What role does nutrition play in dog itchy skin? Bigger than most people realize! It’s really two-fold how dog nutrition affects your dog’s skin. The first is the amount of toxins actually in the dog food, and the second is the quality of nutrients in what they eat.
How Does Nutrition Affect Dog Itching?
A lot of dog itching can be attributed to nutrition, or lack thereof. In order to have healthy skin and coat, the immune system must be healthy. Unfortunately, a lot of dog foods are filled with toxins, from additives and food colorings to preservatives. Some of the preservatives used in dog foods have even been banned for human use because they cause liver problems and increase chances of cancer. These toxins stress out and can even damage your dog’s immune system.
Other types of toxins come from the type of ingredients used in a lot of commercial dog foods. Dog food companies will sometimes use euthanized animals, diseased animals, and even road-kill in their dog food. Whatever is in these animals (drugs, diseases, etc) goes into the dog food. Although the animal is processed and treated, not all of the toxins are completely removed and therefore, must be dealt with by your dog’s immune system. One of the results — dog itchy skin!
If you are feeding your dog a commercial dog food, you may want to find out exactly what is in the dog food you are feeding.
Inferior Dog Food Contributes to Dog Scratching
You may be feeding your dog, but your dog may actually be starving for nutrients. Your dog’s itchy skin is a cry for more nutritious foods. With the majority of commercial dog foods, the actual ingredients are such low quality to begin with, then combine all the processing and heating of the food, what is left for your dog is essentially empty calories.
What does this do to your dog? Basically it frazzles his immune system. It kicks it into overdrive and it becomes overly sensitive. Your dog needs certain nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes to have a properly functioning immune system and to prevent dog itchy skin. Most commercial dog foods just don’t provide your dog with quality nutrients. Your dog will start showing allergy symptoms, like dog itchy skin, because the immune system is attacking whatever it can. He will also not be able to fight off simple infections and illnesses as easily.
You Don’t Have to Have An Itching Dog
The body, whether human or canine, is an amazing machine! If fed properly, it can overcome so much. And a natural dog food is the best dog food.
Feed a healthy dog food, even homemade dog food, using human-grade quality ingredients. If that is not your style, try switching to a hypoallergenic dog food brand or an organic dog food, both of which contain more quality ingredients and no artificial colorings, flavorings, or preservatives.
Think about adding dog supplements to the food to ensure a healthy body, skin and coat. Giving your dog the proper nutrients their body needs will help stop dog scratching and a host of other problems.
When the body is not fed properly, it must rely on science and medicines to help it. When it is fed properly, it does a great job of taking care of itself.
Do your dog a favor: learn more about
- the benefits of nutritious dog food
- dog supplements to add to your dog food
- how to make homemade, healthy dog food
- which brands of dog food are the most nutritious for dogs.