Alison Daniel, pet nutritionist and Co-Founder of Din Dins (a range of natural, nutritional pet supplements) offers her comments on 'The truth about your dog's food' and shares her advice for owners looking to ensure they provide their dogs with the best possible nutrition.

A dog’s physical health could be in jeopardy if fed a diet lacking in nutrients, vitamins and minerals.

Signs of poor nutrition range from physical issues such as ear infections to skin problems, dandruff, poor digestion and unpleasant odours; to mental symptoms including a lack of focus, scavenging or hyperactivity.

Containing huge amounts of salt, sugar, oils and fats, as well as being a contributing factor to behavioural issues, pet ‘junk’ food is being held partly responsible for a rise in pet obesity. 

Ingredients such as meat digest, animal derivatives, wheat gluten, corn, and artificial flavourings, provide little nourishment. This can slow down your dog’s digestion and make them feel sluggish, eventually leading to bad health and disease.” 

Alison’s Advice For Dog Owners – Top Things To Avoid:

• If the price is cheap or the food smells bad, this usually means the ingredients are poor

• Carbohydrate such as brewers rice, corn, grain fermentation products, maize and soy flour. The ingredients panel on your dog food should not display cereal as its first ingredient as meat is the most important for your dog’s nutrition

• Corn gluten and wheat gluten are used to raise the protein content and bind pet food. These are biologically inappropriate and can cause food intolerance

• Meat meal, bone meal (unless ethically sourced), offal meal, or digest, meat by-products, fish by-products and meat derivatives. These really aren’t meat at all

Alison’s Advice For Owners – Top Things To Look For:

• Nutritional panels display ingredients in order of volume so always choose food that has meat at the top of the list
• Good essential fats such as fish oil and flaxseed oil rather than vegetable fat or animal fat are always preferable
• Pick natural preservatives such as tocopherol (Vitamin E) or ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) and not synthetic E numbers

Alison’s Recommended Approach to Feeding Dogs:

A varied diet is best and changing protein sources is key as the immune system becomes reactive to any one protein or food if fed day in / day out.

Owners should select ingredients they understand (such as duck, venison, vegetables and natural preservatives) and from sources they trust. If treating dogs, select natural options such as carrot, apple or venison strips. A raw food diet is not for everyone but the results can be amazing.

Providing your dog with a BARF (Bones and Raw Food) diet, packed with raw, organic and natural ingredients will help many of the symptoms that can lead to an eventual demise dog health.

For owners seeking to further support their dog’s health and immunity, the Din Dins range of supplements have been developed to make this process quick and easy and have been proven to significantly improve dog health in just three weeks.

To find about more about the Din Dins range of products visit www.dindins.co.uk