This is how ARION ensures your puppy gets the best start in life.

29 November 2023 | Arion Petfood

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Most puppy buyers are made aware of the importance of feeding their puppy a diet tailored to the breed's size through the breeder from whom they bought the puppy. This is a good starting point because there is a significant difference in how quickly different breeds mature and their calorie needs at various stages.

Food for small breeds should ideally be higher in energy, as they naturally have a higher metabolism and tend to mature more quickly. On the other hand, large and heavy breeds should grow slowly and harmoniously, building a strong skeletal structure. Therefore, puppy food for large breeds should ideally include extra Glucosamine and Chondroitin sulfate to ensure strong and healthy joints right from the start and to create as healthy a foundation as possible.

The physical development of a puppy is undoubtedly crucial, but puppies also face significant mental challenges in their first few months of life. These challenges can affect both the puppy's physical and psychological well-being.

Enhanced Learning:
Raising a puppy is a full-time job! However, the puppy's growing age is also a major challenge. The puppy's brain undergoes constant changes during its development and needs to process a lot. The brain consists of high levels of fat, with the most common Ω3 fatty acid being DHA. This fatty acid is crucial for nerve cell communication and is essential for optimal brain development.

Focus on Antioxidants:
Most puppies are sold by the breeder when they are eight weeks old, in accordance with dog regulations, making it entirely legal. However, this presents certain challenges for the puppy.

Puppies receive antibodies through their mother's milk in their early weeks of life, while their own immune system is not yet developed. This makes the puppy's body resistant to diseases. Often, puppies stop suckling at 4-6 weeks of age as it becomes a nuisance for the mother. Since most puppies take about 12-15 weeks to develop a fully functional immune system, there is a period of 8-10 weeks where the puppy is particularly vulnerable to external influences. The challenge is that this is precisely the period when the puppy experiences the most significant "upheaval" in its entire life.

What happens during this time?
At eight weeks of age, we take the puppy away from its mother, siblings, and home, everything it is familiar with. The puppy may end up in a new home with children who understandably want to play with it. It may have to sleep alone for the first time and be surrounded by unfamiliar sounds and smells. In short, all puppies become stressed and perhaps fearful during this period when they change environments. Increased stress activates the body's reactive free radicals, which disrupt the natural balance in the body. They cause cell damage mainly by attacking the cell membrane, protein structure, and nucleic acid. What we commonly call the body's DNA. Physically, it is first expressed as loose stools in the puppy.

So, how can the puppy be best helped during this critical period? The answer is to combat free radicals with antioxidants.

What are antioxidants?
As the name clearly implies, an antioxidant is a chemical compound that prevents oxidation. Antioxidants are found in both foods/raw materials and in the body's tissues and body fluids. Antioxidants, including well-known substances like vitamin C, E, and beta-carotene, stabilize free radicals, preventing them from attacking healthy cells in the body.

Antioxidants come in many forms, but not all are equally effective. Therefore, one cannot be sure of the effect just because a pet food manufacturer declares that there are antioxidants in the food. All feed compositions containing added C or E-vitamins are, in principle, supplemented with antioxidants, but this does not guarantee their effectiveness.

In ARION Puppy variants, we have added ARION's unique "Immunity Boost System," which is a combination of very effective antioxidants that halt the development of free radicals. The ARION Immunity Boost System is developed based on which combination of antioxidants gave the highest ORAC value. Therefore, we can document the effect of our antioxidants.

ARION Immunity Boost System:
A balanced mixture of standardized GMO-free plant extracts (Rosmarinus sp., Schinopsis sp., Curcuma sp., Citrus sp., and Eugenia sp.) in their naturally identical form. The combination is based on the results of a screening process with 134 relevant plant extracts. The chosen combination has the most relevant ORAC value.

Facts about Free Radicals:
Free radicals are molecules that are chemically unstable and, therefore, steal electrons from other substances to become stable. In this way, free radicals in the body can initiate harmful effects associated with a wide range of diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes.

Facts about ORAC Screening:
ORAC stands for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity. It is a laboratory test that shows the capacity of antioxidants' TAC (total antioxidant capacity) to reduce oxidation. Measurements are made on different antioxidants' ability to decrease oxidation.