How fruit affects your dog's digestion
What fruit can your dog eat and what to avoid
Generally, I recommend feeding only small amounts of fruit, definitely less than five percent, because dogs usually eat only small amounts of fruit in nature. Obviously local, organic and pesticide-free fruit is ideal whenever possible.
The following fruits contain the most pesticides: conventional apples, strawberries, nectarines, peaches, grapes and, believe it or not, blueberries. To keep your dogs healthy and well, I suggest you either feed organic fruit or don't feed it at all.
Why should fruit be fed separately from protein?
The rule of thumb is to feed fruit at least one hour before feeding meat or other proteins and a minimum of three hours after a protein meal because fruit digestion on its own is fast. When you feed fruit with protein it sits in the stomach much longer, which may lead to undesirable fermentation and production of a small amount of alcohol. So, if you see your dog stumbling and wobbling around the house like a drunken sailor, you fed too much fruit with protein! I am just kidding, but the core of this message is to feed fruit and protein separately.
Almost all fruit is safe to feed separately from protein, except grapes and raisins.
Raisins and grapes are toxic to dogs
To some, it may be a surprise that grapes and raisins are toxic to dogs. Their ingestion can cause kidney failure. Never feed your dog raisins and keep them out of reach of your dog. In the past, I wrote a blog on how to deal with raisin toxicity, however, I hope that you will not need to use it.
Is there anything missing in your dog’s food?
People often ask me, if their dog’s food is complete. The answer is NO. Humans have been producing and growing food in ways that nature never intended. In nature nutrients get recycled locally back in the soil through feces and organism decay. However, because most food is transported over long distances, most soils are seriously depleted of minerals and other nutrients, which is reflected in the entire food chain. Even most organic food is likely to miss essential nutrients.
In real life, it is impossible to measure all nutrient and mineral levels and you don’t really need to. All you have to do is to provide your dog with wholesome, natural supplements that are not synthetic. Perhaps you didn’t even know that a vast majority of supplements on the market are synthetic, made of coal, crude oil and other chemically produced ingredients.
The body knows the difference between chemicals made in a lab and real food the same way you would know the difference between an organic apple and a plastic imitation.
Here is a list of natural supplements that you should consider for any dog to ensure a healthy and long life.
© Dr. Peter Dobias, DVM
