Pet Food: Treat & Pamper Your Furry Friend the Right Way
Most pet owners understand how important the bond between an animal and a human being can be. Owning a pet provides endless benefits, including unconditional love and emotional support, but above all, your pet can be good for your health as well. Playing with a cat or dog can take your mind away from everyday stress, which is basically mindfulness and is wonderful for your mental health.
To take good care of your pet and keep them happy, active and healthy, you need to consider a few things. You can begin with making your home a pet-friendly space and choose a good and comfortable dog house or cat bed, visiting the vet, and don’t leave them alone for a long time. But the most important contribution you can make to your pet’s health and wellbeing is ensuring their daily nutritional meets are properly met.
Different Types of Pet Food
Feeding your pet a high-quality diet can help maintain their overall health and prevent costly trips to the vet. Signs that your pet has a nutritious diet are clear and bright eyes, a shiny dandruff-free coat, enthusiasm for walks and play and no excess body fat. Feline and canine obesity is a significant health concern and many owners are facing the challenge of maintaining a healthy diet for their furry friends. Dogs and cats have complex nutritional requirements. To achieve best results, you should know that there are four diet types used in the pet food industry – dry foods, canned foods, semi-moist foods and fresh pet foods.
Dry foods are the most economical solution to feed than other forms of food and can remain at room temperature safely for a couple of hours as long as they don’t get wet. Semi-moist foods are more palatable than dry foods, while canned foods are more palatable than both dry and semi-moist foods. They contain more nutrients and pets love them. Fresh pet foods have the highest palatability rating, the ingredients are mostly fresh, whole food items, but still vitamins and minerals are required.
The Importance of Treats
Choosing the right pet food can make all the difference in the health and happiness of your pet. For the latter, owners have always given their pets treats. Traditionally, these were scraps of human foods. But today there are many different types of pet food treats available and you can easily find something that your furry friend loves and pamper them. Apart from showing love and appreciation, pet food treats can also help to reduce stress, improve oral hygiene and improve training results.
For dogs, you can find biscuits in various shapes and colours, crunchy and chewy dehydrated dog treats that have many benefits, as well as pure meat products, including jerky, pig ears, roast lamb bones and tripe stick and even products with no meat content. When it comes to cats, you can choose from a range of treats with poultry of fish, snacks with a crunchy outside and a soft centre and more.
Pet treats are made from various combinations of meat or meat-derived materials with additional ingredients such as vegetables, fruits, cereal flours, oils, fats, additives and more. Jerky products consist mainly of dried and flavoured or pure meat or animal by products. Extrusion, baking and freeze-drying are the techniques used in pet treats preparation.
How to Choose the Best Dog and Cat Food?
From raw dog food to hypoallergenic cat food, it can be a daunting task to decide what’s best for your furry friend. Pet food can be marketed as complete or complementary. Complete means that it contains all the nutrients your pet needs, while complementary means it should be given together with complete food.
When it comes to dog food, there are numerous options – hypoallergenic, vegetarian, kibble, puppy, senior, dehydrated and more. High-quality pet food products tend to contain more meat; however, a mixture of plant and meat protein is important in a diet. The amount of dog food you should give depends on their age, breed, health condition and lifestyle.
Cats choose their food based on smell, texture and how they feel once they digest it. Cats are carnivores and they have to eat meat to stay healthy because a cat’s body needs amino acids, such as taurine, which can be found in fish and meat. If there’s need to change your cat’s diet, start by slowly introducing new food by combining it with the old one for a few days. Cats prefer a few small meals to a large one. They can eat between 8 and 16 times a day, so it’s a good idea to leave food out for them. If you notice your cat is eating too much and starts putting on weight, consider reducing the meals to two meals a day and stop leaving food out.
