What Canine Nutrition Taught Me About Life

The saddest day of my life is when I lost Coco, our Border Collie. I was just a 10-year-old kid then. A brain so small couldn’t comprehend the reason why I had to lose my best friend.

Well, I have adopted many senior dogs so far. I had to put some of them to sleep forever and some died a peaceful natural death. Every moment was heart-wrenching but I knew why they had to leave me; unlike in Coco’s case.

I had to live with my delusional beliefs until I became old enough to understand science and got to know that death is inevitable.

The crucial part of the realization was that some diseases are not curable. Life is fragile. We can die of even a scorpion bite.

I’ve adopted a total of 36 senior dogs and tried to give them the happiest moments of their life in their old age. The story of Coco is different. It happened at a different time and the cause of his death too was different.

Why did Coco die at an age of just 15 months? Why couldn’t we save him and lose him to a gastrointestinal condition? He suddenly went through an episode of GDV, Gastric Dilatation and Volvulus that resulted in a grave in a matter of minutes.

Coco was fine and an hour later he started feeling uneasy, started yelping, coughing, and trying to vomit but failed. Then he collapsed somewhat 20 minutes later.

He was already dead when my dad and mom took him to the hospital. His departure taught me the biggest lessons of life.

What caused GDV in Coco

Some dogs are more prone to GDV than others. Meaning, depending on the breed, dogs have peculiar gastrointestinal and skeletal structure. That makes the condition more prone in some breeds.

Fortunately, Border Collies are not prominently prone to the condition. However, regardless of the breed, all dogs can suffer from gastric dilatation and volvulus.

Border Collies also do not pass on this disease hereditarily. But they have a deep chest, which makes them somewhat likely to have this condition.

Coco’s biological parents didn’t have GDV either. So, there was no reason we would anticipate the development of GDV in Coco.

The only possible reason we could think of was his diet. He was on an adult kibble diet for three months before he died. Before that, he was eating highly nutritious puppy food.

The whole reasoning boiled down to one cause, his diet. When I decided to pursue a career in veterinary practices and pet-related business, Coco was always there in the back of my mind.

Coco was on a diet of industrially-prepared kibble. Since it’s a long time ago, my parents couldn’t tell the brand. But we can surely tell that it wasn’t some premium dog food company. Apparently, he liked the food but it was detrimental to his health.

Cheap kibbles have a bad reputation because of the fillers used. Most kibbles on the market are tailored to have the least amount of nutrition that conforms to AAFCO guidelines. To reduce the cost of the final product, they then add starch or grain fillers.

Grains, carbs, or starch are surely useful for dogs. They as scavengers eat veggies, grains, and many other plant-based foods. But these kibbles have more carbs than required which promotes gastrointestinal conditions like GDV because this sort of food does not manifest a natural diet.

Crucial Life Lessons From Canine Nutrition

I never expected Coco’s short life would teach me one of the crucial aspects of life; nutrition. The small mistake of not paying attention to our dog’s food resulted in death is shocking and surprising.

Fortunately, bloat in humans is not deadly. We all go through bloat at some point in time but have never seen anyone die.

Nevertheless, we have developed so many detrimental food habits over time in the name of making food tastier. Junk food has invaded our lives worse than ever.

We all know how harmful these habits are and how they can reduce the lifespan of an individual significantly. But more importantly, I realized the importance of our traditional food.

The human race has been existing for hundreds of thousands of years on this planet. Our food and cooking patterns have evolved through years of experiments and learning. So sticking with it is what wisdom suggests.

However, this doesn’t mean we need to blindly follow foods and traditions. Question it and if it resonates with your beliefs, you should follow it.

For dogs, we have done more experiments with their food. Reputed and big companies when preparing formulas, focus on testing on their dogs to see how perfectly it delivers nutrients to dogs.

But with cheap brands, it isn’t economically feasible.

I constantly seek dog food brands that are trying to replicate a dog’s diet in the wild as much as possible. I came across premium raw dog food by Dr. Marty pets.

Dr. Marty is using all raw ingredients in freeze-dried form. Dr. Martin Goldstein, the veterinarian who formulated this recipe is a celebrated veterinarian and has 45 years of experience in the veterinary field.

When rehydrated, this food regains its original texture and raw form that delivers the utmost nutrition to dogs. It brings wonders to dogs because the diet is one hundred percent natural with negligible processing.

Similarly, I’d like to see different ways to prepare our food but I stay away from any fad diets and new superfood trends as there aren’t enough studies that prove whether the new food trends we see every now and then are beneficial.

I’ve been living my life with the lessons about food and nutrition learned from my dog Coco since my teenage. And I wish to pass on my learnings to the generations coming.