Calcium in puppy nutrition

A lot has been said and written about calcium supplements in puppy food. As in everything, both excess and deficiency are harmful here. Calcium is necessary for the puppy to mineralize the growing skeleton: 99% of the calcium contained in the body is in the bone tissue. In an adult dog, the process of intestinal absorption of calcium has a dual character: passive distribution and active transfer. If the amount consumed increases, active absorption decreases and the adult, even receiving calcium-rich feed, absorbs no more than 10% of the calcium received. On the contrary, passive distribution plays a more important role in a puppy: it is not capable, as an adult, of clearly adapting absorption to the amount consumed, and the minimum absorption is always at least 40-50%. If there is not enough calcium in the feed, its absorption can be 95% of the diet.
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