If you feed kibble to your dog or cat please first & foremost feed the best quality food you can afford. Pet foods sold in big box retail stores or in 90% of groceries stores are not usually high quality. Pet Boutique, or private Pet store type stores usually sell the higher quality foods, most high quality foods are not advertised on TV either. Lately I have seen a lot of TV ads for foods claiming to be better for your pets. For one brand I personally looked online at the ingredients & contacted to company to ask about one of the ingredients origin (it was fish & I asked if farm raised or wild caught fish) & the responds was something like we can give up our ingredients list. Well guess what it is on the bags of food, by law, so they already do. I still got my answer, because if it was wild caught as it should be then they would proudly say so.
I will be honest, I feed a kibbled food, do I wish I had the finances to feed my dogs raw food, yes, but I don’t. Do I wish I could feed dehydrated food or air dried dog food, yes, but it is not in my budget at this time. I had my Veterinarian muscle test the food I feed my dogs & it tested well.
I believe the best source for Vitamins & minerals are fresh foods, better than Vitamin supplements which can be synthetic in some cases. I add fruits & vegetables to my dogs food bowls. They enjoy it & I feel better knowing they are getting fresh foods. A also will add a little Organic Bone Broth (no sodium or low sodium)to their food bowls. I cut up fresh food for my birds so I will put some aside for my dogs. I am also a Pescatarian so I eat a lot of vegetables & fruit so I share it with my dogs sometimes.
Some of the foods I share with my dogs are:
- Sweet Potatoes (baked or boiled)
- Broccoli (lightly Steamed)
- Cauliflower (lightly steamed). My dogs like the core & have stolen them out of the compost more than once.
- Raw carrots (in moderation as it is a natural sugar)
- Raw egg (once every 2 weeks)
- Bell Peppers (raw or lightly steamed)
- Zucchini (raw)
- Yellow squash (raw)
- Bananas (in moderation because it is a natural sugar).
- Apple (in moderation)
- Blueberries.
- Skin from my salmon ( I don’t care for it, but they love it).
- Spinach
- Green Beans (great if a dog is overweight, feed 8 ounces beans to replace each 1/2 cup of food you don’t feed at each meal. You can use canned beans with low sodium for the green bean diet.
For cats you can add:
- Blueberries
- cantaloupe
- watermelon
- cooked carrots
- green beans
- Steamed broccoli
- apple
- cucumber
- asparagus
- peas
- zucchini
Always feed anything new in small portions especially when first adding a new food to their diet. Most animals aren’t allergic to these foods, but their digestive track may not be used to it. Monitor your pet closely to be sure no digestive issues.
I think my dogs enjoy the fresh foods added to their food dishes 2-4 times a week. I add boiled sweet potatoes probably more than other things, because I am cutting them up for my birds & I boil the rest for my dogs.
I hope this post has given you some ideas of things to add to your pets food bowl even if you feed the best dry dog food on the market today. I believe all of us like some variety in our diets & our pets are no exception.
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Echoing Great Pet Care 