is dry dog food more fattening than wet

Wet vs Dry Dog Food: Which Is The Healthiest + Best?

Full Transcript

I'm not exaggerating when I say that the biggest concern that I get is what to feed my dog. Should you feed them raw? Should you feed them a cooked commercial diet? And then when you've made your mind up, you have the question, "Should you feed them a wet food or a dry kibble?"

Well, today I'm tackling that question and I know my answer is not what you're expecting.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Call The Vet show. If we've not met before then my name is Dr. Alex. I'm the veterinarian behind ourpetshealth.com. And I'm really excited to have you along with me today because I've got a fantastic question that I know many of you will have thought about, will have made a decision, or will be actually struggling with as I speak.

So, what to feed your dog? Well, before I jump into my thoughts on this topic, and I'm sure you've got your own, and I'd actually love to hear your thoughts after you've listened to this and you can hit me up over on Instagram at OurPetsHealth.

Before I jump into this. I've answered a lot of different diet questions. I've never answered this one in particular, but you can get my thoughts on the best diet to feed your dog in my free guide, simply by heading over to ourpetshealth.com/dietguide. And I'll leave a link in the show notes for that.

That's a pretty comprehensive guide because about seven or 8,000 words. So, it's not a lightweight throw away PDF. It's pretty in-depth and it goes to a lot of the evidence behind the recommendations and a lot of the evidence behind the potential pros and cons of feeding different diets. So, again, you can get that at ourpetshealth.com/dietguide, and I'll leave the link in the show notes. So, you can click through to that.

Make sure you hit that subscribe button on whichever podcasting app you're listening to .

But for now, let's hear from Zev Opos who runs a fantastic Facebook group who sent in today's question.

Hi, Dr. Alex, this is Zev Opus on behalf of the Facebook group pet health advice. I went ahead and I asked our group what's the most common pet health related issue that you've seen, or that you'd be interested in. Hearing more about the group came back and unanimously want to know:

Do you suggest, in regards to dogs, a wet food diet, a dry food diet, or a combination of both a wet and a dry food diet?

We really appreciate your perspective. If anybody would like to join our group, they could simply type into the search bar of Facebook pet health advice, and we should show up there. Uh, we're really appreciate you having us on your podcast.

We look forward to listening to it. And we hope you have a wonderful day. Dr. Alex wishing you all the best. Bye bye.

Now this clear pros and cons and benefits to feeding kibble as well as wet dog food. Now, some of those benefits and some of those pros are going to be benefits to us, our dog's owner, and carer and parents, so they're going to make our life easier.

So, the first one of these is that actually kibble is cheaper.

So, if we're thinking about the benefits of kibble, cost is definitely something that really comes out as a plus four kibble. Kibble can also be left out longer without spoiling. So, depending on your lifestyle, if you're there for your dog all the time, that's not going to be an issue.

If you've got a dog who's picky eater though, or if you're out of the house and you kind of feed them first thing in the morning and then rush out to work, school, whatever, then the fact that it doesn't spoil quickly is really a big benefit, not just for you, but also for your dog, because they're not going to eat spoiled food especially if you live in a warmer environment, when that's going to happen much faster.

Combined with this lack of spoiling, kibble is also cleaner and has less odor. So, even if your dog is a messy eater, it's much easier to clean up after kibble than the splatters of wet dog food. If they're shaking their head or if they're spreading it outside of their food bowl.

Now, kibble is also easier to use in food puzzles and different food toys. So like Kongs. There's various different puzzle types out there. and I'll leave a link to some of my favorite ones in the show notes as well.

But kibble certainly isn't the be-all and end-all with food toys, because you certainly can use wet dog food with different options to things like the licki pad, the licki mat are really good for wet dog food compared to dry dog food. So it's not completely clearcut here.

There's also a thought that kibble could be more environmentally friendly in terms of packaging. Clearly, you can get a really big bag. That big bag is going to maybe lost your dog for a month. And I certainly recommend that you don't feed from the same bag for longer than a month, because that is actually going to increase the chance that it spoils, increase food mites which can cause allergies and all kinds of problems, but that's significantly less packaging than where you to feed your dog just wet dog food for a month where there'll be a whole number of different tins or sachets to dispose of which will lead to increase packaging going into the landfill.

Now, one big myth to bust! Heere when we're thinking about the benefits of kibble is that you may have heard and you may quite logically think that kibble is going to be better for your dog's teeth than a wet dog food and dental disease, it's really common. It's something that I've spoken about many times before, but actually your bog-standard, off-the-shelf-supermarket kibble is really no better, or certainly has a very little benefit, compared to just a normal wet food.

Now, there are exceptions to this.

I know that some dry diets that are focused on reducing dental disease really can help to keep your dog's teeth clean, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

And if you're wondering if your dog's food is included in that, you can look for the VOHC. That's the Veterinary Oral Health Council Seal of Approval, which should be on their packaging, but you can also head over to the website as well.

So, moving on to the benefits of wet dog food.

The first of these is that they provide different textures for your dog. So, they come in chunky versions, in patties, in broths, in stews. There's lots of different variety here, and that can really benefit your dog just from an interest point of view.

The second benefit is it's going to increase their water intake. So, dry food has a moisture content of between about three to 12% and that's compared with wet or tinned or packaged canned dog food that has a moisture content of between about 60 to 84%. So, clearly that's an awful lot more water.

