cellulose has no business being in any human or animals diet. It’s not food. Diet foods are also extremely high in carbohydrates. Dog’s don’t need carbohydrates. Even AAFCO agrees as they have no carbohydrate requirement whatsoever. Why feed a food that is almost completely comprised of a nutrient that AAFCO doesn’t even require? If a human needs to go on a diet, we do not start eating cardboard and wood. We eat healthier lower calorie foods and exercise more. The best and safest way for a dog to lose weight is to do the same thing.
That is hard to say. You can fill yourself up with celery, but you will quickly be hungry again. I have my doubts how much the diet foods or adding canned beans or pumpkin do the dog. In many cases, it think it just makes the owner feel better.
A severely overweight dog might need the full portion of the diet food to get all the vitamins and other nutrients. The AAFCO standard calls for 5000 IU/kg vitamin A. A dog eating a kg a day would get the 5000 units it needs. Cut back to half as much food, and it only gets 2500 units. Feeding a kg of a diet food would give it the full 5000 units.
As for the shabby attack on diet food ingredients, dollar bills contain cellulose, but not everything that contains cellulose are dollar bills. To maintain the bulk of the diet food and reduce the calories, it must contain ingredients the dog can’t digest.