Alongside with proper training, care and paying close attention to your Frenchie’s health, the choice of the food you are giving him is one of the most important aspects of dog ownership and shouldn’t be taken lightly and without extensive research. Your dog’s health and happiness are strongly dependant on what you feed him with. Don’t be lazy or thrifty when it comes to this, you have committed to taking care of a living being and that is not something that should be done without the appropriate amount of responsibility and dedication.
Ideally, you would feed your dog a diet that consists of completely natural and healthy ingredients containing large amounts of protein and vitamins.
This might include but is not limited to: eggs, chicken meat, ground vegetables, and turkey necks, yogurt or milk and occasional fruit if you determine that your dog likes it. Now, it is completely understandable if you don’t have the time or resources to prepare such feasts for your dog, that is why there are a lot of commercial foods that can be an adequate, if not ideal, substitute. But even if you focus primarily on them, don’t hesitate to occasionally treat your dog to a proper home-cooked meal.
If you can set some time apart for this, you can use the following recipe. The meal you are preparing should consist of around 80 percent of protein – for example, different internal organs such as liver or kidneys, combined with ground muscles and turkey necks; 5 percent fish; 10 percent vegetables and 5 percent various ingredients like eggs or yogurt. You can also add some oatmeal for carbs. This can take some time and effort to prepare, but it gives you peace of mind that comes with knowing that your Frenchie is getting only natural and healthy ingredients without any potentially harmful additives.
If you are not in the position to do this there are still a lot of other options. One of them is feeding your dog premade raw diet mixes. They come with all the minerals, ground vegetables and other supplements that your dog might require and you should only add the meat. This will save you a lot of time, as well as provide you with the balanced ratio of the nutrients that your pet requires. If you prefer not to have to add the meat yourself, you can just buy a pack of frozen raw food, it contains everything previously listed as well as the meat. Just defrost it and your dog will have a complete meal ready.
Kibble is probably the worst option, but even within this type of dry food, there are distinctly better and worse options. Try to choose the ones that don’t contain grain or corn, as your, or for that matter any dog, is not really good at digesting them. Quite the opposite. Also, avoid buying food that contains meat from unnamed fish or animals or any type of extra fats.
Be sure to buy them a ‘Slow Feed Type Dog Bowl‘ as this will limit the amount of food they can take in per mouthful.
This is important due to the fact that when dogs take in too much food, it may cause some health issues such as bloatedness.
Hopefully, this short overview has helped you in formulating a feeding strategy for your pet. If you intend to use commercial foods, do your research, there are plenty of dog enthusiasts out there who have tested a great number of pre-packed foods, their opinions and experiences will help you find reliable food brands.
