Food, Glorious Food

The answer on how to serve your dog food may be a glaringly obvious one but if you are feeding all or part of your dogs food in a bowl, only small or medium dogs should eat with their bowl directly on the floor. Dogs of Labrador height or larger should be fed with their bowl at shoulder height and on a stand. This can aid the movement of the food to the dogs stomach and prevent gastric dilation.

Unlike humans who have to chew their food to get the digestive juices flowing, the dogs digestive juices do not start to flow until the food reaches the stomach. Dogs therefore gulp their food down and as a consequence take in large amounts of air as they eat.

With the larger dog if his food is placed on the floor then the food has to travel upwards first before it heads downwards to the stomach and so he takes in even more air. For similar reasons it is always better to feed your adult dog twice a day rather than give him one huge meal. Puppies of course will be fed between 4 and 6 times a day to begin with. If you are feeding your dog a natural diet then most of the dogs food will be outside on the ground and the dog will lie down to eat it.,save the feeding stand for the raw meat,vegetables etc.

With regard to giving your dog Tit bits, remember that dogs cannot digest refined sugar. Do not give them biscuits, or snack food made for human consumption. Tit bits should be reserved for training exercises where they should be the branded type or small pieces of apple or cheese. NEVER give your dog chocolate that is designed for humans and that goes for dark chocolate especially. It contains a substance called Theo bromine which is a bitter white crystalline alkaloid related to caffeine and Cocoa. It is a heart stimulant and could cause your dog serious problems. Theo bromine is also found in cocoa shell mulch, the type of mulch that is used for many pot plants so be aware that any potted plants that you buy may also present a real danger to your dog.

So how much food do we feed our puppy or adult dog.

As a rough guide he should be having about 20 percent of his total target body weight in food over one week. To begin with use your common sense and either decrease or increase the amount depending on hos the puppy is growing or the dogs weight. Once a dog is fully grown you will have to level out the amounts and may have to reduce them.