Dog food is always an important topic when talking about your pet’s health. Each food has different beneficial and consequential results and as a result affects your pet differently. However, many individuals forget one major factor when looking into dog foods (or pet foods in general) and that is what changing the diet does to your pet’s gut biology. While humans can change their diet with relative ease, pets might not always be able to do the same, or at least not as quickly.
As many may already know, gut bacteria can play a huge role in the overall health of animals both large and small. Gut bacteria is what breaks down food, converts it into enzymes for the body’s use, and much more, and it is affected heavily by the food that is eaten. Any big changes to a diet alters this bacteria, even in humans to a degree, and can determine health and weight gain or loss as well. In pets, it can play an even larger role and affect their overall health and wellness.
How To Change Your Pet’s Food Safely
There is a simple way to help your pets when changing their food in order to not cause health issues. According to ScienceDaily, studies have been conducted to test how quickly the gut microbiome can react and recalibrate itself to accommodate rapid changes in dietary intake. These tests were conducted by rapidly changing the food dogs were given to measure changes in gut bacteria, as well as then being run again after a slower and more gradual transition was made. These two studies were compared and examined by scientists to see how the body reacted to these different styles of change.
What the study proved in the end was that the age-old idea of gradually changing food rather than all at once is in fact much healthier overall. Too rapid a change in gut bacteria can cause health issues that might show themselves through diarrhea, vomiting, and other uncomfortable reactions. While this will eventually improve, it can more or less be avoided by gradually changing food by slowly adding more of the new food and reducing the old in equal amounts. The more smoothly you change over the food, the more likely your pet will have their health improve naturally and safely.
