Diet and Nutrition
At Tato’s Frenchies we feed our dogs mostly a kibble diet and raw beef maybe once or twice a week. I know some people who feed their French Bulldogs only raw and some who only feed kibble. An all kibble diet is ok if it comes from a good quality source but still not optimal.
For Kibble –
We feed our Puppies Royal Canin Small Puppy.
Our adults usually get Victors beef formula or Natures valley duck and potatoes.
For raw –
Note *Do NOT give a raw food to a puppy 6 months or younger.
We do the Answers Raw Beef Patties. We love this brand since the beef is grass fed and the patties also have veggies to make sure each meal your pup is getting all the right nutrition it needs.
When we do it ourselves we do: for breakfast 80% beef 20% sweet potatoes then dinner 80% beef, 10% sweet potatoes and 10% vegetables for your dogs raw diet. We also mix 1/2 a cup of kibble and 1/2 a cup of raw uncooked ground beef for a meal for our pregnant females. When time doesn’t permit to run to the store and we miss a week of feeding raw then start up again we immediately notice how much nicer their fur and skin feels.
*WARNING* dogs unlike humans can not disperse the extra vitamin A that enters their systems. It just gets stored inside them and when it reaches a high level it starts becoming toxic to your dog and starts shutting down their organs. Vegetables have a high amount of vitamin A so you need to be very carful not to over do it.
Give them 3% of their daily weight. So if your dog weighs 20lbs you feed them .6lbs or 9.6oz per day, not per meal.
My good friend has written a great article on the topic on nutrition and it includes everything you need to know and more.
http://www.chasteensamericanbulldogs.com/raw-diet-and-nutrition.html
Supplements-
We supplement one meal a day with Zesty Paws pure Alaskan Salmon oil as well. This provides a high quality fat sources that helps support skin, hip and joints, immune system and reproductive organs that you wont find in kibble foods.
More info
Egg products also tend to make dogs uneasy. We don’t recommend giving your dogs any treats, these are always made with poor quality foods and that can give your Frenchie diarrhea. It has happened time and time again, a client will call me saying their new pup is having diarrhea. The first question I always ask is if they are feeding their dogs treats and 99% of the time their answer is yes.
Before our customers stray from the recommended meal plan for their French Bulldog we suggest they contact us first to make sure the food is appropriate. We like to stick to the old saying “if it’s not broke why fix it?”.