NUTRITION – GROWING HEALTHY PUPPIES
The main aim of a feeding plan for puppies is to ensure that you create a healthy adult dog. This will allow optimal healthy growth, optimize trainability, immune functions and to prevent obesity and developmental orthopaedic disease.
Growth is an extraordinarily complex process, and it involves genetics, nutrition, and environmental influences. In the first six months, puppy’s nutrition’s needs change quickly, and it is therefore, imperative that the nutrients and calories the pup needs from his food are available and correctly balanced for optimal development.
Nutrition plays a role in health and development and affects:
- Immune system
- Body composition
- Growth rate
- Skeletal development.
Feeding puppies, a diet that is high in energy density (energy density is the amount of energy (calories) per gram of food), accelerates their growth rate, whilst feeding lower energy density food slows it down. Examples of high-energy density food are biscuits, peanuts, butter and cheese.
A puppy will, however, still reach the same adult weight no matter if they were fed a high – or low-density diet. Therefore, it is counterproductive to accelerate growth rates, with nutrient-dense food that is beyond the specific dog’s capacity at which the skeleton can properly develop and shape itself.
Growth rates are affected by the nutrient density of a food and on the amount of food being fed. Large and giant breed dogs (they need fewer calories per unit of body weight and mature at a slower rate compared to smaller breed dogs). In comparison, small breed puppies have a faster growth rate and need more energy per unit of body weight compared to adult dogs. Small breed puppy foods also have extra levels of protein, fat, and Vitamin B to help them with the elevated energy levels. Puppies need to be fed to grow at an ideal rate for bone development and body condition rather than at a maximum rate. Therefore, it is imperative to reiterate that feeding for maximum growth increases the risk for skeletal deformities and decrease longevity in dogs.
The best way to confirm if your puppy’s growth rate is healthy you can assess this by its Body Condition Scores (BCS) – (see You Tube video on how to assess BCS at https://youtu.be/tf_-rwxqHYU). Body condition scoring is a visual assessment of an animal’s nutritional status, comparing its ideal shape and showing if the animal is under or overweight. It is a great tool in describing to you the idea of what the ideal weight should be.
All puppies should have their BCS evaluated and reassessed at least every two weeks to adjust amounts fed and thus growth rates. You need to be aware and know how to assess body condition and become more cognizant of what a healthy appearance of a growing puppy should be.
Prevention of obesity is of utmost importance as it is exceedingly difficult then to maintain normal weight once a pup has been overfed. Just like people, when puppies become overweight, it is difficult to return to and maintain normal weight. If overweight and obesity is carried into adulthood, the risks for several diseases are increased – these are hypertension, heart disease, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidaemia, osteoarthritis, heat, and exercise intolerance and decrease immune function.
Feeding Plan
- Always select food with the recommended levels of key nutritional factors, to ensure the selected food has been approved for puppy growth by a credible regulatory agency (e.g. AAFCO).
- Try avoiding free-choice feeding; rather use food-restricted meal feeding, dividing the amount fed into three to four daily feeds, up until 4-6 months, then feed two or more meals after six months. Remember puppies have exceedingly small stomachs so need feeding little and often. A good plan to follow in the early stages is to give food for a period of 10-20 minutes, remove what is left at the end of that time and offer fresh food at the next mealtime, try not to leave food lying around.
- Find out the initial amount to feed from the recommendation on the product package. Just remember these are guidelines or starting points and not as absolute requirement -you might need to adjust accordingly to the puppy in front of you.
- Learn how to perform body condition scoring and then monitor body condition at least every two weeks and adjust the amount fed by 10% increments to maintain a BCS of 2.5 to 3.5.
- Provide regular daily exercise.
- Do not add nutrient supplements if the pet is being fed a ‘balanced’ diet. Supplementation of a ‘complete’ diet can be risky and lead to growth abnormalities, especially in large and giant breeds.
- Fresh supply of clean water must always be available.
- Always chose a diet that is clearly labelled as ‘complete’ for puppy or growth stage of life – do not feed adult dog food to puppies.
- Weigh out the puppy food at the start of the day, to ensure that you give the correct amount of food.
- Underfeeding through the growth phase is healthier than overfeeding and result in the same mature size.
For a diagram for a better understanding of the Body Condition Scare please go online to https://www.aaha.org/ globalassets/02-guidelines/weight-management/weightmgmt_bodyconditionscoring.pdf
Reference for feeding plan: Debraekeleer ,J.Gross,K.Zicker S C. (20010d). FeedinGrowing Puppies: Postweaning to Adulthood. In Hand, Philip, W. Toll. Gillette, RL,. Hand, MS., (eds), Small Animal Clinical Nutrition,5th de. Chapter 18. Mark Morris Institute