The first 6-12 months of a puppy’s life are critical to their lifelong development; it sets the pattern for their future health.
We’re observing our young pup's ancestors by looking at young wolves growing up. Coupling that with modern scientific discoveries about diet, health, and aging, we can produce a realistic, health-promoting evolutionary puppy diet.
By understanding what puppies eat in the wild, you will learn valuable clues, including what a puppy's digestive system is programmed to eat through centuries of evolution.
By studying the eating habits of wolf cubs who are perpetually hungry, subsisting on raw food mainly consisting of bones and scavenging a wide variety of foods, we can conclude the following:
When comparing how we raised wolves and dogs in the 'pre-pet-food' era to our modern methods, we see dramatic changes with traumatic effects on puppy growth. The degree to which current dogs experience ill health reflects biologically inappropriate feeding and exercising methods. Let's look at those biologically inappropriate forms of puppy management so rife today.
Our dogs eat primarily cooked food for the first time in their evolutionary history, a dramatic and biologically unacceptable change. The creation of canned or dry processed food destroys the life-enhancing factors found only in raw food, including enzymes, natural antioxidants, and other anti-degeneration factors.
The vast majority of today’s dog food comprises cooked grain as the most fundamental component of the diet, another dramatic and biologically unacceptable change. Dogs have never in their evolutionary history eaten cooked grain; the health implications can be devastating.
Cooked grain is teamed up with meat meal (with its damaged protein) and rendered fat. Rendered fat from domestic animals is sometimes used, leading to the accidental integration of dangerous chemicals.
Aside from dangerous chemicals, rendered fat contrasts strongly with the healthy fat full of essential fatty acids our dog's ancestors ate. These heat-destroyed components don’t support healthy growth. The meat meal has a minimal relationship to the healthy raw meat eaten by a wild dog.
Refined sugar, salt, chemical colorings, and dyes make the product look like something it is not. Artificial chemical flavorings and flavor enhancers make it taste like something it is not. Chemical antioxidants (carcinogens) ensure the product doesn't become rancid.
Legal constraints on commercial pet foods don’t require them to include vitally important biologically essential antioxidants and anti-degeneration factors in whole raw food. These products negate many of the vital components of a dog’s diet.
Bones
Raw meaty bones are central to the formation of bone disease in pups. Without them, puppies miss the essential nutrients, including calcium and other minerals required for healthy bone formation.
It also means they miss out on jaw exercise, a vital component of the exercise regime designed to grow healthy, disease-free bones and joints.
Vegetables or fruit
The lack of crushed vegetables significantly contributes to the production of degenerative diseases in dogs, including hip and elbow dysplasia. The modern pup no longer eats the gut contents of herbivores or anything like it. As a result, it fails to receive a mass of essential nutrients essential for bowel and overall health.
Combat this approach with the BARF Dietwith top-quality whole food ingredients.
Dog's ancestors have successfully grown, thrived, and reproduced using the BARF Diet without special foods for several hundred thousand years. As a pet owner, this seemingly leaves you with two choices:
The modern environment of biologically inappropriate dog food, excessive protein, excessive calories, fast growth rates, calcium supplements, excessive exercise and bone disease.
or
The time-honored raw food way, which produces healthy longevity, abundant reproduction, and brilliant health.
New pet owners are often concerned about puppy health, notably digestion issues, musculoskeletal development, and coat/skin condition. These problems are mainly nutrition-related, commonly caused by the continuous ingestion of heat-processed, commercial pet food diets.
Puppy growth patterns indicate that ingesting high levels of soluble carbohydrates found in most commercial pet foods causes irregular growth spurts at different intervals. Sporadic growth spurts mean muscle and bone development are out of sync, which can generate significant stress on your pet’s skeletal structure. If the muscles, tendons, cartilage, and bone develop at different rates, you may deal with hip dysplasia, arthritis, and other musculoskeletal conditions. Proper skeletal development is especially vital for large and giant dog breeds.
With a raw diet for puppies, like the BARF Diet, you can slow down growth spurts, allowing a better pace for muscle and bone development and minimizing the risk of developmental issues.
Some pet owners wonder if we offer a puppy formula, maintenance diet, or senior formula. Our diets are formulated for all life stages. The unique advantage of the BARF Diet is your dog gets the proper balance of nutrients from the SAME diet regardless of age.
Based on your pet’s nutritional needs during various life stages, only the feeding amounts must be adjusted, not the formula.
Puppies require more food than adults as they need the extra energy for proper body development. As your dog ages and activity level decreases, the feeding amount will also decrease. Around the 12-month stage, adjust the serving portions to avoid long-term weight issues.
At BARF World, our products mimic the evolutionary blend found in nature. We offer convenient, complete, and balanced raw food diet blends for a natural, biologically appropriate diet.
Try a twice-daily feeding approach with BARF Diet as a morning meal and again in the evening.
Feeding your pet the BARF Diet offers essential nutrients for a long, healthy, happy life. Look through our products and reach out to our team if you have any questions about the BARF Diet for puppies, reach out to our team of Raw Pet Food Specialists for support.
Now that you understand our products’ ingredients, let your pet try them. Shop through the best raw dog food available and give your pet nutrients to support their bodies and minds.
