Healthy
Digestive Issues in Dogs
We know that digestive sensitivities in our dogs can range from mild symptoms like an upset tummy through to Inflammatory Bowel Disease.
It is important to remember that these issues are not because we have done anything wrong with what we have fed our dogs. It is simply that some dogs may be sensitive to particular ingredients.
Help is at hand though! In combination with necessary medications we have several key features in our Dogs Delight dog food which may help. Firstly, it is important to understand what happens during normal digestion and what can go wrong.
During normal digestion, the body breaks down whole proteins into their smaller parts (amino acids) and these are absorbed across the wall of the intestine and delivered to the body via the blood. The body can then use them for all the good things they do like supporting growth and repair. If the gut is inflamed, as can be the case in some sensitive dogs, whole proteins can find their way across the wall of the small intestine and can arrive whole into the large intestine too. This is a big problem. These whole proteins can trigger an immune response (an allergic reaction). In other words, the dog can become sensitised to the type of proteins that have managed to seep through. This may have been chicken, beef etc. You may find that your dog reacts to certain foods with a skin flare up or loose stool. This shows us that the body is seeing them as an invader and has launched an immune response.
If we have a sensitive dog we can try to prevent the body becoming sensitised to certain proteins in four key ways:
- Choose one of our foods with only one type of meat or fish. This is known as a ‘single source protein’. Many dog foods contain two or three types of meat. If they contain ‘meat meal’ that is even worse because we really don’t have any idea of the types of meat protein present in the food. By choosing a food with a single source of protein there is less chance of the body having a reaction to it.
- Choose one of foods with a meat or fish that your dog has not had before. These are called ‘novel proteins’ and include fish, turkey, venison, duck or rabbit etc. Again there is less chance of the dog reacting because they have not previously been sensitised to them. The most commonly used sources of protein in dog foods include chicken and beef.
- Our foods contain high quality protein which means they offer the full 10 essential amino acids. They are called essential because dogs cannot make them so they need them from their diet. If a protein contains all of the essential amino acids it is termed a high quality protein and is well digested. This means there is less chance of whole proteins getting across the wall of the intestine and so less chance of an allergic reaction.
- All of our foods contain a single-source of carbohydrate. We use sweet potato which is easily digested and means all of our foods are grain free