As of last Friday, January 18th, there wasn’t much of a change in Zig’s weight. Yesterday she was down about half a pound! Since my last post we’ve been through a package of Nature’s Variety Venison patties and we’re now onto some Natural Pet Pantry ground buffalo mixed with Sojos Europa. So far she’s loving it all!
Dogs, just like humans, need digestive enzymes to break down their food into manageable chyme to be processed and absorbed by the large intestine. Pretty much anything that eats has a certain amount of digestive enzymes inside already as mother nature’s way of making sure that food is going to get digested. But we don’t have ALL of the digestive enzymes we need. To provide back-up for and to replenish our own store of enzymes, we also get enzymes out of the food we eat. Used to be that was no problem. We ate raw foods that had been minimally processed. Today, however, that is not the case for people or for animals.
The prepared kibble diet as we know it has only been around since the mid-1950s, which is just a blip of time if you consider the fact that cats have been domesticated for about 4,000 years and dogs for around 14,000. Part of the process involved in making kibble includes baking it at really high temperatures. Unfortunately for us and for our pets, enzymes and other naturally occuring nutrients cannot survive this process and hence our own stores of enzymes become weakened and depleted. Without enzymes our ability to properly digest what we eat and receive the maximum amount of benefit from our food is compromised. This can lead to other complications such as stools with partially undigested food, gas, constipation and/or diarrhea, a dull coat, itchy skin, body odor, etc, etc.
For animals eating a diet consisting mainly of canned or kibble, we highly recommend supplementing their food with digestive enzymes. We carry a house-brand formula put together by Susan & Ira Moss (founders of ATB) which is fantastic but there are other commercial brands as well. Check out Animal Essential’s line of enzymes and probiotics or ask your local naturopath/holistic veterinarian for their recommendation.
For more information about digestive enzymes please click here.
- Mag & Ziggy
