Ways to Keep Your Dog Feeling Full
By John Gilpatrick
It’s something nearly every dog owner has gone through. Thirty minutes before your alarm goes off, as you cling to those precious last moments of slumber, there’s an overeager and purposeful series of scratches on the bedroom door. Someone’s hungry.
But is he really? “Speaking in terms of evolution, dogs are opportunistic scavengers,” says Dr. Rebecca Remillard, a veterinary nutrition consultant and diplomate for the American College of Veterinary Nutrition (ACVN). “If given the opportunity, they might eat everything in sight including the refrigerator.”
Remillard, through her PetDiets.com business, specializes in creating custom, homemade diets for pets. She says actually managing and accurately judging your dog’s satiety (fullness) is a difficult science because dogs eat for many reasons beyond feeling hungry.
“Just think about humans,” she says. “Food is love. We eat as a form of community. Conversely, we eat because we’re lonely and stressed, too.”
