Toppers

Some pet owners give their dog toppers in one form or another, ranging from a portion of wet food to home cooked or maybe table scraps. I would imagine that it would be more common in homes where the pet is fed solely on dry food, maybe to increase palatability.

Why adding human food is so important. Here’s why it is so important to add fresh “human food” to your pet’s kibble is an article by Rodney Habib, pet nutrition blogger. For dogs who are fed solely on dry food, he recommends sometimes replacing some of the usual food with home cooked.

Some people would say that their dry dog food is complete and needs nothing else adding to it. I can see their point but like us, dogs surely benefit by variety and fresh food is more nutritious than processed. Personally, I like to give my dogs some home cooked food. It is a simple dinner of 50% suitable mixed vegetables/fruit such as blueberries and 50% lean protein, usually chicken, fish, egg. Their dry food is reduced by 25%.

I don’t know how common it is to give dogs toppers to dry food but if it is becoming popular, I wonder if dog food companies will catch on and start to produce toppers.

What do you think about using toppers? Look forward to hearing views.

My toppers pretty much mirror what You and Meg said. if she isn’t having a full home cooked meal she will have added veg, avocado and nuts,(occasionally as they are high in fat) blueberries, milled flax seed. I don’t tend to get sardines but she has a little mackerel at times. An egg every Sunday morning, natural yogurt.

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Personally I have found that feeding a small amount of table scraps helps with keeping your dog’s digestive system very adaptive: if I switch food, I can do it quickly with very little disruption… not sure there is any science behind this, but it works for me! ;D
Aside from that, usually I top the kibble with salmon oil, kelp or any other food that supplies iodine as Akitas can have thyroid problems with age.

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