The impact of adding soluble fish to commercially available dog foods on recovery of body condition in adult dogs

© 2001 Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. All rights reserved. The impact of adding soluble fish (SP) to balanced food for adult dogs was evaluated in regard to recovery of body weight, skin and coat condition, digestion and fecal composition. Four healthy, mixed breed male dogs between 1.5 and 3 years of age were initially fed diets supplying 60% of energy metabolism requirements (REM) until they reached low body weight (poor condition). They were subsequently fed balanced diets of identical caloric and protein value containing varying amounts of soluble fish, 0% (TOSP), 5% SP (T5%SP), 10% SP (TlO SP) and 15 % SP (Tl5 SP), at 160% REM until reaching normal weight at days 25, 26, 26 and 26 respectively. No statistically significant differences (p>0.05) were found for recovery rates or daily weight gains which registered 105, 95, 100 and 98 grams for TOSP, T5SP, TlOSP and Tl5SP. Dry and protein matter digestibility (%) was not significantly (p>0.05) effected by the addition of SP, yielding results of 80, 79, 81, 80 and 82.1, 79.6 82.1 81.8 for TOSP, T5SP, TlOSP and Tl5SP, in contrast to significantly reduced digestibility (p<0.01) for organic matter at 94.4, 90.3, 89.7 and 89.9 respectively. The addition of SP produced an increase in fecal humidity from 66.6% TSOP, to 69.2% at T5SP, to 69.7% at TlOSP and 70.7% at Tl5SP. These results indicate that a maximum concentration of 5% SP can be used in canine diets for the recovery of skin, coat and body fitness without effecting fecal composition. The addition of SP to the diet produced similar results to those obtained with meat mea!.