Feed Your Dog a Highly Digestible Diet for ‘Less Poop to Scoop’

Happy Dog vet, Carina Mederle, explains why feeding your dog on a highly-digestible diet is so important. A diet with very ‘high-digestibility’ guarantees that the nutrients in the food can be easily absorbed and used by the body without having to go through complicated digestive and metabolic processes. The higher the digestibility, the less metabolic ‘waste’ products there are to put the body under pressure. High digestibility is important for your dog’s health and will ensure he absorbs all the nutrients he needs for optimum health and vitality.

The Way Dog Food is Processed Influences Digestibility

The way in which a food is processed has a very important influence on its digestibility, for example, extruded products (dry kibbles) have a much higher digestibility than crushed flakes (comparable to our breakfast cereals). The higher the quality of the raw material, the higher the digestibility of the food – and therefore the higher the quality of the food itself. For example the skin, hair and claws of a slaughtered animal are classes as highly indigestible and therefore of poor quality.

The following criteria are signs of high-digestibility:

Small feeding amount

Small faecal volume (‘Less Poop to Scoop’)

Good faecal consistency

Digestibility is not wholly due to the type and quality of food but also dependent on the individual animal itself. In very nervous or older animals, digestibility can be reduced because of an excessively fast intestinal transit or a decrease in function of the digestive organs. It’s important to note that a complete food cannot be 100% digestible because a proportion of insoluble fibre is necessary for the passage of food to ensure the maximum absorption of nutrients. Moreover, of course, health problems like parasites, pancreatitis, etc. can have a negative influence on the digestibility. A food with high-digestibility is especially important to sensitive dogs that suffer from digestive issues.

Happy Dog Foods Have High-Digestibility

All Happy Dog foods are made using high-quality, locally sourced raw materials which gives them particularly high digestibility (over 90%) and therefore making them very wholesome products. How well the body can digest dog food can be seen if you look at the waste - if a food is only 7.5% less digestible (for example 82.5% versus 90%) it leads to twice the amount of faeces! © Dr. med. vet C. Mederle