Ferndale, WA: Animals need a balanced diet that contains proteins, carbohydrates, fats and water. However, a healthy diet is simply a starting point. Vitamins and minerals are also needed to keep pets healthy. In theory, all pets need a healthy and balanced diet and this should come from high quality foods. But, the question is: what is a healthy and balanced diet? Every animal is unique and requires different nutrients. For example, vitamin supplementation may be necessary for working animals, stressed out pets, sick pets or pets on restricted diets or recovering from surgery.
Since we live in a highly polluted environment, where foods are processed and where preservatives and colors are added, our food chain affects not only humans but our pets too.
Pets Need Vitamins & Supplements Too
But the main reason pets and their health have gone astray is because there’s a lower level of physical activity. Pets are so domesticated nowadays that they don’t get the exercise they need, the physical activity levels are way down compared to what they would be in the wild. And this is why in the United States up to 7 million pets (dogs) are considered fat and diabetic. Commercial foods are killing us and our pets — turning us in to big diabetics with terrible habits. So the way to turn things around is to give vitamins and supplements to your pets on a daily basis since they might not be getting the good stuff that nature provides naturally.
An animal’s health status in some situations can be improved by large doses of vitamin supplements. But there is always a need for balance, since an excess of nutrients can have the same effect as a deficiency. Metabolism can also be facilitated by a vitamin supplement.
Vitamins
Natural and synthetic vitamins are the two main groups of vitamins. Food sources are where nature delivers its vitamins and synthetic vitamins are produced in laboratories to mirror their natural counterparts. Chemically there is not much difference between the two. The trick is bio-availability. What happens to the vitamin when it hits the digestive tract and ends up in the stomach? If the vitamin is bounded molecularly to a natural food molecule and it hits the stomach, the digestive enzymes in the stomach are pre-programmed to recognize it as such and thus they break it down faster and ‘metabolize’ it quicker and thus it becomes more bio-available. So try to find multi-vitamins that are derived from actual food sources and a ‘green.’ The best one I know, and the reason that we carry it is the Animal Essentials Herbal Multi-Vitamin. If you click on the picture below it will take to our website and you will be able to review all the natural ingredients that are part of the multi-vitamin. What’s happening here is as I said above, the vitamin molecules are bound to natural food proteins and that means that when they hit the stomach the enzymes break them down faster and they become bio-available and absorbed through the stomach barrier into the blood stream and away they go!
HEALTHY PET NATURAL VITAMIN $50.95 USD
Minerals
Minerals are needed in a multi to guarantee the proper chemical balance in body fluids, blood formation, cellular development and bone development, the function of nerves, and the proper adjustment of muscles. However, you can’t OD minerals. You have to be careful. You can’t load your pet up on iron or calcium for example because it can have pretty adverse consequences. So everything in moderation.
Multi Vitamins
Improving your pet’s diet can be achieved with a multivitamin supplement. However, keep in mind the significant facts that minerals and vitamins work together so you will need to find a multi that’s balanced. There are many on the market. They are available in tablets or powders which are typically sprinkled over wet food or ‘mushed’ in. For the multies that come in liquid form they can be pierced and squeezed over dry food or wet. They often have a pleasant taste that pets love so its pretty simple to dose.
Be advised that a multi vitamin may not work for your pet because all pets have different needs. Visiting the vet is definitely the best option. Your veterinarian can examine and recommend a vitamin supplement that will respond to your pet’s specific needs.
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