How to Use a Dog Food Topper

A dog food topper can make your dog's food more nutritious and appealing, keeping them happy and healthy. Below are answers to common questions you may have regarding how to use a dog food topper.

1. What are dog food toppers?

Dog toppers refer to any addition to the pet's regular daily dog food. Toppers can range from simply adding water to the dog food to sophisticated quality combinations of high level protein, carbohydrate, fats, vitamins, minerals, electrolytes and essential fatty acids. 

2. Why can some dogs benefit from food toppers?

Dogs benefit in multiple ways from toppers with probably the number one benefit being to improve the taste of food, increasing their appetite, resulting in improving eating habits. With medical conditions requiring health-enhancing nutrition, savory combinations of tasty nutritional elements can easily rest on top or be mixed with everyday food. Benefits include developing regular eating habits, hydration and complimenting necessary nutrition for essential health care deficiencies in a tasty dish. 

3. Is homemade the way to go, or do commercial toppers offer any advantages over DIY toppers?

Here lies the dilemma in utilizing the value of commercial toppers for dogs. Veterinarians have been recommending home spun food toppers for dogs to compensate for their pet's health conditions since veterinary medicine began. Because their recommendations generally improve the dogs' health conditions. Their comfort level for recommendations lies mainly with historical treatment success. Home spun toppers, though, generally require extensive effort and a burden on the part of pet parents. Without total commitment, preparation of homespun toppers fades with time and the pet suffers. The convenience of readily available manufactured toppers eliminates the pet parent burden and ensures continued availability of toppers, giving the best opportunity for continued pet support. The dilemma lies in that topper manufacturers haven't promoted the value of their product to the veterinary community and the veterinarians haven't taken the time to discover quality manufactured toppers available on the market. 

4. Does the type of topper matter (dried, fresh, freeze-dried)?

Commercial toppers come in many different forms. What works best for your pet generally lies with trial and error of manufactured toppers. It is what is appealing to the palate of the pet that dictates the pet' parents choice of the type of topper matter.

5. Should pet parents introduce toppers gradually?

Any change in the pet's diet should be made gradually. Sudden changes in diet often cause irritation resulting in acute or chronic gastritis and enteritis. The gradual introduction of a new food or supplement allows adjustment of the sensitive GI tract and promotes success for better digestion.

6. When is it a bad idea to use dog food toppers (e.g., when pickiness may be a sign of underlying medical issues)?

Food toppers may be helpful in reversing severe GI conditions including pickiness or irregular ingestion of food. Before including pet food toppers in the regular pet's diet, the veterinarian should be consulted to evaluate if the pet might be experiencing an underlying medical condition and their recommendation of the type of topper to be administered. 

All in all, so many pets don't receive appropriate medical care today because many treatments require extensive effort from the pet parent. Soon the preparation of treatments become a burden to the human, resulting in reduced treatments and the pet deteriorates. Supplemental food toppers are so important in managing many diseases and medical conditions.

Manufacturers of effective and quality pet food toppers can be a big part of promoting health for the vulnerable pet. Simply manufacturing essential health food toppers will not only aid in improving the health of sick pets but may save lives. They should make efforts to engage the veterinary industry as a priority rather than the pet parent. Instead of expecting the pet guardian to make decisions on topper content from marketing in the aisles of grocery and pet stores as is the manufacturers' current marketing priority, educate the veterinarian about the topper products and then the veterinarian will prescribe the best product for the health of the pet.