Your Dog Needs Water!

From 4Legs Food For Health

Water is often overlooked in discussions about nutrition, but it is in fact the single most important nutrient in the diet. All living cells need water in order to be able to function properly. The body requires water for the digestion of food, excretion of body wastes, regulation of body temperature, distribution of nutrients, lubrication of tissues and a myriad of other functions. About sixty percent of the body of an adult dog or cat is water.

Water is continually lost from the body of dogs and cats through breathing, urination, through the skin, in faeces and also, with lactating bitches and queens, in milk. The amount of water lost depends on factors such as, environmental temperature, exercise level and physiological state. Under normal circumstances dogs and cats are able to self regulate their water intake to compensate for losses and hence maintain a constant body water content. It is, however, important to recognise that they can only do this if they have ready access to water. Water deprivation can cause serious problems much more rapidly than food deprivation. In fact, whilst dogs and cats can survive the loss of nearly all their fat reserves and almost half of their body protein stores, a twenty percent loss in body water results in death.

In addition to drinking it directly, cats and dogs obtain some of the water they need from the food they eat. Some water is produced chemically within their bodies by oxidation of nutrients such as fats, carbohydrates and proteins. Most foods also contain significant amounts of pre-formed water. The moisture content of commercial pet foods varies from about eight percent in dry foods up to almost eighty percent in some canned foods. Cats and dogs do adjust the amount of water they drink to compensate for this variation in food moisture content, but it has been found with cats that this compensatory mechanism is not exact. Total water intake and excretion rates tend to be higher when cats are fed moist as opposed to dry diets. This is important for cats prone to lower urinary tract problems (due to ‘crystalline’ growths) since moist foods may be preferable for these animals due to the fact that they increase urine volume and decrease urine concentration in comparison to dry foods.

4Legs recommend that clean fresh water should be available to dogs and cats at all times (remember that during lactation and in hot weather water requirements can be up to two or more times their normal level).