The Dog Parent Dispatch — Dog Health, Nutrition & Care | Nom Nom
The Dog Parent Dispatch
Dog health, nutrition, and care.
Practical guidance on the topics dog parents search for most, from digestive health and weight management to training and what's safe to feed and how to understand your dog's behavior.
How To Read Dog Nutrition Labels
The first thing you'll want to look at is the guaranteed analysis at the top of the nutrition label. This tells you the minimum amount of certain nutrients (by weight) within the food.
Facts About Kibble
Understanding a bit about how kibble is made is helpful in assessing whether or not it is something you want your dog to be eating. To produce kibble, a mixture of carbs, plant or animal protein, and fats of various quality (and unspecified sources) are mixed into a paste.
What Is A Raw Dog Food Diet?
A raw dog food diet (as opposed to a cooked dog food diet) is made of ingredients that are uncooked. Typically they are high-meat diets, but this may include toxin-housing organ meats, or leftover parts of the carcass after the rest of the cuts of meat have been removed.
A dog with a huge bone
While dogs don't need carbohydrates to survive, there are many studies that have found impressive benefits of including carbohydrates in a dog's diet, which is why we include them in the food over here at Nom Nom.
What's A Healthy Weight For My Dog?
Determining a dog's healthy weight is not as easy as looking at a chart of average age and breed weights (though that can give you a place to start). As a rule of thumb, a dog at a healthy weight should have a visible waist when you look at them from the side and from above, though we encourage you to talk to your veterinarian when determining an exact number.
Probiotics For Dogs
If your dog is still having loose stools after the first week on Nom Nom, but otherwise acting fine, you may consider adding a probiotic to your dog's diet. Probiotics are strains of live bacteria that assist in normal digestive function and help the overall immune system within the gastrointestinal tract.