Doggy Dieting
Posted by Chris Chandler on
Uh oh! Buddy’s on a diet. If you’ve ever lived with a Lab before, you know their fondness for food. Buddy is no exception. Or perhaps I should say he is exceptional in his pursuit of food. We have one dog who’s a slow and reluctant eater. Buddy often eats her food when she walks away from it and I’m not paying attention. He’s also not above counter surfing. With kids leaving bags of cereal out and my own occasional forgetfulness, we inadvertently provide undeniable temptation and an abundance of calories.
Besides correcting our own habits that lead to unneeded calories in Buddy’s diet, our vet recommended decreasing the amount of kibble and adding fiber to help him feel full and satisfied while reducing calories.
According to “Fiber: A Friendly Food for Your Dog’s Health” in the October/November 2019 issue of Dogster, fiber is beneficial to our dog companions (and it’s good for human diets too!). “Fiber is a type of carbohydrate found in the cell walls of plants,” explains Diana Laverdure-Dunetz, MS, the article’s author. Lacking the enzyme to break down the bonds in this fiber, humans and animals pass it through their digestive systems largely intact. Fiber offers a number of benefits such as controlling diarrhea, lowering cholesterol, helping stabilize blood sugar, contributing to colon health, optimizing weight reducing calorie intake while providing a feeling of fullness, reducing constipation and promoting health gut bacteria.
There are two types of fiber, soluble and insoluble. They each offer their own benefits so dogs and people do best when they consume both.
To help Buddy on his diet, we’ve added cooked green beans to each of his meals while reducing his dry food and we are more careful about the amount of treats we offer him. If you decide to add more fiber to your dog’s diet, make the change gradually to avoid digestive upset. Your vet can best advise you on adjusting your dog’s diet.
The article mentioned above provides a nice list of “Friendly Fiber-Rich Foods” divided into a list of foods high in soluble and insoluble fiber.
For the full article: https://www.dogster.com/dog-food/fiber-a-friendly-food-for-your-dogs-health.