Dog Nutrition First
Nutrition and Behaviour Relationship
Before changing your dog's behaviour, let's look at what's in their bowl.
Just as we humans can become tired, irritable or feel out of sorts when our diet isn't meeting our nutritional needs, dogs can also be affected by what they eat. Nutrition is fundamental to health and wellbeing, and it deserves to be one of the first things we consider when trying to understand a dog's behaviour.
Before assuming your dog has behavioural challenges, let's take a closer look at their diet. Are they receiving the essential vitamins, minerals and nutrients their body needs? Is their food providing adequate nutrition for their age, lifestyle, activity level and individual health requirements?
At Gourmet Pawprints, we believe understanding nutrition is the first step towards making better choices for your dog. Looking at nutrition early can also help identify dietary inadequacies and support long-term health, giving your dog the best opportunity to enjoy a healthy, active and adventurous life.
Our nutritional assessment combines expert knowledge and qualifications with evidence-based nutritional principles to give you meaningful information, practical recommendations and greater confidence in the choices you make for your dog.
It's not about how much food. It's about what's in the food.
How many grams of food should your dog eat each day? It's a question commonly answered using your dog's weight and the feeding guidelines on a food packet. But is that enough?
How do you know what nutrients are actually in that food? Is it nutritionally balanced? Does it provide the vitamins, minerals, protein, fats and energy your individual dog requires? Simply measuring food by weight doesn't tell you whether your dog is receiving the right nutritional balance.
Understanding your dog's daily energy requirements, measured in kilojoules, gives us a more meaningful starting point. We can then consider the nutritional composition of their diet and how it meets their individual requirements.
Just as we consider our own energy needs, activity levels, age and life stage when planning what we eat, shouldn't we give our dogs the same consideration?
Let's look beyond the kibble.
Kibble is one of the most common ways we feed our dogs, but how much do we really know about how it's made and what's in it? Most dry kibble is manufactured using extrusion, a process involving heat, pressure and processing to create the familiar dry pellets.
Processing can affect certain nutrients, which is why manufacturers may need to add vitamins and minerals back into the finished product. The carbohydrate content and overall nutritional composition also vary considerably between brands and formulations.
The important question isn't simply whether food is processed or unprocessed. It's whether the finished food provides the nutrients your dog actually needs, in appropriate amounts and proportions.
At Gourmet Pawprints, we believe dog parents deserve to understand what they're feeding, how it meets their dog's nutritional requirements and where improvements may be beneficial.
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In the spirit of reconciliation Gourmet Pawprints acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.
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