There are so many supplements being marketed toward dogs these days. How can you possibly know which one or ones are the best for your dog? While each dog has his own health, nutrition, and supplemental needs that you should discuss with your vet before adding supplements to your dog’s diet, one veterinarian believes that nearly every dog in the country would benefit from one supplement in particular. Which one would that be? Read on to find out!
Dr. Karen Becker is a holistic, proactive, and integrative wellness veterinarian who offers the most up-to-date information on species-appropriate nutrition, lifestyle choices, and proactive living for Mercola Healthy Pets. She recommends using as many living, raw ingredients in your dog’s diet as possible but recognizes that a raw diet isn’t right for every family.
In her video, “The Supplement Most Needed By Your Pet,” Dr. Becker discusses the importance of enzymes to your dog’s digestive system and why most dogs, including some who are on raw diets, don’t have enough digestive enzymes and suffer from a wide variety of digestive problems as a result. Dogs don’t naturally produce enough enzymes to naturally digest their food. Since the way that wild dogs and wolves get enough enzymes into their diet is from eating the entrails of their prey, there is no good way to add those enzymes into a domestic dog’s diet without a supplement.
Processed commercial dog foods are made using high levels of heat, which kills off any enzymes that would have made it into their food, and most raw diets don’t include entrails, especially since the best source of enzymes is the pancreas, which is illegal to sell in many places. Green tripe can provide some enzymes, but not enough to really help with digestion.
The supplement that Dr. Becker recommends that most dogs receive is a digestive enzyme supplement to aid in digestion. If your dog suffers from gas, acid reflux, belching, bloating, abdominal pain, extremely foul-smelling greasy stool, bad breath, or vomiting, he could likely benefit from a digestive enzyme. Digestive enzymes are particularly critical for dogs that only receive a dry dog food diet (kibble).
If you’d like to learn more about digestive enzymes, and the product that iHeartDogs recommends, click here.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified healthcare professional.
(H/T: Mercola)
via Whisker Therapy