INVESTIGATING THE EFFECT OF A CANINE COMMERCIAL DRY DIET ON THE COMPLETE BLOOD PICTURE AND FECAL QUALITY IN DOMESTIC DOGS PREVIOUSLY KEPT ON HOME-PREPARED FOOD IN EGYPT

In Egypt, dogs are routinely fed a home-cooked diet prepared by their owner (e.g. boiled chicken legs). The nutrition of pets is crucial to the health state of various body systems and that can be reflected in the complete blood count picture as well as general health of the animal. Poor nutrition can result in various nutritional deficiency disorders such as nutritional deficiency anemia. Nine native breed puppies were screened at regular intervals using a general health physical examination including monitoring their temperature, general inspection, heart and respiratory rate measurements before changing their diet in a controlled experiment. The dogs were kept indoors and their diet was changed from the traditional home cooked food into a commercially available dry diet. Blood samples were also collected for a complete blood count on day one before starting the commercial diet and day 30 at the end of the experiment. The complete blood picture was monitored on set days throughout the experiment and the fecal score was assessed using a fecal scoring system of Royal Canine on day 1 before starting the commercial diet and day 30 at the end of the experiment. There was a significant difference in most blood parameters following the change in diet. Those that were significantly higher were: the total RBCs count, hemoglobin concentration, hematocrit value, mean corpuscular volume, mean corpuscular hemoglobin and the mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (p<0.05). The fecal score also improved from loose stool into clearly defined shape and that change was statistically significant (p<0.05).