Calcium Supplementation In Dogs Case Study

Calcium Supplementation in Dogs

There are many reasons why owners feel the need to supplement their dogs with certain nutrients. They may be trying to fill holes in their dog’s diet to ensure that the dog is getting the proper nutrition, or they may feel that the life stage that their animal is in requires a higher dosage or certain nutrients or minerals. Whatever the case may be for introducing certain mineral and nutrient supplements into a dog’s diet, it is important to understand the issues that could arise as a result. The main focus of this paper is to discuss the overconsumption of calcium by dogs and how it can affect them. It is important to touch on the impact that large amounts of calcium can have on dogs at different stages of their lifecycle, the diseases and disorders than can arise from this over consumption, the reasons that some dogs are over consuming calcium, and how these issues can be prevented with proper care and management of a dog’s diet. …show more content…
During pregnancy the mother not only needs to meet her nutritional needs, she also needs to meet the nutritional needs of her growing litter. During pregnancy it is important to change the dog’s diet to a diet that will support not only gestation but also lactation towards the end of the gestation (Case 2000). At this point in the diet owners tend to want to supplement calcium or add calcium rich food with the current diet changes (Case 2000). The idea behind the addition of calcium to the diet is to ensure there is proper fetal development for the growing litter (Case