June 2020 COVID-19 update- There have been a few confirmed cases of cats and dogs contracting coronavirus from humans. There have been no deaths in these animals who were positive with COVID-19. Symptoms of coronavirus in pets include fever, coughing, sneezing, vomiting, lethargy and diarrhea. If your pet has these symptoms AND has been in contact with a human positive for COVID-19, contact your veterinarian to discuss further action. Click here for more information on COVID-19 in cats and dogs.
March 2020- for updates on COVID-19's impact on pets, click here. This link takes you to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) website. Furthermore, according to the North American Veterinary Community's chief veterinary officer, Dr. Dana Vable, dogs cannot get the coronavirus and it is very unlikely for them to be able to pass it to humans.
For those feeding their dogs dry food, if your local pet stores are closed, Chewy and Amazon are great delivery services that carry a plethora of brands. (Chewy can even partner with your veterinarian to send your dogs prescriptions!) If you want to switch to cooked meals, click here for food-specific information. If you want to ration or supplement your dog's food, continue reading below.
It would be irresponsible and dangerous of me to advise someone to just feed less to their dogs in hopes of extending food. Unless your emergency is the zombie apocalypse, you should not have to drastically reduce your dog's caloric intake. Doing so will slow their metabolism, thus leading to weight gain and potetional health complications an expensive vet visit can fix. Furthermore, not all dogs are the same; different dogs have different dietary needs. A very active, 2 year old, 40lb dog will need more calories than a dog the same age and weight with a calmer lifestyle. Therefore, any specific advice I give for one dog will likely not adhere to anothers. Fortunately, in a case of emergency where you have to restrict your dog's activity anyway, they will naturally consume less as most dogs actually stop eating when full.
How do I know how much food to feed my dog?
Luckily, you already have access to the amount of calories your dog needs.
Besides the recommended serving sizes, manufactured food also contains the caloric information within the cups. If you're unaware of how much energy your dog needs, in general they should eat about 20-30x its weight in calories (cals). Broken down, this means dogs up to 10 lbs shouldnt get more than 300 cals per day, 10-15 lbs < 500 cals, 15-25 lbs <650 cals, 25-35 lbs <800 cals, 35-50 lbs <1100 cals, 50-60 lbs< 1300 cals, 60-80 lbs < 1600 lbs, 80-100 lbs <1900 cals, and 100+ lbs over 2000 cals.
Kelpie's Raw food and Vegetarian Diet posts delves deeper into it, but a basic formula is to multiply a dog's resting energy requirement (RER) by a common multiplier(y) to obtain their maintenance energy requirement (MER). This formula isn't exact, but the MER value provides a general idea of the calories your dog needs.
RER(y)=MER
RER= ((dog's weight in kg)^(.75)) x 70
Common values for y:
Neutered/spayed dogs= 1.6
Intact dogs= 1.8
Light activity= 2
Moderate activity= 1.7
(Again, click the link regarding raw food and vegetarianism to learn more about the science behind the equation.)
As long as you're not going too far beneath or above the calculated MER, you can decrease your feeding amount and your dog will stay within a healthy weight range (unless your y value is calculated for weight loss). Besides the calorie calculations, your dog's physical appearance will also alert you if it's safe to decrease their food amount. This chart by NomNomWow, a dog health website, depicts different dog's body types. If reducing your food causes your dogs body condition score to drop to 1-3, please reevaluate your current feeding plan and increase their calories in a healthy way. If reducing your food places your dog's body condition score in the 4-5 range, then they are getting the necessary nutrients to stay healthy.
What can I feed my dog?
Each dog has different feeding requirements, but as a general rule of thumb, meat should make up about 60% of the meal with the remaining 40% being starches and vegetables. The easiest way to ensure you're not overfeeding is to measure and weigh the prepared meals to ensure the portions are accurate. If you're unsure whether or not your dog has allergies, stick to the ingredients within your dry food. For example, if feeding American Journey- Chicken and Brown Rice Recipe, you know your dog can safely digest chicken, peas, sweet potatoes, and brown rice amongst a plethora of other ingredients. The same procedure applies to treats as well- check the ingredients list to determine which foods you know your dog can safely digest.
If you're concerned about running out dry food, you can split the calories with prepared food. Just be sure that this all equates up to their recommended daily calories.
List of non-perishable food dogs can eat:
- Brown rice (be sure to cook long enough to ensure it's fully digestible)
- Canned salmon (low sodium)
- Canned tuna (WATER ONLY)
- Certain cooked beans (especially green beans, black, pinto, lima, garbanzo, butter, soy, and kidney)
- Lentils
- Oatmeal and Barley (be sure to cook long to ensure it's fully digestible)
- Peanut butter that doesn't contain xylitol or added sugars and preservatives
- Unseasoned animal jerky (no spices/salt and free of added preservatives)
- Whole wheat pasta
- Zero/low sodium version of canned vegetables/fruit they can eat (i.e., artichokes, corn, pumpkin, string beans etc.)
List of non-perishable food dogs cannot eat:
- Any canned food with garlic and onion
- Any canned food with sodium (always go for low-sodium options if you can)
- Fava beans
- Spam
How should I exercise my dog if I'm unable to walk them outside?
There are plenty of indoor games you can play to keep your dog mentally and physically stimulated. In apartment complexes (and multi-level houses), the staircases can be an excellent training assist. You can play fetch between the flights of stairs, hide and seek on different floors (or still within the staircase if big enough), and practice certain tricks from considerable distances such as recall training, sit, stay, and stop. With caution, you can combine stair play with food as well; place their food on different stairs so they have to sniff every single step to find and work for their meal. You can also throw treats down the stairs so they're running up and down flights. Be wary about doing strenuous physical activity and combining it with food, as it can cause vomiting, choking, and/or bloat which is extreme stomach pain and can be fatal. To avoid this, provide water and plenty of rest breaks, and don't push your dog when they're telling you they need to rest.
If you have access to a backyard or courtyard, you can scatter their food around which will require the dogs to have to use their minds to sniff it out. To make the game more complex, hide the food in substrate so your dog will also have to dig to find it. You can also make a scattering game inside; hide their food or treats under furniture and other hidden places that requires dogs to really use their noses to find them. If you don't have specialized treat dispensing toys, you can fill a baking muffin pan with treats and water, freeze it, and then have them try to break the treats out the ice. Or, you can top the treats with shredded paper so theyll have to "dig" through that to get to the treats below. If you have any stuffed animals you're willing to spare, you can place treats/foods within them so your dog can have fun ripping that open.
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