Professor of Small Animal Internal Medicine Assiut University Assiut, Asyut, Egypt
Abstract: Background. In Egypt, dogs are routinely fed home-cooked food. Poor nutrition can result in nutritional deficiency disorders including anemia and dietary-responsive diarrhea; which can result in abandonment of pets and psychological trauma to owners.
Hypothesis/Objectives. Correction of nutritional deficiency will result in reversal of anemia and diarrhea. This study aimed at investigating the effect of feeding a balanced diet on the dog’s health condition previously kept on home-prepared food. Animals. A group of four-months old native-breed dogs (n=9) were housed in our research facility; both males (n=4) and females (n=5) were included.
Methods. All dogs were previously fed a standard home-prepared diet. For 30 days their diet was changed into a balanced commercial dry food. Blood was collected for CBC and stool was evaluated using a standard scoring sheet on days 1 and 30 of the experiment. Data was assessed for normality using Shapiro-Wilk Test. Parametric/non-parametric tests were used accordingly using SPSS. Results. The complete blood picture showed that eight dogs (89%) suffered from microcytic normochromic anemia. On day 30, 7 dogs (87.5%) recovered from anemia. There was a significant improvement in anemic parameters following change of diet. Among others, red cells (TRBCs) increased from 5.15±0.335 to 5.63±0.54 (mean ± SD). Hemoglobin concentration also changed from 10.9± .59 to 12.7± 1.2. All changes were significant (P< 0.05). Fecal consistency changed from unformed on day 7 to formed on day 30 (P=0.01)
Conclusions. Dietary-related anemia can be corrected in a month. Improvement of fecal quality will reduce traumatic conditions for owners.
