Photo courtesy of Heather Green Photography
Most pet parents are understandably confused about what to feed their four-legged child. Commercial pet food companies spend millions of dollars creating packaging that has beautiful pictures of meat, vegetables and corn floating about. Advertisements abound on television and in magazines, spouting claims of health and happiness. Once consumers understand just how a dog’s digestive system works, however, they will be much more equipped to wade through the claims and get to the meat of the issue.
Dogs are carnivores, meaning that they eat primarily meat. Although they can eat other types of food, they don’t have the teeth of an omnivore. Omnivores are mammals, including humans, that thrive eating both meat and plant sources. Carnivores have sharp teeth designed to tear raw meat while omnivores have flat molars designed to grind and chew plant materials. This is a very important point because the majority of commercially processed, inexpensive dog foods have a very high percentage of carbohydrates in them. Nature clearly did not design dogs to eat many carbohydrates except perhaps for the partially digested stomach contents of their prey.
While humans begin the digestive process in the mouth using digestive enzymes in saliva, dogs don’t begin to digest their food until it hits their stomach. The stomach is a strong, muscular organ that mixes the food with hydrochloric acid, digestive enzymes and mucus, which the stomach lining secretes to protect the stomach tissue. The food is held in the stomach until this initial digestion is complete and the food becomes a liquid consistency - similar to potato soup.
Again, this is an important point because the less moisture a dog has in his diet, the longer the food will stay in the stomach, mixing with hydrochloric acid and losing valuable nutrients. The total digestion time of raw food is generally 4-6 hours while dry food may take 10-12 hours to go through a dog’s digestive track.
The “soup” is then pushed out of the stomach and into the small intestine. Further digestion takes place here with more enzymes added from the pancreas and liver. The absorption of nutrients takes place in the small intestine. From there, the large intestine contains bacteria designed to break down any remaining fiber. If a dog has is clearing the room because of gas, chances are he is not digesting the plant material in his food.
The large intestine is mainly designed to absorb moisture so the stool becomes formed. If a dog has loose stools, the addition of pureed pumpkin will also help to absorb moisture in the large intestine, firming up the stools.
Dogs can obviously survive on a wide variety of diets, including those heavy in carbohydrates. The question is whether those dogs are thriving. Ideally a dog’s diet should consist primarily of fresh meat that has lots of moisture. There are lots of wonderful “grain-free” kibble formulas on the market these days including Wellness Core, Nature’s Variety Instinct, Natura’s EVO, Taste of the Wild and Canidae’s Grain Free Formulas. Topping those diets with a dollop of good quality canned food or raw meat will add necessary moisture and help the food pass through the stomach’s acid bath more quickly - giving the dog’s digestive system a better chance to utilize those high-quality nutrients.
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