WELL-BEING | 7 REASONS WHY YOUR DOG NEEDS SUPPLEMENTS

Vit­am­in sup­ple­ments are a very import­ant com­pon­ent of our indi­vidu­al and fam­ily health. This is because we can­not get every nutri­ent in the right pro­por­tion from the food we eat. There­fore, tak­ing sup­ple­ments helps to bal­ance the food nutri­ents required by our body.

How­ever, this art­icle addresses the bene­fits of using sup­ple­ments on your dogs and not on humans. In as much as they are pets, they also require some vital nutri­ents which might be lack­ing in their meals. Using dog sup­ple­ments helps to aug­ment any miss­ing vit­am­in in your pet’s daily diet.

Like in humans, food sup­ple­ments serve dif­fer­ent pur­poses at dif­fer­ent levels. These sup­ple­ments are meant to be used based on the life stage of your dog. This will help to move it through its trans­ition pro­cess with ease, from puppy to can­ine.

Are you begin­ning to see why your pet needs sup­ple­ments as much as humans do? Read on and dis­cov­er sev­en reas­ons why you should get your pet a sup­ple­ment right away. Are you a new pup own­er? Why not read this art­icle to know what to feed your dog at each stage?

Bene­fits of Dog Sup­ple­ments

Food vit­am­ins are essen­tial when it involves your pet’s health, but we can­not over­look the fact that it doesn’t replace a prop­er dog diet. It doesn’t also replace oth­er things like exer­cises, routine, love, care, play­time, good food, clean water, etc. The fol­low­ing are some of the bene­fits of dog sup­ple­ments:

1. Provides Import­ant Nutri­ents

Most pro­du­cers of dog food tend to claim that your pup won’t need extra nutri­ents after tak­ing their products. How­ever, this is not cor­rect because dog diets require addi­tion­al vit­am­ins to help boost those got­ten from the food they con­sume. Cer­tain vital nutri­ents may be lost dur­ing food pre­par­a­tion.

Fur­ther­more, veter­in­ari­ans con­firm that using the prop­er sup­ple­ment in the right amount will not only boost food effi­ciency but cov­er up for any left-out nutri­ents. How­ever, we must under­stand that when these vit­am­ins are con­sumed in excess, they may be harm­ful to the dog’s health.

2. Boosts Immunity

When pets are not prop­erly cared for, they are prone to vari­ous ail­ments. Dis­eases such as inflam­ma­tions, dia­betes, heart dis­eases, and osteoarth­rit­is can affect your pet’s immune sys­tem. How­ever, provid­ing a bal­anced diet for them reduces their risk of get­ting affected eas­ily. Also, sup­ple­ments, along with reg­u­lar exer­cises and a qual­ity diet, can help your pup’s abil­ity to res­ist these ail­ments through its life stages.

3. Boosts Nutri­ent Absorp­tion Rates

Most dog foods do not have the basic blocks of diets that are rich in nutri­ents. They also do not have the path­ways to improve the very low rates of absorp­tion of essen­tial com­pounds. How­ever, the pro­tein-based sys­tem of deliv­ery in sup­ple­ments helps to optim­ize your pet’s con­sump­tion of import­ant com­pounds such as chon­droitin. You can check out https://www.dvm360.com/view/joint-supplements-dogs-helpful-vs-hype to read more about chon­droitin for dogs.

4. Improves Skin Health

Many dogs face issues like hair loss and skin irrit­a­tion which could be a very big prob­lem. These could be caused by vari­ous factors such as reac­tions to the envir­on­ment, food, and water. How­ever, pet own­ers can handle this issue by using coat-spe­cif­ic vit­am­ins. Products that con­tain fish oil, amino acids, and biot­in are vital for hand­ling com­mon issues like hot­spots, fungal infec­tions, envir­on­ment­al aller­gies, bac­teri­al infec­tions.

5. Helps The Dog To Age Grace­fully 

Dogs of vari­ous ages require dif­fer­ent nutri­ents. As a res­ult, sev­er­al life-stage for­mu­las are cre­ated to meet the needs of your pet in their dif­fer­ent ages. Depend­ing on their ages, your dog requires sup­ple­ments for vari­ous pur­poses.

For example, pup­pies require more assist­ance with growth, strength, and cog­nit­ive devel­op­ment. A mature dog on the oth­er hand will require one for body res­tor­a­tion, main­ten­ance of healthy joints, and inflam­ma­tion relief. There­fore, using age-spe­cif­ic sup­ple­ments aims at redu­cing the rate at which your dog ages, thereby, keep­ing them in form. This requires start­ing while they are young.

6. Sus­tains Prop­er Diges­tion

Some bac­teria in the body are bene­fi­cial. A good example is pro­bi­ot­ics. They are found with­in the digest­ive parts of liv­ing beings. Pro­bi­ot­ics help to mon­it­or the devel­op­ment of bac­teria that are harm­ful as well as bal­ance mood and bowel move­ments.

Also, pro­bi­ot­ic vit­am­ins can be taken by both humans and dogs. How­ever, they are more effect­ive when prop­erly mixed with sol­uble fiber. This com­bin­a­tion helps the good bac­teria found in your pet to grow. Sup­ple­ments that com­bine pre­b­i­ot­ics with sol­uble fiber are called syn­bi­ot­ics.

Addi­tion­ally, ill­nesses such as diarrhea and stom­ach upset can be pre­ven­ted using a syn­bi­ot­ic sup­ple­ment. It can also improve water absorp­tion, stop bad breath, and work on irrit­able bowel dis­order. You can find vari­ous brands of syn­bi­ot­ics online. To be sure of what you are get­ting, you can the guide on products like Holista­pet sup­ple­ments to get more help­ful inform­a­tion.

7. Bet­ter Cog­nit­ive Func­tion

Vit­am­ins like anti­ox­id­ants have been found to improve the learn­ing pro­cess of dogs with­in a time frame of two weeks. Adding vit­am­ins like this could assist in improv­ing your pet’s cog­nit­ive abil­ity over time. Some vit­am­ins that you can use for this pur­pose include vit­am­in C, coen­zyme, vit­am­in E, L‑Carnitine. Com­bin­ing this with a prop­er diet, exer­cise, and play can reduce the aging rate of your pet’s cog­nit­ive func­tion.

Con­clu­sion 

Our pets are like our com­pan­ions and their health should be import­ant to us. As much as we show them love and care, and provide good meals for them, we also need to include some sup­ple­ments. This will enable them to get some nutri­ents that might be absent in their meals. Remem­ber that a healthy dog is a happy dog.

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Rishma Dhaliwal

Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds
Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

About Rishma Dhaliwal

Rishma Dhaliwal
Rishma Dhaliwal has extensive experience studying and working in the music and media industry. Having written a thesis on how Hip Hop acts as a social movement, she has spent years researching and connecting with artists who use the art form as a tool for bringing a voice to the voiceless. Currently working in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media knowledge to I am Hip Hop and other projects by No Bounds.