The flip side here is, is that you're paying for a lot of extra water compared to that kibble, which is where that cost efficiency comes into play.

Now, getting your dog to drink more water is perhaps less important than say for example, cats, because dogs do tend to have a reasonable drive for thirst. They do tend to drink quite a lot. And they drink when they're thirsty, which is quite different from the cat. So, from a medical point of view, it's maybe less important.

But having said that, it could definitely help if your dog doesn't drink too much, or if they have a medical condition, which means that they're producing more urine and they need more water and they're struggling to maintain their hydration. So, that could be something like diabetes or kidney disease or liver disease or Cushing's hypoadrenocorticism, which is a hormonal abnormality.

So, there's a few conditions there that could mean that actually feeding a wet food is going to be better for your dog.

Now, wet food also increases feelings of fullness in your dog, and that can result actually then in fewer calories being consumed and being eaten, and that can help with your dog losing weight, especially if they do always seem hungry, even if they're on a light or a specific weight loss diet. Switching to a wet food may be beneficial.

And then by and large, wet food is tastier than dry kibble for dogs. So, it has a richer scent and that can be especially helpful for older dogs or those with a reduced sense of smell, because sense of smell is really important when it comes to appetite, hunger, and eating properly.

Wet food is also easier if your dog has chewing difficulties. So they could have, for example, advanced dental disease. We clearly need to be treating that dental disease. But in the meantime, and in the recovery, wet food may be beneficial.

And also if your dog has actually had significant dental problems and they have got very few teeth left, they might find wet food significantly easier to eat than a dry biscuit.

And then wet food actually has less preservatives in it because it's heat-sealed. It's pasteurized and then sealed. It doesn't need to be kept open for a long period of time like kibble does.

So, preservatives. They stop food from spoiling. , but they can also cause problems or they can potentially cause problems.

Now, this isn't quite as straightforward as it sounds though, because most canned foods do contain bisphenols and that's BPA and BPS that line that can to stop the metals leaching into the food. And those have potentially been linked to different problems.

Having said all, that these preservative and other preservatives, the impact on dog health isn't clearcut. It hasn't been well demonstrated and it may not be as significant as, for example, in us simply because our dogs are not lifting as long as we are.

So, which is better for your dog, wet food or dry food? Well, in the first instance, why not just feed both and get the best of both worlds? You can to provide more variety for your dog, which is going to provide them with more mental stimulation as well. They're going to be guessing what they're going to get.

You can provide different food toys, different food puzzles, different feeding techniques to keep your dog interested. They're also going to be less likely to be fussy later on in life.

So, if they do have a medical condition, that means you do need to change their diet to something very specific and something very specialized, then the chances are they're going to have come across that flavor or that texture or that feed type before. And so they're going to be much more likely to accept it. T

he other thing that you consider is consider adding a topper to your dog's food. And I discussed that more in episode number 82. So, you can head back into the podcast archives to check that recent episode out.

But when all is said and done, I'm actually going to say that I don't really care which one you feed your dog. I don't think it is the most important thing that you need to consider.

The most important thing that you need to consider when feeding your dog is how much you are feeding them. So, there is an obesity epidemic that's sweeping across our global pet population.

So, that's dogs and cats in the United States, in Europe, in the UK, in Australia, New Zealand, in China . It's affecting all pets in pretty much every single country. And this obesity epidemic has massive health complications far and away greater than the potential problems that could be caused by choosing wet over dry food or vice versa.

We're talking here about arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, kidney problems, skin disease. There's a huge range of different conditions that are linked to obesity or obesity has an impact on how well we're able to control it, treat it and prevent it.

So, if you want to work out the best way to feed your dog, you need to be clear on what your dog's ideal weight is, and you should be learning how to perform a body condition score. And again, I'll leave a link in the show notes for that.

You then need to work out how much to feed them and then use scales to make sure that you're not overfeeding. You also need to factor in treats in any other tidbits, table scraps and things like that that you're feeding them because it really is so easy to overfeed our dog if we're not wearing it's out, especially if you've got a smaller breed dog who really don't need that much food.

And then, once you've worked out exactly how much to feed your dog, you need to think about how you're feeding it because so many of our dogs are not given the mental stimulation that they need to be as happy as they possibly can be.

So, think about food puzzles. Think about games to play where your dog is provided with mental stimulation to get their food.

It's really important. And then just keep rotating those so that you keep your dog guessing. So they're not just getting used to performing the same trick, which really then fails to do the job that it sets out to do.

So Zev, I hope that answered your member's questions about which is the best to feed your dog. And I hope it gives some serious food for thought and stimulates a bit of discussion. I'd love to hear what you think.

So, I'd love to hear your thoughts as well over on Instagram . My handle is @ourpetshealth. So , you can find me there. Send me a DM with your thoughts of how you feed your dog. I'd be really interested to hear from you.

Also make sure you share this episode with any other dog lovers in your life. So, friends, family over on Facebook. Wherever it is, I'd love to be able to reach more people and help them make a really informed decision about what's best to feed their dog and then how to optimize their pets health, which is what everything that I do is all about.

So, thanks for joining me. Make sure you hit that subscribe button on whichever podcasting app you're listening to. And until next time I'm veterinarian Dr. Alex. This is the Call the Vet show. Take care.