a lot of people have been asking me what i feed my dogs daily today i would try my best to share
with you everything and feed them on a daily basis and explain my thought process when choosing the
products in the simplest way possible so that you can choose the best option for your own
dogs no matter where you are because i know the options can vary a lot depending on your location
and also your budget so this is the kibble brand that i use for our pomeranians it's called
Orijen and the reason why i chose Orijen is because of its ingredient panel it's pretty common
knowledge that pet food labels are required to list all ingredients in descending order by weight
so you might think that if the first ingredient is a source of protein the first ingredient must have
the highest weight in the bag and supposedly your dog is getting enough protein right well
here's a catch the ingredients are listed before they are cooked and meat naturally contains
roughly 70% moisture and after processing and turning into kibble the moisture has to be
removed to about only 10 percent so while the dry ingredients will stay the same the weight of the
meat has dropped down significantly so just because you see meat as the first ingredient
doesn't mean it has the highest percentage after taking away the moisture so ideally you want an
ingredient list where the next few ingredients are meat as well so when you look at the ingredients
here the first 11 ingredients are all sources of protein and with the first few ingredients being
fresh or raw followed by a few dehydrated sources of protein protein make up a large
part of every cell in a dog's body from muscles bone hair eyes ears and teeth a deficiency
in protein can cause some serious health problems in dogs also i will tell you what
i love about their sources of protein so they use real and whole meat proteins and they identified the
specific sources of meat which is usually a sign that this is a better quality dog food many dog foods
sometimes contain meat by products which are basically leftovers from animal slaughters such as
liver lungs spleen kidneys other blood intestine and so on the only few things that byproducts
exclude by affco definition are hair horns teeth and hoof don't get me wrong meat by-products can
still be highly nutritious but how can you ever know for sure if it has high nutritious value if
you don't know exactly what's inside your dog's food right i also love the fact that they only
add minimal synthetic vitamins and minerals as they have a variety of meats which allow their
food to supply nutrients naturally using whole food instead of throwing a bunch of synthetic
vitamins and minerals in this is preferable since a mix-up in the ratio of the vitamins and minerals
in those manufactures producing these premixes which by the way most likely come from china
can be potentially toxic and cause deaths and illnesses if done incorrectly rodney habib has
a video where he's discussed this in detail i'll leave a link to his video down below also orijen
only uses natural preservatives which is always a good thing since there have been questions raised
about the safety of some synthetic preservatives including bha bht and ethoxyquin there's one catch
though foods with natural preservatives usually have a shorter shelf life so you should always
check the best by date on the package just to be sure orijen has never been recalled in the u.s or
canada i know in 2018 there was a class action lawsuit filed against champion petfood which
is the maker of orijen and accused the company failing to disclose the presence of heavy metals
and toxins however the lawsuit was dismissed in 2019 and it's important to note that unlike
recalls lawsuits are merely based on accusations and complaints and if you google any dog food
brands out there you will likely find some sort of complaints or lawsuits so as an analytical person
i'd like to base my decision strictly on factual information and i think that's what you should do
too when choosing your dog's food so that you don't get lost in the world full of fear-mongering
misinformation i sometimes mix their food with this freeze-dried raw meal mixer from stella and
chewy to keep that meal interesting and increase the meal excitement the ingredient panel is quite
solid and the first few ingredients are amazing however they add too many synthetic vitamins and
minerals for my liking so i'm only comfortable giving them in small amount as a meal mixer
for treats i use core wellness treats why do i recommend these treats number one they have
limited ingredients with meat being the first ingredient and no problematic ingredients in the
ingredient list they are natural dog treats which as defined by affco means a food product that has
no artificial flavors colors or preservatives and number two they have a soft texture which makes
it so easy to break it down into smaller pieces so why is it important first you don't want to
overfeed your dog second when training your dog you want to use the smallest amount of treat that
you can get away with and preferably one that is soft to chew because they will swallow it much
faster which means it can have a higher rate of reinforcement dog's attention span is usually very
short and sometimes for puppies it means you only have 30 seconds or up to 2 minutes of their full
attention and ideally you want your dog to finish her treat immediately to keep the section moving
along and move to the next repitation of a command right away in order to get the highest number of
repetitions possible in that short amount of time the higher the number of repetitions you are able
to get them do the faster they will master a command so that's why you want a treat that is
soft and easily broken into small pieces with a crumbles all over the floor because every second
take care of your pomeranians thank you for watching and i will see you next time