Much is currently said about good fats, bad fats and their effects on the body, however, this leads us to making a disastrous mistake: extrapolating the bases of human nutrition to our dog's diet.
Neither the diet should be the same, nor the nutritional requirements are the same, nor do fats affect the body of a dog in the same way as the human body. In this article on our site we talk about the good fats for dogs and those foods through which they can be provided.
Dogs require saturated fats
The domestication process of the dog has changed its digestive physiology, we see this clearly if we compare the wolf or other canids with the dog. While they are not prepared to digest starch (from foods rich in carbohydrates), dogs can take small amounts of farinaceous foods.
However, the principles of natural dog feeding remain stable despite the process of domestication. What does this mean? Well, the dog's diet should mainly consist of proteins from meat.
Dogs need high amounts of protein, although in a natural food these do not come alone, for example, meat does not only provide protein, but also saturated fats, but they are necessary for our pet.
The saturated fats that the dog consumes must be provided mainly through meat, although eggs or fish can also be included, what would be a mistake is that the saturated fats that our dog ingests were contained in a processed food prepared for human consumption. When a dog follows a good diet and gets saturated fats from meat, they play important roles in his body:
- They are necessary for the distribution and absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, A, D, E and K.
- They act as the main source of energy for our pet's body.
- The fats contained in protein foods, provided they are of good quality, are highly digestible and do not cause any assimilation problems.
The dog's body is prepared to eat these fats, in fact, it is an essential nutrient, proof of this is that a dog rarely shows elevated cholesterol levels, unlike a human being.
Essential fatty acids for dogs, more than a supplement
In this section we talk about what is known as "he althy fats", at least in terms of human nutrition, since as we have seen, when we talk about canine nutrition, saturated fats are also beneficial and necessary for our pet.
However, for an adequate supply of fats it is also important that our dog consume Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids, since they have somewhat different properties, for example, they have anti-inflammatory action, help keep the coat in optimal condition and have been shown to have positive effects on some dermatological conditions. We must point out that unlike Omega-3, Omega-6 is an essential nutrient, so it can never be lacking in your diet.
If our dog is fed from homemade diets, we will provide these fats through foods that act as natural supplements for dogs, such as oily fish (obviously after removing all the bones) and corn oil, which can be added to many preparations.
Fats do not make you fat if you eat and exercise properly
The basis of a dog's diet should be proteins, and as we have already seen in them, fats are naturally present, this means that only Omega-6 essential fatty acids should be added and only in those cases in which the dog is not given any type of oily fish.
If we supply fat mainly through good quality protein foods, our dog will not gain weight, if our dog experiences a weight gainwill be mainly due to one of two factors:
- The main protagonist of the dog's diet is fats and not proteins.
- The dog does not get enough physical exercise.
Therefore we must banish the idea that an adequate supply of fats will make our pet fat, on the contrary, these fats are necessary and must be present daily in his diet. In the same way physical exercise is necessary, which must also be present every day.
