What is the best dog food for Bichon Frises?
Your beautiful Bichon Frise might not work in the circus like their ancestors, but they still need plenty of healthy food to give them all the energy they need to clown around in the spotlight of your home. Your pooch might be far from a wild dog or their wolfish ancestors, but these cotton-ball canines still need the right balance of meat and veg with all the nutrients they need to stay happy and healthy.
The downside is that Bichons are super sensitive little dogs, spiritually and physically. They’re more prone to allergies than most other breeds of dog so sometimes their food can upset their tummy.
Tailored dog food like Pure can help make life easier because it’s made to match your pup’s personal nutritional needs, including avoiding any ingredients they’re allergic to. All while still providing all the vitamins and minerals they need to stay fit and healthy and to suit their breed’s needs.
So what makes the best food for a Bichon Frise?
The best dog food for Bichon Frise should:
Avoid allergens
No hidden nasties
Keep UTI’s at bay
Stop stinky ears
Help to prevent tearstains
Nurture healthy joints
Provide the perfect balance of nutrition
Make avoiding allerges easy
Bichon Frises are prone to allergies, and that includes dietary ones.
Most canine allergies are caused by proteins, so your pup could be allergic to anything from wheat to beef, chicken, or eggs. Some unlucky pups can be sensitive to other ingredients too, like certain vegetables, but it is rare.
If your dog has an allergy, it means being able to understand the dog food label and ingredients is even more important. That’s why at Pure we only use a handful of recognisable, natural ingredients to create healthy, wholesome food, so you know exactly what your dog is eating and can easily avoid anything they’re allergic to.
Our recipes are always grain-free too, and your Bichon’s dog food is personalised for their individual needs, giving you the peace of mind in knowing your pooch is eating the perfect balance of nutrients they need to stay healthy but without the chance of triggering their allergies.
We have an excellent range of wholesome recipes using different, single-source proteins. That’s great for Bichon’s because avoiding allergens is easy-peasy. Unlike some dog foods that use multiple protein sources, like beef, chicken, and lamb all in one dish. Or worse, mystery “meat derivatives” where you don’t even know what’s in the bowl.
Never any nasties
Here at Pure, all our dog food is made with whole, natural ingredients. There’s never any derivatives, meals, by-products, or artificial nasties that could upset your Bichon’s sensitive stomach. Keeping our ingredient list honest and simple means we can keep track of everything in our food, and you can too.
Besides, we don’t think by-products or fillers are good enough for your best fur-iend to eat anyway, not to mention how difficult it makes understanding what’s in your pup’s food.
Prevent pee problems
Bichons are prone to bladder stones, and some dietary choices can help to reduce the likelihood of kidney or bladder stones. There are different kinds of stones made from different minerals. So if your dog is prone to a particular kind of bladder stone, you can adjust their diet to reduce the levels of the offending mineral and make the formation of stones less likely.
For example, calcium oxalate stones are one of the most common kinds of kidney stone. Certain foods, like spinach, are rich in oxalates which bind with calcium and make stones. You can avoid feeding your dog oxalate-rich food to prevent stones from forming, or you can reduce the oxalate content of the food.
Upping your pup’s hydration can also help to keep urine tract problems at bay. The problem is, most dogs don’t drink unless they’re really thirsty. Even with fresh water available all the time at home, dogs don’t always drink enough.
Eating kibble makes matters worse because those dry biscuits have very little moisture content and actually soak up liquid like a sponge once they’re inside your dog’s stomach.
Fresh food has a higher moisture content which can help to keep your pup hydrated. And if you're feeding your pup Pure you can simply use a little extra warm water when rehydrating the food to really increase their hydration levels and encourage your pup to stay hydrated by simply eating their delicious dinner.
An end to ear infections
Bichons are prone to ear infections simply because they have floppy, furry ears. Keeping the fur inside the ear trimmed and cleaning their ears regularly will go a long way in helping to prevent problems. Sometimes, persistent infection can actually be a symptom of an allergy.
If that’s the cause then switching to hypoallergenic food or a tailored diet that avoids the offending allergen can help. Wheat is often linked with ear infections, inflammation and itchy paws, and some Bichon parents will find a grain-free food is all it takes to prevent persistent ear infections.
Keep your Bichon's whites...white
Red stains on your Bichon’s white fur won’t be a problem for their health, but it can be a symptom of something untoward.
Tearstains and rusty red stains on your dog’s mouth and paws can be caused by a few different things. One of those causes is diet and it could be symptomatic of an allergy your dog has. Many Bichons and other white pooches like Westies struggle with tearstains but find swapping to a grain-free or hypoallergenic food helps to clear away their stains.
Filtering your dog’s water can also help to remove those rusty marks because there is sometimes a mineral in tap water that can cause their tears and saliva to stain.
Other than allergies, your dog’s food could be causing stains because of the dye used in the food. Some brands of pet food use artificial colours to make the food more appealing and appetising.
That seems silly since to us, since dog’s use their nose far more to decide what’s good, not to mention they can only see shades of blue and yellow so what difference would colour make? Making the food look good is more to make humans happy! But, these colours in the food can stain your pup’s mouth if they’re eating it all the time.
If you don’t fancy wiping your Bichon’s mouth after every meal, you could swap to a food that doesn’t contain any artificial colours. Some foods are naturally pretty colourful and can stain though, like beetroot.
Pure doesn’t contain any artificial colours and seems to really help clean up tearstains. You can see success stories from various pups, including gorgeous Bichon Frises like Mollie. She looks stunning since switching to Pure, and her before and after photos must be seen to be believed!
Help support their joints
Bubbly Bichons are prone to a few joint problems, and many of them are genetic. However, a healthy diet can do a lot to help manage conditions and help your pooch to maintain strong bones and joints to prevent other problems.
Plenty of whole protein should help because they need the protein to grow strong muscles which help to support and protect their joints. Nourishing their whole body and keeping them in good overall health will help to manage a multitude of more specific problems.
But if you want to target their joints, there are a number of minerals and foods that can help to keep them healthy. Glucosamine and omega-3 are just as good for a dog’s joints as they are for humans, and they’re often used in canine supplements.
Tumeric can help as it has anti-inflammatory properties, and anti-oxidant foods are powerful anti-inflammatories too, and these can be founds in all kinds of fruits and vegetables like blueberries and strawberries which make healthy, tasty treats for our furry friends.
Using fresh, whole foods to provide these nutrients is advised because they are more digestible and bioavailable than artificial or synthetic sources, meaning your dog’s body recognises and absorbs them better.
Finally, keeping your dog active and a healthy weight will also help to reduce the stress and strain on their little joints. Joints degenerate quicker in overweight dogs, so staying slim will help to keep them supple and pain-free for longer.
Perfectly balanced food
Dinky dogs like your Bichon don’t need a huge amount of food every day to fuel them, but that just means the best dog food for Bichon Frise needs to be perfectly balanced to give them all the nutrients they need even in little bowlfuls. A balanced diet is key to longer and happier lives. Getting the volume of food just right is important too, otherwise, your pooch might start piling on the pounds!
Pure isn’t just balanced to provide optimum doggy nutrition and your plan will be personalised to meet your pup’s individual needs. That includes portion sizes too, so you’ll always know just how much to offer your Bichon at dinnertime.
Tell us more about your beautiful Bichon and we can recommend the ideal food to keep them looking and feeling great.