The Benefits of Feeding Your Pet High Quality Food

It can be difficult to know as a pet owner what type of food your dog should be getting - is it worth the savings to feed your dog a cheap diet if it causes expensive medical bills later on in his life?

Feed your dog a high-quality diet with appropriate amounts of protein. They are carnivores and are 'designed' to consume animal based proteins, rather than plant based foods. 

If your dog spends most of his days lounging in your condo, don't feed him food with a protein level that is ideal for dogs that herd sheep all day. The money that you will spend on feeding an appropriate quality food will often be money that you save in vet bills later on. 

Of course, I recommend you always check with your veterinarian for the right diet for your dog. Also check with local pet stores. Bone Adventure and Chuck and Don's (to name just a few) have highly qualified staff that know pet food.

Recently, I came across and article written by Dr. Becker on about the troubling potential for an increase in deadly aflatoxins in pet food made with corn-based ingredients. The increased risk is due to extreme drought conditions in the U.S. Midwest. Aflatoxins are highly carcinogenic and they poison the liver and promote tumor development.

And the the plant with the highest incidence of aflatoxin contamination is corn, then peanuts and cottonseed. Certain cereals, oilseeds, spices and tree nuts are other frequently contaminated crops.

It’s also important to know that pets with plant-derived proteins may also contain more harmful toxins than pet foods with traditional fish and meat proteins, according to petfoodindustry.com.

The more educated we are as pets owners, the healthier the pet!