What YOU should be feeding to your best furry friend!
We are in the thick of spring season and that means we have a HUGE variety of high quality fruits and vegetables available to us that we sorely missed during the fall and winter season, with that we’ll go over not only the benefits of feeding your best furry friend a variety of fruits and veggies outside of their regular kibble or wet food! We’ll also talk about best practices when introducing new food into their diet, what fruits and veggies to give, spring season fruits + veggies, and what fruits and veggies that are in season specifically for Seattle! Here are some of the best spring season fruits and vegetables for your dog!
Sudden change doesn’t just affect us, but our pets as well
Take it nice and slow!
It’s extremely common for sudden changes in our lives to cause a myriad of issues, whether that be increased stress, general soreness, varying levels of tension, and so on. The same can said for our dogs as new/sudden changes can heavily affect their mood, behavior towards other dogs and even towards their owners! To prevent any health issues, new treats and foods should be switched over slowly but surely, at first given as treats and slowly added little by little into the current kibble or rotation of treats you already have for your dog. For a more in depth information we used this guide as a reference, and we also have this PDF from the American Animal Hospital Association as a frame of reference as well!
The primary concern we have when it comes to the introduction of new treats and foods is how it’ll impact your dogs overall gut health as, similar to us humans, plays a key role and any sudden changes and variations in that gut biome can cause tummy issues and loose stool, both of which we want to avoid as much as possible! Ultimately at the end of the day as well, the effort in adding more variety for your furry friends diet is to help increase their water intake, decreasing the likelihood of developing allergies, improving gut health, coat health, and so many more benefits!
We talked about how and why, now lets talk about what’s in!
Seattle’s Best Fruits and Vegetables for your dog!
Now the fun part! Fruits and veggies are extremely beneficial in your every day diet and that goes the same for your dog as well, when we look at fruits we’re mainly talking about Strawberries, Apples, Cantaloupe, Mangoes, Kiwis, and Bananas! On the vegetable side of things we’re primarily going to be looking at Broccoli, Green beans, Spinach, and Carrots!
To clarify; there is a HUGE variety in what we can give our furry friends and a lot omitted here, the primary focus with this is to highlight what spring season fruits and veggies are safe for your furry friend to eat! Whether it be their first time ever trying out a kiwi, or adding additional veggies to boost their fiber intake, all of these spring season fruits and veggies hold huge benefits for your pup! With the fruits we’re looking at wonderful sources of Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Potassium, Manganese, and even additional water and fiber. Looking at the other end of things with Vegetables we’d see additional benefits of Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Vitamin B6, Vitamin K, Calcium, Fiber, and Protein!
While there are a plenty of benefits, we would highly recommend being mindful of Banana and Carrots as they do have a higher sugar content, so we would recommend these two primarily as treats or to use minor amounts of them in your dogs food!
We also have to say, please make sure for fruits that have seeds to be diligent in deseeding them and ensuring that you’ve been able to properly prep them for your dogs consumption, Apples and Kiwis being the primary fruits we’ve talked about here, and again please ensure that while these fruits and veggies make for great treats and additions to your dogs diet, all great things come in moderation so please be attentive with how much you’re feeding your pup!
Seattle is ripe with not only great fruit, but with great places to get them
Whether you’ve been here your whole life, for a while, or just moved, farmers markets are great place to get to know your local farmers, and what’s native to Seattle! All of the fruits we mentioned above are not only in season with spring, but are popular fruits and vegetables grown by our very own Washington state farmers!
If you’re in West Seattle, the West Seattle farmers market on California Ave is an amazing place to stop by for high quality produce and amazing products you wouldn’t find in your average commercial grocery store (My personal recommendation would be A Butter Place, they have absolutely delicious artisanal butter!).
If you’re closer to the heart of Seattle, we’d highly recommend the Capitol Hill Neighborhood Farmers Market on East Barbara Bailey Way (Close to Cal Anderson park). You can find an assortment of delicious food and produce there and most importantly, high quality produce for both you and your dog!
Those are just two places in Seattle we’d recommend to find local, organic, and high quality produce that you would not only happily eat yourself, but to give your best furry friend as well!
What’s Next?
We at Seattle Canine Club feel that this is an important topic, every day we do our due diligence and put in our all to learn how we can not only better take care of the dogs in our daycare, boarding, and grooming facility but how we can further help out our pet parents/club members with recommendations on what they can do to enrich their dogs life. We do our best to stay informed on best practices, best brands, and best foods to give to your dog, and in this case the best fruits and veggies you can give your dog right now for the spring season! For more informative topics, recommendations, and news, check out more of our blogs! We’ve had everything from new updates, advice on moving with your dog, cat grooming info, and more!
Sources and references – AKC (American Kennel Club) – Bobo’s for Seasonal Produce – Natures Menu for Fruits and Veggies – Seasonal Food Guide for produce in Washington and Seattle – USDA for Seasonal Produce Guide – Humane Society for Fruits and Vegetables to benefit your dog – PetMD for Benefits of Proper Nutrition – Mother Nature and the Importance of Variety – VCA Animal Hospitals guide on guidelines for feeding your dog – Primadog on the importance of Variety
