Getting The Aging Dog's Diet Right

Domesticated and dependent upon their owners for food, today's dogs are amply fed, right to the point of obesity, yet they often develop a number of deficiencies from their improperly balanced diets. The advent over the past decade of nutritionally "complete" or "balanced" commercial dog foods has drastically reduced the incidence of dietary deficiencies. Today such nutritional problems are seen mostly in dogs who are fed homemade diets or a diet of table scraps and leftovers.

Incorrect dog food recipes often lead to constipation. Repeated bouts of constipation can slowly stretch the rectal muscles, causing permanent dilatation and resulting in chronic constipation. Once this occurs, your dog will need frequent enemas as well as fecal softeners to help him eliminate. The increased time the stool remains in the colon and rectum will allow bacteria that normally live there to act on the stool, causing putrefaction and excessive gas production.

As your dog grows older, the muscles of the colon and rectum may lose some of their ability to propel and expel feces adequately during a bowel movement. Reduction in stomach and intestinal digestive secretions can produce a bulkier, firmer stool as can diets very high in dry food content if there is insufficient water intake. Your dog will squat and strain to force the fecal mass slowly out. She may cry from the discomfort.

Prostatic disease can mechanically cause constipation as the prostate gland enlarges and presses up against the floor of the rectum. Similarly, tumors in the rectum or on the anus can interfere with the passage of feces. Any dog may have an isolated difficult bowel movement on occasion. This should be no cause for alarm if he is otherwise in good health and there is no bleeding or excessive pain.

Poor nutrition, whether from dietary deficiencies or excesses, has a significantly negative effect on your dog's ability to remain in good health. Resistance to infection is lowered, as is the production of antibodies, allowing infectious agents to multiply rapidly and spread. The resulting fever, diarrhea, or other manifestations of illness, more than likely will make your dog less interested in eating, thus increasing the state of malnutrition.

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