Salt and Sodium in your dogs diet

When we consider our dog's diets, it's important to acknowledge that dogs and humans are different species and have different nutritional requirements.

Due to the average human consuming around 60-80% processed foods in their every day diet that is laiden with salt leading to poor health outcomes, humans often become anti-sodium without realising it is an essential mineral in our diet and it's all about the amount.

​

The main concerns of pet parents typically arise with canned fish which are a super convenient and healthy option for pet parents to add omega-3 and vitamin D into their dog's diet.

​

What many pet parents do not realise is that salt offers more than just sodium in a dogs diet such as iodine and Chlorine (depending on the type of salt), both of which are often low and need a boost in homemade diets, so the addition of canned oily fish 2-3 times a week is typically not going to be an issue.

Dogs with Kidney disease will have to be mindful about the amount of salt in their diet but these dogs are generally under nutritional management with their Vet or a nutritional consultant. 

A normal homemade diet with normal amounts of salt generally isn't a concern for such patients, it's a high salt diet that will want to be avoided and given that commercial diets sit at around 1% salt and homemade diets sit under that (even with the inclusion of canned fish), it seems unlikely this will be a problem.