How To Improve Your Pet's Digestion?

Are you constantly worried about your pet's digestion? You're not alone! Many pet parents around the world face problems with their pet's digestion and often find themselves scrambling for the perfect solution.

A poor digestion overtime leads to chronic diseases such as IBS (inflammatory bowel syndrome) that requires immediate medical attention. Hence, to prevent it all, let’s start by working on ways to improve your pet’s digestion!

What causes poor digestion?

Poor digestion in both dogs and cats arise from a number of factors including, but not limited to, lifestyle, obesity, thyroid disorders, genetics, eating nutritionally-inadequate food, eating too much human food, worms, stress, ignoring gut health, and lack of sufficient mental and physical exercise. Your pet’s digestion is controlled by millions of microorganisms, or ‘good bacteria’ that live inside their digestive tract. Together, they are called the gut microbiome. Along with digestion, they also influence a dog/cat’s weight, mood, nutrient absorption, coat health, energy levels, and mental health. 

How do I improve my pet’s digestion?

1. Feed them a digestive diet
A diet that is tailored to help pets with poor digestion is low in fat, contains no artificial preservatives, is rich in protein, and is supplemented with prebiotics to strengthen the gut microbiome. Digestive diets often contain protein that is easy to digest like Lamb and is power-packed with essentials vitamins and minerals that boost energy levels. In addition to this, it is best to choose diets that contain ingredients that help prevent the formation of gas and take care of your pet’s intestine, like Fennel. Depending on your pet’s digestive health, you can opt for diets made with healthy cereals or ones without. However, it is often recommended to choose without cereals and with healthier carbohydrates like Quinoa, which whilst having a high biological value also promotes digestion and intestinal health. Remember to also include an ingredient like Mint in your pet’s digestive diet to help stimulate gastric activities.

2. Don’t skip deworming
Even if your pet is on the best digestive diet, the presence of worms always results in nutritional malabsorption and poor digestion. Hence, it is important to keep your pet’s deworming schedule up-to-date, even when they’re older!

3. Add gut supplements to the mix
Gut supplements aim at improving digestion and appetite. They are a combination of prebiotics, enzymes, and probiotics - each targeting improved digestion, enhanced immunity, reduction of hairball formation, improved stool quality, and reduced diarrhoea. 

4. Don’t neglect physical exercise
Physical exercise stimulates every organ of your pet’s body, including their tummies. When your pet engages in any kind of aerobic exercise, their stomachs start to digest food better, in turn leading to better digestive health. Hence, it is crucial to give your pet the adequate amount of exercise as per their age and breed. 

5. Ensure they are mentally stimulated
Pets that are bored are often stressed because they don’t have an outlet/channel for their energy. Stress is often cited as one the primary reasons for an unhealthy or poor digestion in both humans and pets simply because it is known to negatively affect gut bacteria. Hence, daily mental stimulation activities in the form of puzzle toys or KONGs are crucial to overall digestive health.

6. Stick to dog/cat food
Pets that eat a lot of human food, i.e. scraps off the table or human food that is considered toxic to dogs and cats often find themselves with poor digestion. This is also accompanied by vomiting, stomach aches, diarrhoea, lethargy etc. 

7. Visit a veterinarian 
Before attempting to treat poor digestion on your own, it is important to rule out any underlying medical conditions like heartburn, GERD, hypothyroidism, bowel disease etc that may be causing the digestive system to perform poorly. Speaking to your veterinarian can help rule out or treat these diseases alongside improving gut health. 

Remember, it is important to stay consistent and not give in to temptation if you want to better your dog’s digestive health!