Whether your dog eats a commercial diet, a cooked diet or raw meat and bones, it's useful to know what foods you can safely add to her diet. Not only are many different foods nutritious for dogs, but she will enjoy a varied diet and it can keep her healthier and even reduce the chance of food allergies. Balance out different types of diets with meat, eggs and vegetables. Just as important as knowing what foods you can safely add is knowing what foods to avoid.
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Animal Protein
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If you feed a dry kibble food, your dog is eating a diet based not on meat (despite what the packaging indicates) but on cooked cereal and cereal byproducts like corn and wheat gluten and brewer's rice. Since there has been growing awareness about pet-food ingredients, some companies are producing dry foods designed to be fed with added fresh ingredients. Safe foods can include cooked or raw meat, whole eggs or fish.
Vegetables and Dairy Products
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Cooked or pulped raw vegetables are a healthful addition to the canine diet. Scottish terriers are particularly prone to bladder cancer and were chosen for a 2007 Purdue Veterinary School study evaluating the effect of feeding yellow and green vegetables on cancer rates. When the vegetables were added to the diet three times per week, cancer rates were reduced by 70 percent. That rate was raised to almost 90 percent when only dark green leafy vegetables were added to the diet. Other studies are evaluating the effect of diet on cancers in different breeds of dogs. Raw vegetables are a low-calorie snack but need to be pulped in a blender for dogs to get the full nutritional benefits: Being carnivores, dogs lack the enzymes to break down cellulose and fully digest raw vegetables without cooking or pulping.
Many dogs are allergic or intolerant to dairy products like milk and cheese. However, probiotic-rich yogurt is well-tolerated by most dogs and may be beneficial in small amounts for gas and stomach upset.
Cautions and Risks
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Several foods should be avoided. Cooked bones of any kind are poorly digested and pose risk of intestinal puncturing or blockage. The artificial sweetener Xylitol can cause a dog's blood pressure to drop and resultant heart problems. Grapes, raisins, chocolate, caffeine and alcohol are among potentially dangerous foods. See Resources for a more comprehensive list.
Whenever you introduce a new food to your dog's diet, do it gradually and in very small amounts at first. If your dog has been used to eating nothing but commercial kibble, she will be more likely to have an unnaturally finicky stomach from being fed a very limited diet. If she is used to a varied raw or cooked diet, or used to getting some table scraps, she will probably have a sturdier digestive system.
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