Essential vitamins and minerals for optimum health

Just like our own diets, your dogs’ diet may be deficient in essential vitamins and minerals. As these nutrients are vital for day-to-day bodily functions, all dogs require a ready supply for normal growth, optimum health and performance. Dogs of all ages including puppies, stud dogs and seniors may benefit from a multivitamin and mineral supplement added to their daily feed.

Does my dog need a multivitamin and mineral supplement?

Your dog’s nutritional requirements could be increased dramatically depending on their lifestyle. Factors that may increase your dog’s nutritional requirements include age, growth, reproductive status, training, and competition, travelling and work load. It is often difficult to supply sufficient amounts of vitamins and minerals simply by increasing the volume of feed.

FERAMO^®-D enables you to provide your dog with essential vitamins and minerals to maximise growth, performance, breeding potential and health in a product specifically designed for dogs.

* Vitamins can only be of assistance if dietary vitamin intake is inadequate

Puppies

Adequate nutrition for your puppy is important and is critical during early growth and development². From 6 weeks to 24 months depending on your puppy’s breed it will require a balanced diet and optimum health and nutrition to ensure they grow into strong and healthy adolescents. Correct nutrition can significantly impact genetic potential, trainability and integration of your puppy into the human household². FERAMO-D can help ensure your puppy receives balanced levels of vitamins and minerals during this critical period.

Active

Like any human athlete a complete and balanced diet is critical to the conditioning and maintenance of any working, racing or sporting dog¹. It is vital that nutrition is adapted to meet the needs of these dogs, which may be dramatically increased during periods of training and competition¹. Adequate nutrition may also play a vital role in the prevention of injury and shortening rehabilitation and recovery times¹.

Seniors

Nutritional requirements change with age and many common diseases in older dogs can be managed through diet manipulation³. Most dogs over 7 years of age have reduced energy requirements, higher protein requirements and lower nutrient digestibility than younger dogs³.

As your dog’s nutritional requirements change it is important to ensure their diet is also modified to meet these needs. Ageing dogs are susceptible to obesity and associated health risks including arthritis, diabetes and reduced immunity³. It is important to ensure your dog’s diet changes along with its age and lifestyle. FERAMO-D can be used to ensure your ageing companion receives all the essential vitamins and minerals required during this period.

Breeding

New findings have demonstrated the importance of the nutritional status of the bitch during pregnancy and lactation on the health of the newborn pups and the nursing bitch⁴. In the last few weeks of pregnancy and early lactation the bitch’s nutritional requirements increase dramatically, similar to those of a working dog². Her appetite will be reduced as a result of abdominal distension as the puppies increase in size and weight⁵, making it difficult to ensure she receives adequate nutrition during this period.

FERAMO-D can be added as a vitamin and mineral boost without increasing the volume of her meal.

Raw food and other home-prepared diets

In recent years many owners have made the decision to supply their dogs with raw foods or home-prepared meals for a variety of reasons.

Raw foods and home-prepared meals are not always complete and balanced and as a result may unknowingly cause deficiencies in the diet. Unfortunately it can be difficult to determine if a homemade meal is deficient in vitamins and minerals as clinical signs of a nutritional deficiency can take months or even several years to develop⁶. Fresh meats that are subject to storage and cooking have reduced potency of a number of vitamins and minerals. It has since been suggested that a multivitamin and mineral supplement be added to homeprepared diets to create a balanced meal for your dog⁶.

In some instances raw feeds and home-prepared meals are fed in conjunction with a premium dry food. As these dry foods have been specifically developed as a complete feed, adding raw foods and home-prepared meals to these dry foods may cause an imbalance of vitamins and minerals. When supplementing premium dry feeds with raw meat or home-prepared diets it is important to balance this part of the meal.

FERAMO-D when added to your dog’s diet can ensure they receive all the vitamins and minerals required for optimum health.

What if I’m already feeding a complete dry feed?

Essential vitamins and minerals in complete dry dog foods may be destroyed by certain factors including exposure to light, heat and air during manufacture, transport and storage. Supplementation with FERAMO-D will help ensure your dog receives a balanced diet with adequate levels of vitamins and minerals. FERAMO-D has been scientifically-developed based on National Research Council (NRC) nutrient standards to correct minor imbalances and inadequate feed levels. As FERAMO-D is formulated with recommended daily intake requirements in mind, we can guarantee that the level of vitamins and minerals in FERAMO-D are sufficient to correct minor imbalances.

References

1. Cited by Grandjean, D. (1996). Nutrition of racing and working dogs. British Small Animal Veterinary Association, England.
2. Kelley, R., Lepine, A. J. (2005). Improving puppy trainability through nutrition. NAVC, United States of America
3. Lafl amme, D. P. (2005). Nutrition for aging cats and dogs and the importance of body condition. Veterinary Clinics Small Animal Practice, 35 713-742
4. Vesters, B. M., Swanson, K. (2007). Nutrient-gene interactions: Application to pet nutrition and health.
5. Greco, D. S. (2009). Nutritional supplements for pregnant and lactating bitches. Theriogenolgy, 70 393-396
6. Delaney, S. J. (2006). What do you think of my home prepared diet? NAVC Proceedings, United States of America.
7. Cited by Carey, C., Daristotle, H. (2000). Canine & Feline Nutrition - A resource for companion animal professionals 2nd Edition. Mosby, USA