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Want to Help Your Senior Dog Stay Healthy?
To keep your senior dog in good shape, serving nutritious meals should be one of your top priorities. With your aging dog’s many health concerns, we understand that it is not easy to plan a meal that is formulated to address its health issues. That being said, allow us to give you tips on different ways to feed your senior dog nutritional meals.
Nourishing Foods for Senior Dogs:
1. Brain Food
Just like us, dogs’ cognitive function deteriorates with age. Sadly, this can also compromise the other systems in their bodies.
But, by feeding your senior dog with meals that are high in omega-3 fatty acids like EPA and DHA, you are providing your dog with its much-needed brain food.
Also, antioxidants help in maintaining a healthy cognitive function and reduces inflammation in older dogs.
Antioxidants are found in fruits and veggies such as dark leafy vegetables, broccoli, tomatoes, and berries. While salmon and trout are rich in omega-3 fatty acids.
A lot of high-quality dog food contains these nutrients but a senior dog would benefit from higher quantities. When selecting dog food, we recommend that you look for the all life stage diet because these have higher amounts of DHA needed by your senior dog.
2. Muscle Food
As your dog gets older, its muscle mass begins to decrease. If this is not addressed, in time, your once active dog would find it too difficult to move around. But you can prevent this from happening by feeding your pet with protein that comes from a good quality real meat.
Examples are cooked beef, poultry, fish, and lamb.
Avoid feeding your pet with meat-by-products or meal meat.
Are you open to the idea of shifting to a raw diet for your senior pet? If served properly, you’d be surprised by the nutritional goodness it provides. Dog safe bones (the one that matches your dog’s size) are a good source of calcium while the organs like the liver are high in protein.
Once you’ve decided to shift to a raw diet for your aging dog, we advise that you add a pinch of pro-biotic to its commercial food to slowly aid in the transition.
3. Tummy Food
Older dogs are more likely to suffer from tummy troubles. This is because your pet’s digestive system is no longer as efficient in breaking down food and in absorbing nutrients.
Is your dog having an irregular bowel movement? Along with flatulence, these two are the most common digestive troubles among senior dogs. What to do? Feed your senior dog with additional fiber.
What are the colorful sources of fiber that you can safely feed your senior dog? Kale, apple, carrots, and pumpkin. But, you also have to remember to practice serving fiber in moderation. Too much of the good thing can result in another kind of health issue.
By integrating the right sources and amount of fiber into your aging dog’s daily diet is something you have to take into account, regardless if you feed commercial food or you prepare dog food at home.
4. Keep your senior dog away from gluten
Gluten is a common name for the proteins that are found in wheat, barley, and rye. What it does is to act as glue so food would maintain its shape. That said, while it is present in many grains, it is not found in certain types of grains like corn and rice.
But, why is gluten bad for your old pet?
Gluten is not a ‘bad guy’ at all, it’s just that there are dogs who are allergic to it. This is called gluten intolerance. Common symptoms are nutrient deficiencies, chronic fatigue, and anemia and you would not want your old pal to go through those symptoms.
Having said that, we recommend that you feed your dog with nutritious gluten and grain-free meal. Fresh fruits and vegetables are also good options.
Conclusion
Your geriatric best friend needs a balanced meal of protein, carbs, fiber, and the right amount of fat. By feeding its body with a nutritious meal, you and your pal will have longer happy and healthy days to come.
Jaden Author’s Bio:
Jaden is a Malaysian author. He graduated from Stamford College Malacca with a degree in business administration but his true passion is raising and working with pets. He began exploring his love for animals almost a decade ago and credits getting a fish tank with bettas and guppies when he was just a child as providing that inspiration.
What began with fish quickly evolved into larger pets. Jaden set his sights on learning more about dogs, cats, and hamsters. Not only does the interest come naturally, but it has also become more than a hobby. He spends much of his time learning as much as he can about raising animals and shares it with his dedicated readers.
It comes as no surprise that dog walking is his favorite hobby. He also devours programming from Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel to increase his knowledge level. His real goal is to provide valuable content to pet owners to assist them in raising their pets right and developing that unbreakable bond that makes having a pet so special.
Jaden currently runs the animal and pet blog mypetience.com, a site dedicated to sharing knowledge and important information regarding raising small pets and other animals.
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