Among the fundamental choices when adopting a dog is, without a doubt, deciding what type of diet to provide for your new friend.
The choice is mainly between:
- home-cooked diet
- commercial diet

Home-cooked diet

A home-cooked diet is chosen by owners who decide to prepare their puppy's meals entirely from scratch. It is a choice that entails a great commitment in terms of both time and nutritional study. It is, in fact, important to carefully analyze the most complete meals to provide to your puppy, do your research, and ask your veterinarian for advice, so as not to provide a diet lacking in the nutrients necessary for your dog's daily needs or an excessive amount, which can lead to weight imbalances.
It is equally important to be sure that you can dedicate the necessary time to the daily preparation of the puppy's food.

Commercial diet

By commercial diet, we mean the choice of giving your dog products available on the market. A commercial diet is certainly a very convenient choice for owners and allows you, by selecting quality products, to provide all the necessary nutrients to your puppy.
First of all, the main distinction to keep in mind when purchasing commercial dog food is between:

• Complete food: a product capable of providing the nutrients necessary for daily requirements.
• Complementary food: a product not sufficient on its own to satisfy the necessary daily ration. It is, therefore, to be used in combination with other products.

The types of food that can be offered to your puppy, on the other hand, are labeled based on the percentage of water contained within:

• Dry food: contains less than 14% water.
• Semi-moist food: contains an amount of water between 14% and 34%.
• Wet food: contains more than 34% water.

But are we sure we know what's inside the products we give our four-legged friends? Let's not be influenced by price and advertising.

When choosing to provide this type of diet for your dog, it is essential to consult the nutritional values of the product, indicated on the label on the back of the package, where individual raw materials are listed in descending order of quantity. It is essential to choose products that have animal proteins—the main source of canine nutrition—at the top of the list, and it is equally important that these proteins are specified.

Ingredients of animal origin are divided into three main categories:

• Dehydrated meat or fish: the ingredient does not contain water from the start; there is no product loss in the finished food. It is, therefore, to be considered one of the best choices.

• Fresh meat or fish. This refers to a product that was added fresh when the feed was created, but is no longer fresh in the finished food, where the meat is cooked, in the case of wet food, or dried in the case of kibble. This means that the water is removed during cooking.

• Fish or meat meal. The meal is rich in animal proteins, but also includes animal parts such as bones, fish bones, and feathers. It can guarantee a supply of calcium, but not of protein or fat. Animal meals tend to lower the quality of the product and are, therefore, not a choice to be preferred.

This month, among the best products, we recommend

with cod, pumpkin, and orange, for medium and large breed dogs.

Another element to examine carefully is the wording reported; the way ingredients are expressed, in fact, is not a detail, but based on current regulations, each definition indicates a precise percentage of the product contained. First of all, when examining the list of ingredients, the wording "meat of..." is to be preferred over the wording "meat and derivatives," which does not specify the type of meat contained.

These are some of the descriptions you might find in the ingredient list for your four-legged friends:

• "Beef flavored food" refers to an amount of meat less than 4%
• "Beef food" indicates that the meat contained is not less than 4%
• "Beef rich food" indicates an amount ranging from 14% to 25%
• "Beef" the amount of beef is greater than 26%
• "All beef" the indicated ingredient must be present at 100%

More tips on how to read labels will be found in our next article, so keep following us and stay updated.

So be very careful, arm yourself with a magnifying glass, and study the labels well to find the best product for your furry friend and avoid falling into error!