By Did you know that getting “right” treats for puppies and small dogs is crucial for their
- health
- development
- training
Did you know that aafco, the governing volunteer USA organisation dictates global standards for dog food around the world, and that the values for nutrition for puppies are the same as for pregnant dogs? But that these tables values for PROTEIN are very, very low.
Did you know that the reason that commercial dog food companies (selling plant-based kibble) and by extension their vet associates, will strongly recommend that you don’t change a puppy’s diet for the first year of their life.
But that kind of repetition can not only make your puppy be bored with food, but it has psychological effects as well as taste but Atrophy. This atrophy issue is caused by feeding your puppy the same kibble continuously the SAME food, so the taste buds become less responsive over time. In fact the 1700 taste buds (much less than the humans 9000), will lose sensitivity to everything except what is specifically in that brands kibble.
THIS clever yet astonishingly cruel method retunes your dog to only valuing those brands’ specific kibble. The puppy won’t want anything else, even though their enjoyment of food has been purposely deeply decreased. And because kibble has well under 50% meat in it, their natural enjoyment for this necessary protein source (meat and offal) also diminishes.
IF you only feed your puppy kibble, or the same kind of kibble for the first year of its life, it will struggle to enjoy meat-based dog treats that are the most natural thing to this carnivore species. And that is verging on a criminal corruption of the dog species, our apparent ‘best friend’.
So yes, given just this small introduction to the consequences of kibble that most vet puppy schools recommend (off their own shelves) – you can see how meat-based dog treats already fulfil a vital role in addressing the lack of meat in their main diet via the humble natural dog treat (meat based).
NATURAL types of Nutrient-Rich dog Treats for puppies
Puppies are experiencing rapid growth from birth, and have very high energy levels. And that is why the treats you give them should be high in proteins, vitamins and minerals.
1 High quality proteins
This means proteins that are high in absolute amounts, and the kind that carnivores would naturally eat. These are meat and offal-based proteins.
Proof of a dog’s carnivore evolution, besides coming from wolves 20,000 years ago, is that these kind of animal-based foods are HIGHLY BIO-AVAILBLE to them. That means they can extract maximum essential amino acids out of every gram of meat food.
There are nutrition tables you can find the absolute amount of protein for each meat type, as well as drill down to the amount of essential amino acids (ten of them), AND each one of those bio-available.
You will find that the best protein sources are lean meats, fish, and eggs. However, each has a different mix of vitamins and minerals as types of fats (also important in growth and development of your dog). Just make sure that you don’t over feed too many eggs per week and cook them first to ensure that they provide the best nutrition.
2 Calcium-Rich Treats for your puppy:
Many people used to feed dogs and cats milk, until they found out that unless it was from their own species, that they would often react badly to the lactose.
It is true that you can also feed small amounts of dairy products like yogurt (good for probiotics) or cheese to support bone health.
But the most important NATURAL dog treat for puppies who can chew properly are small soft bones. Things like chicken necks, chicken feet have appropriately sized bones in the right calcium to phosphorus ratio. As an adult dog, on a raw diet, dogs should get about 10% of their food by weight as bones they can chew and digest.
The reason that people often use bones is not for nutrition, but for a preoccupier treat – something that owners want the puppy to chew on, rather than the house, shoes, lounge or cords. Just make sure that whatever bone you give your dog is suitable, and that you supervise them, at least until you are sure that they will chew and eat responsibly.
Vitamin-Rich Treats:
This is a major issue in the industry.
We can understand biscuits being fortified, because they are mainly grain based.
But curiously so is most kibble or wet commercial dog food. You would expect that if there was enough meat and ‘plant’ matter in dog food that was high quality, then there would be NO NEED to have vitamin-rich treats.
But if you check your kibble pack, you will usually find that a whole bunch of vitamins and minerals have had to be added to them ONLY because they have to meet the exceptionally high standards of the aafco committee, in America.
Yes Aafco Protein requirements are so low, that dog food makers get away with adding as little as 30% meat to reach their 18% protein minimum requirement. Yet their vitamin and minerals requirement is higher than any natural food that a wolf or domestic dog could eat in the wild.
It almost sounds like low meat requirements save them money, and high vitamin requirements are either because the bland flour is so poor nutritionally OR it creates a great barrier to entry of new dog food entrants trying to compete against these giant factories.
This conflict of information and protectionism makes owners think that dogs are almost herbivores, and need Fruits and vegetables, like carrots and celery in big doses.
But the simple truth is, that if your dog is on a commercial dog food diet, and you believe that your commercial dog food does provide a ‘whole and complete’ meal like their label says, then you definitely don’t need to add any more plant material or separate vitamins and minerals to their treats.
CONCLUSION
Your puppy is going through an extreme growth stage, and critical for that, is feeding the right amount of food (so they don’t grow too quickly or get obese.
BUT also supplementing their dog food with their original food source. The one that is never provided enough in their commercial dog food because it would cost the makers too much money, and they have figured out how to maximise profits, by adding the minimum amount of real meat, to reach the 18% PROTEIN requirement.
For puppies this is 22.5% protein (the growth column in the affco table). But you will see that they also show the minimum levels of each of the TEN essential amino acids that are in that protein that puppies need to be feed to grow healthfully.
Its not a simple matter of just chucking in any protein to reach the 22.5%, it needs to be bio-available (ie meat) and it needs to exceed each of the essential amino acid minimum levels taking into account that bio-available level. For instance, some grains might be 50% for a specific amino acid, while a meat source is 90%. Clearly the high bioavailability of 90% means that almost ALL of that amino acid can be used by your puppy.
And it gets more complex than that. LIMITING AMINO ACIDS, means that some of the components of the protein need to be present in sufficient amounts to allow your puppy to be able to use an essential amino acid.
Unless your puppy has a rare kidney issue, there is no such thing as too much quality protein. Once your dog has used all of the protein it needs, the excess can be used for energy requirements (a better use than feeding your dog carbs). The rest of the protein is excreted as waste.
There are very few reasons behind not feeding your dog organic, or natural single ingredient dog treats!
