What to Look for In your Frenchie Dog Foods?
Just like you, your dog needs a healthy diet to maintain a healthy weight, avoid certain health conditions, and boost the dog’s digestive health. However, also like you, your dog may have different nutritional needs at different ages. Growing French bulldog puppies need food to support growing bones, healthy skin, joints, brains, etc. Adult dogs need a healthy diet to keep them strong, and senior dogs may have special issues or need additional nutrients, vitamins, or protein.
Above all, however, you want your dry dog food to contain three main ingredients: protein, carbohydrates, and healthy fats. Common protein examples include chicken meal, pork meal, menhaden fish meal, turkey meal, beef meal, and fish meal. Do not choose a food with “meat meal” as the main protein because these meat meals could contain any meat, including unhealthy options.
Carbohydrates include grains and starches. One of the leading carbohydrates used in cheaper dry dog food is wheat. Other common types of carbohydrates in dry dog food include sweet potatoes, and brown rice. These carbs are better designed to meet your dog’s nutritional needs.
Finally, healthy fats are essential for a dog’s diet because they help with joint health, healthy weight, and healthy digestion. Healthy fats include omega fatty acids, which come from fish, flaxseed and colola oils.
What to Look for in Your French Bulldog Puppy Food?
When choosing your French bulldog puppy food, you may be wondering what is the best dog food? French bulldog puppies, like all puppies, need a complete and balanced diet to promote healthy growth in French bulldog puppies. A healthy diet will promote healthy skin, healthy weight, and support healthy digestion.
If plant-based proteins aren’t used, fillers like wheat or dairy are used to help round out the ingredients. However, these often lead to allergies in French bulldogs. Food allergies often present with itchy skin/paws/ears, digestive problems, vomiting, and diarrhea. In many cases, the main protein causes the allergies, especially beef and chicken, so switching to lamb or fish may be best for your French bulldog pup.
What to Look for in Your Adult Frenchie Food?
As your puppy becomes an adult, it’s time to switch to adult food for French bulldogs. However, whenever you switch your dry dog food, do so slowly. Start by mixing in a little of new food with each meal until you only feed the new food. This helps prevent gastrointestinal upset like vomiting and diarrhea.
When picking a food, start the same way you did for your pup’s food for grown French bulldogs: with the ingredients. Your adult French bulldog still needs good proteins, carbs, and fats, but their lifestyle depends on how much they need. Puppies are still growing, so obesity is less of a concern, but once your dog is an adult, obesity can become a real issue. The best dog food has a good fat to protein ratio. The Frenchie is one of many medium breeds, so they may not gain weight as easily as small breed dogs.
Some dogs are more active than others, and if your adult French bulldog isn’t active, it can gain weight fast. This can lead to many health conditions including diabetes, cancer, heart disease, osteoarthritis, bladder stones. Choosing a food with low fat, limited carbs and lean protein can help.
What to Look for in Your Senior French Bulldog Food?
As your dog becomes a senior, they need special attention to help boost their health. Senior dogs face many more complications than younger dogs, including skeletal issues, allergies, brachycephalic syndrome, and sensitivity to heat. Your dog’s food can affect these issues.
If your dog has too much fat in their diet, they can gain weight, putting more weight on the skeleton. This also makes your dog more sensitive to heat, worsening the risk of heat stroke and heat exhaustion on hot days. Foods with allergens to your dog can make it harder to breathe, which can be life-threatening in dogs with flat muzzles like French bulldogs.
If your senior dog has severe tooth loss from poor oral health and hygiene, find a food that is ideal for dogs without teeth. Ideally, give your toothless French bulldog soft food, but if they insist on wanting kibble, make sure to choose a brand that has small bits, or crush up the food, so the dog doesn’t need to chew.
Finally, senior dogs may need more essential nutrients to help with their aging eyes, bones, brain, joints, etc. Many senior dog foods contain additional support. If you still need more support, consider adding special treats that offer support, such as fish oil,
What to Avoid Feeding French Bulldogs?
Human foods to avoid include chocolate, onions, garlic, artificial sweetener, candy, grapes, raisins, macadamia nuts, mustard, and much more. Many of these contain ingredients that are toxic to dogs.
When it comes to dry food, there are also ingredients you should avoid feeding French bulldogs. Many dog food brands use dog food preservatives like Butylated hydroxyanisole, Butylated hydroxytolune, and propyl gallate. These can lead to poor digestion/ skin/coat issues and depression.
Fillers should also be avoided. Fillers add no nutritional value or calories, and they only help pad out the food. In many cases, fillers lead to food allergies. Common dog food fillers to avoid include beet pulp, tomato pumice, and potatoes.
Another common ingredient used in dog food that doesn’t really add any value is wheat. Wheat is a great source of carbohydrates, but it contains gluten and can cause upset stomach in dogs with gluten intolerance/allergies. When in doubt, it’s best to find a different source for carbohydrates, such as barley, and oats.
Finally, make sure you aren’t giving your French bulldog too much protein. Your dog needs some protein, but if you feed them more than they need, their body converts it to fat, increasing the risk of obesity in your dog. Since French bulldogs are small, obesity can happen fast.
In addition, be mindful of the exact protein the food contains. Ideally, the best dog food has fresh chicken (farm raised chicken), beef meal, turkey meal, or some kind of fish that can also provide omega fatty acids. When possible, avoid poultry by product meal and other animal by product as they can increase the risk of allergies.
Should You Only Give Your French Bulldog Premium Food?
There are many types of dog foods, but are premium dog foods best for your dog? The answer: it depends on the ingredients. Just because a dog food is expensive and claims to be premium, it may not contain what your dog needs.
Regardless of the type of food, you need to check the ingredients and the percentages of fat, protein, and carbohydrates. Typically, the more expensive the dog food, the better it is overall, but every dog is different, and while some dogs may thrive with a premium beef-based meal, your dog may be allergic to beef or another ingredient.
What About Homemade Food?
Some people prefer to make their own dog food. This can be just as healthy or healthier than using commercial food, but as always, it depends on the ingredients. If you make your dog a hamburger, that’s not a healthy meal. However, a brown rice recipe with chicken soup/deboned chicken, chicken fat, and green beans can create a healthy and tasty meal for your French bulldog’s diet.
Keep in mind, some of the foods you use to cook for French bulldogs may contain toxic preservatives or ingredients, so make sure you know what you’re cooking for your dog. In addition, don’t try to cook a different meal for your dog everyday as this can lead
Most good commercial dog food is made to contain everything your dog needs for a healthy, balanced diet, but eating the same kibble for every meal can get boring, so making your French bulldog a healthy homemade meal every now and then can add some excitement to their meals.
What Are Some Vet Recommended Dog Food Brands?
If you want to feed your dog something healthy, consider choosing a vet recommended dog food. Some of the best dog food options recommended by vets include Carna4 Hand Crafted Dog Food, Essence Grain Free Dog Food, Nutri Source, Taste of the Wild, The Honest Kitchen, Natural Balance Dog Food, and Royal Canin Dry Dog Food.
Some of these are ideal because they are grain free food, have low carbohydrates, and good proteins. However, some, like Royal Canin dog food is made for each breed, so you can get a dog food made just for French bulldogs.
If you recently got French bulldogs, or you are considering adopting one, you need to ensure you feed your new pet right. While there are many types of dog foods, they are all made differently. Finding the right one for your pet can make them happy for life. Get started today by comparing dog foods today.
