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Switching your dog to a new food takes some planning. Because dogs are creatures of habit, they tend to prefer their current food to a new food. Like us, they become accustomed to a food and might not be thrilled about a new routine. These useful dog-feeding tips will help you keep your dog satisfied.
When easing your dog into a change in diet, think “slow and steady.” Start by mixing 25% new food with 75% current food. Slowly change the proportions over the next three days or so by gradually increasing the new food and lessening the amount of the current food. Here’s a sample feeding schedule:
At the end of this weaning process, you should be feeding 100% of the new food. Your dog may want to eat only the old food, or not eat at all. Don’t worry — a healthy dog can miss meals for a day or two with no ill effects.
Bringing a new food into your home, pouring it into your dog’s bowl and declaring that he should eat it might cause your dog to go on a hunger strike. This is not the time to show who’s boss. It’s better to introduce the new food by using a pleasant tone of voice and gently encouraging him to try the new food.
Persistence is key! For the first two days of the food transition, don’t give your dog treats or table scraps. Dogs train us as much as we train them. Giving in to their demands only reinforces refusal behavior and makes it more difficult to make a nutritious dietary change.
Switching diets may be more challenging when changing from a moist food to a dry food. If your dog continues to resist eating dry food, mix in a little warm water. You might even want to put the moistened food in the microwave for a few seconds. If you mix the food with water, be sure to throw away the uneaten portion after 20 minutes to prevent spoilage. The same rule applies for canned and pouch food. After the dog has become accustomed to the moistened food, you can wean him onto completely dry food. To do this, follow the same mixing instructions outlined above.
Even if a pet food is formulated to provide all of the essential nutrients required by a dog, it is of little value if the animal will not eat it. Quality pet foods are carefully formulated not only to be highly nutritious but also to be highly palatable.
Highly palatable dog food recipes contain various ingredients and raw materials, including palatants. Palatants help improve the smell, flavor, and texture of your dog’s food. Examples of palatants include fat, salt, proteins, yeasts, and other flavors that are added to make food taste better. Dry foods usually need extra palatants to make them more pleasant and appealing.
Palatability is a term used to describe how well a dog likes the taste, smell, and texture of a food. A premium dog-food manufacturer spends a considerable amount of time conducting controlled feeding studies to determine the right combination of ingredients and processing techniques to produce a nutritious, palatable food.
There are two ways to test and measure the palatability of a dog food:
First Bite: The first palatability test is called the “first bite” preference. This measures the dog's first impression of a food's aroma and appearance.
Total Volume: Because the novelty of a new diet can cause highs and lows in first-bite tests, a second test is conducted called “total volume” measurement. Total volume determines the staying power or ability of a diet to maintain the animal's interest over time. This is the dog’s overall choice of a food based on taste, texture, and nutrition for the entire test period.
Dogs can become picky eaters for a variety of reasons. Some of the reasons why dogs can become picky eaters include:
In comparison to humans, dogs have significantly more smell sensors than taste receptors. This implies that foods with stronger aromas tend to appeal to dogs more. While scent is crucial, less odorous meals like dry kibble can also improve your dog’s food palatability. A dog’s taste buds are hard-wired to sense the presence of fats as well as salt (but not necessarily salt flavor). Fat is frequently added to kibble to improve flavor and palatability without making the food stinky.
While taste and scent are some of the primary ways a dog decides if something is pleasant, palatability can also be influenced by a wide range of factors, such as the dog’s unique preferences and even the owner’s preference for meals and feeding times.
To make a dog eat food, you need to:
Everybody in the household needs to accept and follow the pet’s feeding plan from the beginning. You should be consistent and rigorously adhere to your dog's diet. If you decide to give your dog leftovers, choose to combine nutritious foods with kibble.
Offering your dog table scraps often promotes begging and throws off your pet’s diet. It can also lead to several health issues, including diarrhea and pancreatitis. Although human food is far more palatable, it is less healthy than canned or dry dog food.
Puppies need to be fed two to three times a day, or as your vet may prescribe. As they get older, you can gradually increase the serving size while offering meals just once or twice a week. Additionally, you must add some variety and deliver equal servings. Allowing a schedule also helps keep your dogs weight in check.
In order to obtain and interpret accurate results, palatability studies must be performed by experienced animal technicians and the data analyzed by research nutritionists. Feeding studies are conducted by offering an animal two bowls of food at the same time. Each bowl contains a different diet that has been carefully weighed and recorded.
The technician observes which food the dog chooses to eat first, and then records that as the first-bite preference. After a specific time period, bowls are removed, and any remaining food is weighed and recorded. Diets also are switched from left to right each day of the study to ensure that dogs are not eating one diet simply out of habit.
The total-volume measurement is determined by calculating the difference between the beginning and ending weights of each food. This procedure is repeated using the same two diets with the same group of dogs for five days. At the end of the five-day study, all observations and data are compiled and analyzed to determine the overall palatability of each diet.
Here is a quick look at some flavors that can appeal to your pet.
Meaty Flavor
Animal Fats
Gravy or Stews
Dogs are attracted by not only the taste of a food, but also to its sight, aroma, and texture. Dogs are particularly interested in the smell of food.
If you are wondering how to increase palatability of dog food, here are a few tips that might help.
Select The Right Protein
Whether your pooch prefers dry or wet dog food, remember that the choice of protein is extremely essential. The most palatable dog foods are ones that are available in different meaty flavors such as lamb, beef, and chicken.
Liquid digest is simply protein that is enzymatically broken down into amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein. The enzymatic process reduces large protein pieces to smaller protein pieces and free amino acids. By adding small amounts of acid, the enzymatic or digestive reaction is stopped, and a stable liquid ingredient is produced. After a dry-food formula is cooked, formed into kibbles, and dried, the liquid digest is sprayed evenly on the outside of the dry kibbles. This is called “enrobing.” Not only does the liquid digest make the food highly palatable, but it also adds to the overall digestibility of the food.
Yes. We use liquid digest made from chicken to enhance the palatability of dry foods and to contribute to the nutritional value of the diet. Some pet foods include flavor enhancers, such as onion powder, which simply mask the aroma and taste of the ingredients and provide no nutritional benefits to the animal.
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