One of the most common questions pet owners ask their breeder and veterinarian is What should I feed my dog? Feeding your dog an appropriate amount of a balanced diet is vital to its overall health and well-being. To understand how and what to feed your dog, you need to know what the nutritional requirements of the dog are and how these requirements have developed through biological evolution.

Dog is a member of the scientific order Carnivora, a large group of mammalian animals that share a similar tooth structure. The dietary needs of animals belonging to this order vary. Some members of this group have an absolute requirement for meat in their diet (true carnivores), while others can meet their nutrient requirements through eating plant material (herbivores) or a combination of meat and plants (omnivores).

Dogs and humans are two examples of omnivores. Dog's tooth structure and intestinal tract have become adapted to an omnivorous diet. This means that, under normal circumstances, dogs can meet their nutritional needs by eating a combination of plant and animal foods. Dogs can thrive if they are fed a properly balanced vegetarian diet. However, an all-meat diet would be unbalanced and would not meet all of a dog’s nutritional requirements.

Balanced Diet
A balanced diet is very important to your dog’s physiological growth and overall health. Dogs of different ages have different nutritional requirements. So, how much or how little should you be feeding your lovely pooch? Read on to learn what your dog’s body requires at the different stages of life.

A well-balanced diet must also include an appropriate amount of carbohydrate, protein, fat, vitamins and minerals, some essential amino acids (from proteins), and fatty acids. These components are needed to build and maintain tissue growths, and the necessary amounts vary somewhat with the dog’s various stages of life (puppy, adolescent, adult, pregnancy, senior).

Nutrients Your Dog Needs
Nutrients are substances obtained from food and used by an animal as a source of energy and as part of the metabolic machinery necessary for maintenance and growth. There are the six essential classes of nutrients dogs need for optimum healthy living.

Water
Essential to life, water accounts for between 60 to 70% of an adult dog’s body weight. While food may help meet some of your pet's water needs (dry food has up to 10% moisture, while canned food has up to 78% moisture), dogs must have fresh clean water available to them at all times. A deficiency of water may have serious repercussions for any animals. A 10% decrease in body water can cause serious illness, while a 15% loss can result in death.

Proteins
Proteins are the basic building blocks for cells, tissues, organs, enzymes, hormones and antibodies, and are essential for growth, maintenance, reproduction and repair. Proteins can be obtained from a number of sources including animal-based meats such as chicken, lamb, turkey, beef, fish and eggs (which have complete amino acid profiles) and in vegetables, cereals and soy (but these are considered incomplete proteins).

Please note: Do not give your pet raw eggs. Raw egg white contains avidin, an anti-vitamin that interferes with the metabolism of fats, glucose, amino acids and energy.

Fats
Fats are the most concentrated form of food energy, providing your pet with more than twice the energy of proteins or carbohydrates. Fats are essential in the structure of cells, needed for the production of some hormones, and are required for absorption and utilization of certain vitamins. Fats also provide insulation and protection for internal organs. A deficiency of essential fatty acids (such as linoleic acid) may result in reduced growth or increased skin problems.

Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates provide energy, play a vital role in the health of the intestine, and are important for reproduction. While there is no minimum carbohydrate requirement, there is a minimum glucose requirement necessary to supply energy to critical organs such as the brain. Fibers are kinds of carbohydrates that alter the bacterial population in the small intestine, which can help manage chronic diarrhea in dogs. For dogs to obtain the most benefit from fiber, the fiber source must be moderately fermentable. Some examples of moderately fermentable fibers include brans (corn, rice and wheat) and wheat middlings.

Vitamins and minerals
Micro amounts of vitamins are necessary in dogs for normal metabolic functioning. Most vitamins cannot be synthesized in the body, and therefore are essential to obtain in the diet. Please note that when feeding your dog a complete and balanced diet, it is unnecessary to give a vitamin supplement unless a specific vitamin deficiency is diagnosed by a veterinarian. Due to over supplementation, poisoning due to excess vitamins (hypervitaminosis) is more common these days than vitamin deficiency (hypovitaminosis). Excess vitamin A may result in bone and joint pain, brittle bones and dry skin. Excess vitamin D may result in very dense bones, soft tissue calcification and kidney failure.

Minerals are nutrients that cannot be synthesized by animals and must be provided in the diet. In general, minerals are most important as structural constituents of bones and teeth, for maintaining fluid balance and for their involvement in many metabolic reactions.

Weaning and feeding a puppy
If you’re responsible caring for puppies in the first few months of their lives, you’ll need to be prepared to move them from a diet of mom’s milk to regular puppy food. This process of gradually reducing a puppy’s dependency on his mother’s milk, known as weaning, should generally begin between three and four weeks of age and is ideally completely by the time the puppy is seven to eight weeks.

Puppies receive complete nutrition from their mother’s milk for the first four weeks of life, so there is no need to feed them anything during that time. However, in the event that the mother dog is ill or doesn’t produce enough milk during these four weeks or if the pups are found as orphans—it may be necessary to feed them commercial milk replacer. If you find yourself in this situation, contact your veterinarian for product and feeding recommendations.

After that time, it’s best to let weaning be a gradual process that occurs over several weeks. This allows the mother dog to slowly dry up her milk supply and puppies need time to learn important behaviors from their mother and littermates, including how to interpret signs of dominance, inhibit their own biting habits and submit to more dominant dogs. Puppies generally begin eating puppy food around three to four weeks of age.