Content
- Differences between omnivorous animals and carnivorous animals
- What do dogs eat?
- Is the dog a carnivore or an omnivore?
- nutritional epigenetics
Is a dog a carnivore or an omnivore? There is a big debate about this. The feed industry, veterinarians and nutrition experts offer widely varying opinions on this subject.In addition, the composition of food varies greatly in different types of diets, whether homemade or commercial, raw or cooked and even dry or wet. What do dogs really eat?
In this PeritoAnimal article, we want to give a reliable answer to this current conflict, all based on scientific and proven facts. Do you have questions about whether your dog is an omnivore or a carnivore? Then read this article.
Differences between omnivorous animals and carnivorous animals
Many people are in doubt and question whether a dog is a carnivore or an omnivore. From a morphoanatomical and physiological point of view, the differences between these types of animals are centered mainly on their digestive system and everything related to it.
Carnivorous animals have sharp teeth they help to tear the meat apart, and they don't chew much, just enough to get the food through the esophagus. The position when eating is usually standing with the head down, this favors the passage of food. Another of the characteristics of the animals that hunt their prey are the claws.
We should not confuse with the position acquired by herbivorous animals, such as ungulate animals - such as horses and zebras -, as they only acquire this posture to uproot the vegetation, chewing is done with the head up.
Omnivorous animals have flat molars, which favors chewing. The presence or absence of developed prey does not indicate that an animal is not an omnivore, as its ancestor may have developed fangs to defend itself or that it was a carnivore.
Some characteristics of carnivorous animals are:
- O digestive system of carnivorous animals is short, as it does not require the completion of the entire process of digestion of vegetables, in addition they do not have the same intestinal flora as omnivorous animals.
- At digestive enzymes are also different among these animals. Some have enzymes specialized in digesting meat and others have some enzymes typical of herbivores and others of carnivores.
- O liver and kidneys of carnivorous animals produce certain substances in greater quantity than other animals with another type of diet.
So, can you tell if the dog is a carnivore? Or do you think the dog is omnivorous?
What do dogs eat?
In most households where dogs live, they are usually fed with rations that provide complete and balanced nutrition. On the market there is a wide variety of feeds for different sizes, races, ages or pathologies.
If we pay attention and look at the nutrition labels, we will see that most of them have a high carbohydrate concentration, which might make us think it's something necessary for the dog's nutrition. However, this is not the case. Carbohydrates only reduce the cost of the feed, making it more affordable for the consumer, but it is not a quality food for our dog. In fact, there are few rations that qualitatively approach real food-based diets like the BARF diet for dogs.
Likewise, there is no doubt whether the cat is an omnivore or a carnivore, we know that it is a strict carnivoreHowever, the rations made for them also contain carbohydrates. A quality diet for a dog is that animal protein based, which can be complemented or enriched with plant foods.
Is the dog a carnivore or an omnivore?
O dog is carnivore, but it's a optional carnivore. This means that dogs have all the characteristics that define carnivores, both anatomically and physiologically speaking, but for certain reasons that we will explain at the end of the article, they are able to digest and assimilate nutrients such as carbohydrates, present in foods such as cereals, vegetables. or fruits.
O bowel length of dogs is very short, between 1.8 and 4.8 meters. Differences between breeds in terms of length, permeability and microbiota must be taken into account. The human being, as an omnivorous animal, has an intestine that varies from 5 to 7 meters in length. If you have a dog, you can easily see how sharp its teeth are, specifically the tusks, premolars and molars. This is another characteristic by which we classify the dog as a carnivorous animal.
As we said at the beginning, carnivorous animals have a intestinal flora different from herbivorous or omnivorous animals. This intestinal flora serves, among many other things, to help ferment certain nutrients, such as carbohydrates. In dogs, the carbohydrate fermentation pattern is poor, although breed should always be taken into account. By this, we mean that there are breeds that assimilate these nutrients better and other breeds just assimilate them.
The brain primarily uses glucose to function. Dogs don't need a supply of carbohydrates as they have alternative metabolic routes through which they produce glucose from proteins. So, if the dog is not an omnivore, why can it assimilate some plant-based nutrients?
nutritional epigenetics
To answer the previous question, it is necessary to understand the concept of epigenetics. Epigenetics refers to the force that the environment exerts on the genetic information of living beings. A clear example of this can be seen in the reproduction of sea turtles, whose offspring are born female or male, depending on the temperature in which they develop.
During the dog's domestication process (still under research), the pressures of its environment caused changes in the synthesis of enzymes responsible for the digestion of nutrients, adapting it to survive, taking a diet based on "human waste". As a result, they started to assimilate many plant-based nutrients, but that doesn't mean that dogs are omnivorous. Therefore, we reinforce that the dog is an optional carnivore.
If you want to read more articles similar to Is the dog a carnivore or an omnivore?, we recommend that you enter our Balanced Diets section.