Dehydrated Dog Food

Dehydrated Dog Food
As Dry Food Alternative

For many years, the old backbone for dog food was the dry variety, but recently dehydrated food has been increasing in popularity. Some veterinarians recommend that dog owners feed their pet dehydrated food rather than dry, but is there any real benefit from it?
As with anything else in the pet industry, there are multiple sides to the story.

How Dehydrated Dog Food is Made

In some cases, you may find that dehydrated food is purer than dry food and contains fewer filler ingredients. To make the food, manufacturers slice up the meat and vegetables. With some varieties, grains that are rich in nutrients are added in. All of the moisture is then removed from the food using large fans.

Possible Advantages of Dehydrated Dog Food

There are many reasons some veterinarians praise dehydrated food as the answer for dogs.
Here are some of the advantages touted by the industry:

Dehydrated dog food may contain more vitamins and minerals because dry food is baked, which causes the food to lose some of these beneficial nutrients.

Also dehydrated dog food lasts longer than dry food because the dehydration process offers natural protection against spoilage.

It's a good alternative for dogs that should be on a high protein diet because raw food spoils quickly.

Challenges to Feeding Dehydrated Food

Although there don't seem to be any obvious disadvantages to feeding your dog dehydrated food, there are some challenges involved. The main challenge for some dog owners is simply being able to find a high quality brand. In some parts of the world, there is very limited access to dehydrated food for dogs. The other challenge is the price because it tends to cost more than regular dry food.

Choosing Quality Dog Food

Whether you decide to feed your dog dry or dehydrated food, there are some basic things you can do to make sure that your pet is getting all of the nutrients he needs to live a healthy life. For example, the first thing you should do is look at the list of ingredients on the package and make note of whether the first item on that list is a meat.

Low quality foods have some type of vegetable, often corn, or a meat byproduct as their first ingredient. Not only will your dog eat more food on a daily basis, but he could become overweight without even receiving the nutrients he needs. Make sure that the first meat listed is chicken, beef, or salmon. Venison contains a lot of water, so when you see it as the first ingredient in a dehydrated dog food, keep in mind that in dehydrated dog food most of that water goes away during the dehydration process, leaving you with less meat than what was put in originally.