How to feed a dog with malnutrition

When a dog is malnourished or very thin you will need a greater amount of proteins and fats that you should get with a balanced diet. You should not make the mistake of overfeeding your pet if it takes days without eating, because your stomach will be more susceptible to stretching and can cause significant damage. Follow a series of guidelines and you will see the best way to feed your malnourished dog. In this article of .com we explain how to feed a dog with malnutrition.

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There are many reasons why a dog can become malnourished or too skinny. Sometimes, when a dog is lost or has been abandoned can spend several days without a snack and then your weight is reduced dramatically. The dog, in addition, may have some disease or parasites that prevents him from eating and being at his optimum weight. Other times, you may be very thin because of some type of nervous disorder. Whatever the cause, when your dog does not eat what is necessary, the amount of blood sugar is reduced. This drop in glucose can seriously affect your dog's body, impairing the functioning of the brain, kidneys, heart and muscles.

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This situation of malnutrition will get worse with the passage of time. On the third day of not eating anything, your pet's metabolism will slow down and by the fifth day, your fat reserves will be your only source of energy. Considering the importance of your dog being well fed, we are going to tell you something you should not do. If your dog is very thin, do not have the urge to give him more food than normal. Overfeeding your pet is a mistake, you will have to feed it gradually so that it does not get too full. It is recommended that while eating, you check your pace to see that there is no problem.

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One of the essential guidelines to feed your pet if you are malnourished is that you distribute the meals. You should not allow your dog to have free access to food or let him eat freely the first few days after having been for a while without eating, because he could have serious digestion problems. It is recommended that you feed your dog with small portions every 6 hours, which means that he eats four times a day. When the stomach of your dog has gone through a period of lack of food, it is often reduced in size and becomes much more sensitive to stretching when eating. This sensitivity to expansion usually disappears in about five days as long as you follow the guidelines of feeding your pet gradually and distributed. Never feed him at one time while he is in the feedback phase.

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Another advice to feed your dog with malnutrition problems is to be very careful with the amount of food that you give daily. The dose should be adjusted to your weight, so write down your food intake and make sure you take the right amount and necessary to keep your health in perfect condition. While you are controlling your new eating habits, you should weigh your pet every week and control its weight. Thus, you will have an idea of ​​how it evolves until it reaches the kilos that it has lost. To get your pet to recover its proper appearance and weight after being more than 1 week without eating, it is recommended that the refeeding diet is composed mainly of fat and in a lesser proportion by carbohydrates. It should also have an optimal mineral composition. like magnesium, potassium and phosphorus.

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You must take into account the amount of calories of food that your pet takes in this delicate phase. The calories consumed should be the same as your dog ingests under normal circumstances. You should also make sure that you have free access to a fountain or drinking fountain so that it is well hydrated. A loss of 15% of water could be deadly for your dog.

When your dog is going through this moment, he may come to refuse the food. If you do not want to try the dry feed, it is advisable to mix it with wet food so that food intake is more appetizing. But do not give yourself too much to eat moist supplements because they contain much more water than protein and fat and should not be the main component of your diet.

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One of the main ingredients for the diet of your malnourished dog is turkey, lamb, and chicken or any other type of meat that you like. Provide your pet with good quality food with an average fat content of 18% minimum, and protein between 25 and 30%. For your dog to get fat, you need a higher percentage of fats and it will not be anything complex to incorporate these changes into your diet for a few days. You can give supplements such as hard-boiled egg, dairy products and meat without bone.

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Finally, if your pet, despite many attempts, does not eat, it may suffer from a nervous disorder. If your dog does not eat because of a problem like this, the most important thing is to get his internal chemistry balanced. It will be necessary to treat as soon as possible the nervousness of your dog so that it begins to eat with normality. If this is the case, immediately go to the veterinarian or a dog behavior specialist to evaluate it, put it in treatment and start eating normally.