Human Foods That Can Kill Your Puppy - What To Avoid
By Amy Heckart
Entering the world of pet ownership can be, for some people, a daunting thing and if you have never owned an animal before, there are a vast number of areas that you need to become exceptionally familiar with right away in order to avoid inadvertently harming your new puppy.
The most important area to immediately focus on is what you feed your puppy. Depending on how you were raised and if you grew up with a pet, you might be considering feeding your puppy table scraps, along with a commercially prepared food.
Recently released studies indicate a rising trend toward pet obesity and you are doing your puppy no favors if you start this unhealthy and unnecessary habit. By offering your puppy foods that have been prepared for human consumption, you saturate the diet with fats (increases the risk of obesity and pancreatitis), sodium (electrolyte imbalances), sugars (weight gain, tooth decay and diabetes), which over time, without fail, lead to health complications.
As an example, many pets suffer from diabetes and the ensuing veterinary bills associated with an ongoing medical condition, not to mention the personal time commitment required on your part as a responsible pet owner, can be unmanageable for a the vast majority of people. This financial burden, along with the emotional toll an illness entails is very avoidable by the simple act of restricting what your puppy is offered to eat.
That being said, relying on commercially prepared puppy and dog food is not a guarantee that your pet is not ingesting undesirable ingredients. Many store bought puppy and dog food, including the top name brands, contain undesirable by-products from rendered animals and vast amounts of fillers such as corn, wheat and soy. Over time, the sheer volume of these ingredients can cause your pet to build up an intolerability to the ingredients and the pain and discomfort they suffer is immense. As a result, many people have turned to preparing their puppies meals using expertly designed home recipes that encompass all of the required nutritional elements required, while the owner has the control and knowledge over everything that is used to prepare the food.
Furthermore, there are definitely food that should NEVER, under any circumstances, be given to a puppy or dog. These include raw fish and eggs. If your pet consumes these items, it can lead to a vitamin B deficiency, as the ability to absorb the vitamin into the bloodstream is diminished. A vitamin B deficiency in your puppy leads to problems with skin condition as well as the animals coat. Specifically, raw eggs can carry salmonella and raw fish, if fed on a regular basis, can lead to seizures and possibly death.
Milk and milk products such as cheese contain an enzyme called lactase. Many adult dogs are unable to tolerate this enzyme and the physical reaction to this intolerance is diarrhea. When an animal experiences diarrhea, you run the risk of dehydration, which can occur very rapidly.
The following may seen like a highly unlikely group of food to offer your puppy, but you'd be surprised what your pet will try to eat. Any onion or garlic items, whether they be raw, cooked or in a powered form contain sulfoxides and disulfides. These two items can cause your pet to suffer from anaemia if ingested with frequency. The entire mushroom family conceal a grouping of toxins that can induce shock and possible death. Tree nuts contain toxins that have been found to damage a dogs digestive and nervous system as well as muscle tissue.
Other foods that reek havoc on a puppies digestive system are potatoes, tomatoes and rhubarb, along with the stems of each of these plants. This is particularly vital information for those of you who have an outdoor garden. If you are planning to leave your puppy in you yard unsupervised, you will need to quadroon off the vegetable patch to avoid your pets getting into trouble.
Leaving cups and glasses within easy access for your pet to lap up the contents may not seem like too bit a deal, unless the contents are alcohol or caffeinated beverages. Alcohol consumption in dogs can quickly spiral into a situation where your pet falls into a coma, or most severely death.
Similarly, with caffeinated beverages, your pet runs the risk of suffering from a heart attack due to substances found in caffeine called theobromine and theophylline. It should also be noted that chocolate also contains caffeine and therefore, these dangerous substances. I'm sure you've all heard the advice that you should never give a dog chocolate, and that is the very convincing reason why.
The list of foods to avoid is much longer than the few items detailed above, but the most effective way to avoid any of the aforementioned difficulties is to avoid feeding your puppy food that has been prepared for human consumption. By doing this you avoid the health related issues, while also limiting undesirable behaviour such as begging for table scraps or snatching food out of peoples hands.
Amy Heckart is an expert in puppy and dog care. For more great information on puppy crate training, visit http://www.puppycaresecrets.org/puppy-crate-training-tips.
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