Can dogs drink milk?

Lack of balance
The optimal option for balanced feeding of dogs is a selected industrially manufactured diet. Its recipe includes all the necessary elements to maintain the health and harmonious development of the animal. Many brands have such feeds. For example, Royal Canin, Pedigree, Cesar, Chappi, Nature’s Table, Eukanuba.

In this regard, cow’s milk cannot serve as a full-fledged replacement for such diets. This also applies to breastfed puppies, because this product contains significantly less calcium, phosphorus, fat and protein than a growing pet should receive. And besides, ruminant milk contains more milk sugar than carnivore milk – fermenting in the intestines, it causes colic in dogs. And the amount of lactose (milk sugar) in cow’s milk is significantly higher, which can cause problems with the gastrointestinal tract, such as excessive gas formation or diarrhea.

As for adult dogs, the situation is as follows: when they switch from mother’s milk, they begin to receive the necessary nutrients from other food and the production of lactase, an enzyme that helps digest lactose, decreases.

Possible disorder

Milk can even harm your pet. Usually, such troubles happen to adult dogs, who, unlike puppies, have a significantly reduced level of lactase – an enzyme that breaks down milk sugar (lactose). And therefore, a large amount of milk can provoke diarrhea in an animal.

The summary will be as follows: a dog should eat a balanced diet, including food products that are not intended for its digestive system and do not take this balance into account can harm the animal’s health. Of course, the pet will not be poisoned by milk, but why experiment with food that is, by definition, poorly digestible for the animal?