Dog Gut Health: Why It Matters and How to Support It

OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLE

Gut health plays a vital role in your dog’s overall well-being. It impacts everything from digestion and nutrient absorption to immunity and skin conditions. At Brothers Dog Food, we’ve spent over a decade developing a nutrition system that supports optimal gut health for dogs — not just masking symptoms, but addressing the root causes.

Whether you're wondering how to improve dog’s gut health or you’re searching for the best dog food for gut health, this guide explains what you need to know, what to feed your dog, and why our recipes are built differently.

Understanding Leaky Gut in Dogs

Many dogs suffer from a condition called Leaky Gut Syndrome, often without their owners realizing it. This occurs when the intestinal lining becomes damaged, allowing toxins, allergens, and bacteria to pass into the bloodstream. This triggers chronic inflammation and contributes to skin issues, allergies, digestive problems, and immune dysfunction.

Common causes of leaky gut in dogs:

High-carb diets with grains, white potatoes, or sweet potatoes
Overuse of antibiotics or medications
Low-quality dog food with unbalanced nutrients
Chronic stress or food sensitivities

Gut health for dogs starts with understanding how these triggers affect the digestive system. One key culprit? Carbohydrates — especially those with a high-glycemic index (GI). Unlike wild canines who thrive on a high-protein, high-fat diet, many commercial dog foods are overloaded with starches, which feed harmful gut bacteria and fungi like Candida albicans.

Skin Problems Linked to Gut Health

Many pet parents treat skin issues with topical creams or allergy meds, but the true solution often lies in the gut. Dogs that eat grain or potato-based foods frequently develop skin problems due to inflammation caused by an unbalanced gut.

How to help dogs' gut health and skin:

Eliminate grains, white potatoes, and sugars
Add meat-based protein and animal fats
Balance essential nutrients like Omega 3, Omega 6, and Zinc

A proper ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6 (ideally 1:3 to 1:5) is essential for healthy skin and coat. Most dog foods contain too much Omega 6 and not enough Omega 3, which contributes to chronic inflammation.

Need help choosing the right food? Check out our dog food for dogs with allergies, formulated to address both gut and skin issues.

Why Balanced Nutrition Matters

You can’t fix gut health with a list of ingredients alone. The key is nutrient balance — ensuring that everything in the formula works together synergistically. This is why Brothers Dog Food carefully calibrates every recipe to deliver the right proportion of nutrients, minerals, and enzymes.

Our Nutrient Balance Approach:

Avoid excess calcium, which blocks magnesium absorption
Maintain proper ratios between key minerals (e.g. Ca/P, Zn/Cu, Na/K)
Include only highly bioavailable sources of nutrients

The wrong ratios of even high-quality nutrients can interfere with absorption and lead to further imbalances. Our formulas are designed to support healing from the inside out.

How Digestive Enzymes Support Dog Gut Health

Digestive enzymes are critical for breaking down food into absorbable nutrients. The pancreas produces these enzymes, but in many dogs — especially those eating processed food — the pancreas becomes overworked and under-supported.

Why are enzymes so important?

Break down proteins into amino acids for cellular repair
Aid digestion of fats and carbs, especially in high-carb diets
Prevent food allergies by fully breaking down proteins
Support the immune system and reduce inflammation

If you’re wondering how to help your dog's gut health, digestive enzymes are a powerful place to start. Supplementing your dog’s diet with enzymes helps avoid partially digested food entering the bloodstream, which often causes allergic reactions and gut damage.

Learn more about the connection between weight, digestion, and enzymes on our Overweight Dogs page.

Probiotics: The Good Bacteria Your Dog Needs

A healthy gut depends on a strong colony of beneficial bacteria. Known as the Microbiome, this ecosystem is vital for digestion, immunity, and defense against pathogens like Candida.

What can I give my dog for gut health?

Live probiotics (not heat-treated or sprayed post-processing)
Prebiotics that feed good bacteria
Low-starch food that doesn’t feed harmful yeast or fungi

Most commercial dog food sprays probiotics onto kibble after processing, which means the bacteria are often dead before your dog eats it. At Brothers, we use encapsulated probiotics that survive the manufacturing process and deliver over 21 billion CFU/lb directly to the colon.

The Role of a Raw Diet

We believe in the value of a well-balanced raw diet, and we often recommend it to customers who are ready and willing to take that step. But we know not everyone can commit to preparing raw meals daily.

That’s why our formulas are designed to mimic the nutritional profile of a balanced raw diet — 80% Brothers, 20% raw is a great compromise many of our customers have adopted successfully.

For more on this, visit our in-depth Nutrition White Paper which explains the biological basis for our gut-first approach.

Additional Considerations for Dog Gut Health

AAFCO Standards Don’t Guarantee Quality: They focus on minimum/maximum nutrient levels, not synergistic balance
Ingredient Quality Matters: We use no Ethoxyquin, only natural preservatives like green tea extract and rosemary
Packaging + Freshness: Our small-batch manufacturing process coupled with foil-lined bags ensure nutrients and probiotics stay viable, unlike commercial brands sitting in warehouses for months