The benefits of wet dog food
Wet dog food is often more appetizing to dogs than dry, which can encourage picky eaters to get a full serving with nutrients. If you make your own dog food, this option can open up your dog to a well-balanced, nutritious diet.
Wet foods come in a large variety of flavors and ingredients, which can help you choose foods your dog loves or foods that don’t aggravate your dog’s allergies. You can also provide meals that can pivot with your dog’s needs, including changing nutritional density for pregnancy or seasonal changes like hunting or sporting season.
Wet foods are harder to store and harder to portion out. Few dogs eat one single can of wet food, which means you’ll probably be storing foods in your fridge or freezer to make up the different portion sizes.
Wet food doesn’t stay good as long as dried food does once the package is opened. You’re on a ticking clock the moment you pop the seal, so you’ll need a realistic plan for preserving your dog’s food.
The short answer is yes. Wet food does well in the freezer for a far longer period of time than it would at room temperature. This could be a good solution for ensuring you get the most out of your wet food cans or pouches.
You’ll need to figure out how to store and why you’re storing your wet food, however. A good plan can make sure you don’t waste food and that you can store your dog’s food conveniently while removing some of the hassles of serving wet food in the first place.
You can’t just freeze the cans. Wet food has high moisture content, and when that freezes the food expands. It could explode out of the can as a worst-case scenario or leak out as the best-case scenario, leaving you to clean up a huge mess.
Instead, open the can and portion out based on your dog’s serving sizes. Use freezer-safe bags or plasticware to ensure your food is safe and airtight. It helps to use things that will stack easily and thaw quickly to keep your food situation convenient.
Freezing a hunk of food is going to cause problems later as you desperately try to thaw it out. Instead, consider how you’ll serve it and freeze it to facilitate that method.
Follow all the right precautions to ensure your dog’s food stays good and develop a system so that you always have food ready for your dog to eat.
Slice the wet food into small bite-sized pieces and put them into ice cube trays. This works well if youre planning on feeding you’re your little guy his food as frozen treats. You can also stuff the food into a bone and put that into the freezer, or even place the bite-sized pieces into bags, separating them as you would his meal portions.
Remove the food from the freezer and thaw meal portions in either warm water or in the microwave. If you pop them into the microwave, heat them so that theyre lukewarm at most. Stick your finger in the food at a few different spots to make sure its barely warm throughout. If you plan on tossing bite-sized treats into your pups mouth, or giving him a food-stuffed bone, dont worry about thawing anything. Hell enjoy the snack frozen.
Sometimes those big cans of dog food prove to be too much for your pup to finish in short time. Rather than tossing them in the trash after a few days, storing the food in your freezer can save you some cash, but only if you do it properly.
Located in Pittsburgh, Chris Miksen has been writing instructional articles on a wide range of topics for online publications since 2007. He currently owns and operates a vending business. Miksen has written a variety of technical and business articles throughout his writing career. He studied journalism at the Community College of Allegheny County.
Slide the food into the freezer. If youre sticking bags of portioned food in there, be gentle and place the bags in an area where they wont get bumped or tossed around, at least for the first few hours. You dont want the portions to bind together as one giant chunk of food, although your pup might enjoy that.
What happens if canned dog food freezes?
The food may have been warm enough for bacteria or mold growth. A can will often bulge when food is frozen in it. If a can is bulged–and still frozen–keep it frozen in the freezer until ready to use, then thaw in the refrigerator. A can that still bulges after thawing should be discarded.
Should YOU feed your dog freeze dried treats?
Many dog owners are choosing to feed their dogs wet foods, however, the most difficult part of transitioning a dog from dry dog food to wet dog food, is that wet foods do not have a long shelf life once opened.
Since wet dog foods usually come in the form of a can for portion control, wet dog food does not usually last very long which is why most wet dog food labels will specify for the food to be refrigerated after being opened, and consumed by your dog within a certain number of days to maintain freshness.
In this article, we have compiled a list of great storage ideas for wet dog food so that you can ensure it is kept fresh for your dog’s next feeding.