For optimal health balanced diets are important. If you were to go to your doctor and tell them you ate fast food every day they would likely give you a lecture on the importance of balance in your diet. Providing a balanced diet for your dog is similarly important; perhaps even more so. Your pup probably eats the same meal every day so making sure their dog food is balanced is of upmost importance.
All raw dog foods are not created equal. In fact finding a balanced raw diet for dogs can be a bit of an adventure. There’s a movement in the raw dog food space to reduce ingredient numbers on packages for marketing reasons. The common perception being the less ingredients the better. This simply is not true – the less ingredients you have in your raw dog food, the less opportunity there is for those ingredients to provide 100% of the micro and macro nutrients your dog needs to thrive.
One way to tell if you’re purchasing a balanced raw diet for dogs is to check if it is an AAFCO approved raw dog food. In truth, AAFCO does not approve dog foods but rather issues nutrition guidelines for companies to follow. So, you may also see a message like: Meets AAFCO Guidelines For All Life Stages. Either one of these messages are an indicator that the company put time in to make sure that they created a balanced raw dog food that goes beyond the basics.
There are a few raw dog foods out there that claim to meet AAFCO standards but do not have a vitamin and mineral mix added to their recipe. We advise customers to stay away from them (we certainly wouldn’t feed it to our dogs). Over time the vitamin content of fruits and vegetables break down, even when frozen. Without the addition of additional vitamins and minerals in your raw dog food there’s no guarantee that your frozen raw dog food will have the same nutritional value six months after production.
With Acabonac Pet we consulted with pet nutrition experts to create our 100% complete and balanced raw diet for dogs. Using a bounty of fresh vegetables, fruits, seeds and meat plus a well-rounded vitamin and mineral mix to make sure your dog has everything they need to thrive. If you have more questions or would like help getting started, please give us a call at 631-731-2520. We’re happy to chat!