How the 'Smart Fish Oil' DHA helps your puppy's development
Sources of DHA
Benefits of DHA
Benefits of diet on trainability
What does this mean for your puppy?
The latest and most exciting Iams research has shown that a particular ‘smart fish oil’ called DHA can give your puppy a helping hand in its development. The benefits of DHA are well known in babies and infants, helping to increase their IQ as well as improving their vision. In fact there are many products containing DHA that are available for babies. Now, for the first time, Iams® can show you just how important DHA is to your puppy.
Benefits of diet on trainability
Over 30 days of this fun test, puppies from the high-DHA group consistently out-performed the puppies from the low-DHA group in the T-maze. Results of the study indicated that a high DHA level is needed in puppies for better learning.
What does this mean for your puppy?
Dietary DHA is critical for brain development in puppies because the amount of DHA they produce themselves is limited. The mother is very important in initially giving the puppies DHA. Puppies nourished on diets with a high safe level of DHA have an improved trainability performance which will be a great aid to you when it comes to helping with their training.
Our puppy foods are formulated with fish meal and other high-quality fat sources to
- Contain natural DHA, important for healthy brain development
- Scientific Support
Also published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine 2005; November/December, page 939 (abstract) .
This DHA data has also been presented at the congress of the European College of Veterinary Internal Medicine 2005 and the congress of the European Society of Veterinary and Comparative Nutrition 2005.
What is DHA?
DHA or docosahexaenoic acid is an omega-3 fatty acid important for brain development in puppies.
DHA helps create the structure of the brain as it helps build the parts of the brain needed for communicating-these are the brain cells. So, it plays a vital role in the development of the brain as well as the part of the eye (retina) that allows puppies to see the world around them.
Sources of DHA
Common dietary DHA sources include fish such as salmon, sardines, tuna and other seafood, as well as eggs, and meats like chicken. In pet foods, sources of DHA include fish, fish meal and fish oil.
Prior to being born, puppies get DHA from their mothers. Mothers, both human and canine, pass DHA from their body to their offspring during pregnancy and then through her milk.
After weaning, puppies can obtain DHA for continuing brain development through their own diet. DHA is a very safe fish oil which has other benefits as well
Benefits of DHA
Iams® is the first to look at the benefits of this smart fish oil on puppies’ learning. Iams looked at puppies whose mothers had been fed from breeding on through weaning either a high, or low, dietary DHA level.* After weaning, puppies were fed the same diets as their mothers throughout the remainder of the study (up to 16 weeks of age).
To see the effect of the DHA in the diet on trainability, all puppies were taught to associate a shape (circle or square) with a direction in a fun test called a T-maze, with a correct choice resulting in a food treat. Each puppy had to remember the correct direction it needed to take according to the shape it saw. A correct pass was when it remembered this direction correctly 80% of the time.
Another benefit of DHA is that it improves the vision of puppies.
