Feeding Your Dog Can Be Easy

Wherever there are two or more dog owners gathered together there will be arguments. One person will tell you that he has never fed his dog anything but dog biscuits, and look at him! He's in perfect health. You look at the animal and he is indeed in the pink.
General remarks...

FEEDING is one of the most controversial subjects in dogdom. Wherever there are two or more dog owners gathered together there will be arguments. One person will tell you that he has never fed his dog anything but dog biscuits, and look at him! He's in perfect health. You look at the animal and he is indeed in the pink. Another owner will exhibit a perfect specimen to you, pointing out that he was raised, man and boy, on nothing but prepared dog foods. Others will attribute the excellent health of their pets to diets of vegetables only, others to meat only, others to milkless and eggless diets only, etc., etc. I myself have seen many healthy dogs, who were brought up on spaghetti only, and just last summer I saw a litter of perfectly healthy six-month-old puppies who had been raised on what is as lethal a diet for dogs as I know of-fried pancakes and nothing else. In my Ten years of treating dogs, however, I have found that healthy dogs brought up on such diets are far in the minority, and I have found that very few of them ever go wrong on meat, milk, toast or cereal, and a few vegetables.

Proper feeding is unquestionably the most important single factor in raising healthy dogs, but in undertaking to tell you how to do it, I realize that I have my hands full. Dogs are so rampantly individualistic in every way under the sun, and particularly in the matter of feeding, that it's almost impossible to prescribe for you a set of rules and diets that would precisely take care of every individual dog. I meet so many bewildered dog owners during the course of a week, however, who are so appallingly misinformed on dog feeding generally, that I have few qualms, if any, in listing for your guidance diets which are admittedly blanket. They may or may not be correct in every detail for your own dog, but they are not so far wrong in any instance as to cause any real harm to a dog, and certainly they're far safer for the amateur dog owner to follow than some of the absurd advice that I hear bandied about every day

Two dogs, the same age and the same size, two dogs out of the same litter, in fact, will often differ considerably in their feeding requirements. One may need a pound of meat a day and the other a half pound. One may have difficulty in digesting vegetables while the other one thrives on vegetables. Eggs may agree with one and not with the other. One may get fat on these diets and the other lose weight, but these are all matters that a little common sense can remedy.

If certain foods don't agree with your dog, don't give them to him.

If your dog gets too fat, it may be that he's not getting enough exercise. It may be that he's one of those demon assimilators who converts every crumb of food into fat and energy, in which case he needs less food. It may be that he has worms; worms sometimes give a dog a bloated look that the novice may mistake for fat. It may be that he has some glandular trouble. But the chances are nine out of ten that he's being overfed. Overfeeding is the big error nearly all dog owners make. The normal healthy puppy is food-crazy. He'll undoubtedly beg and plead for more food than I have advised, but I want to warn you that even if you give in to his pleas (and dog owners are notoriously weak in arguments with puppies over food), he'll still complain and go around telling the neighbors you're starving him to death.

If in following these diets, you find that your dog is losing weight, it's possible that he needs more food than I have indicated. It's more likely, however, that he needs an examination by a veterinarian. He may be suffering from worms that are robbing him of his nourishment; he may have a liver disturbance of some kind, tuberculosis, a foreign body lodged in his insides, or half a dozen other troubles that could cause underweight. Underweight or loss of weight in a dog should always be looked into because cases of simple underfeeding are not common among well-cared-for dogs.