Dog Treats For Puppies

Many dog treats are made for dogs, and not puppies.  If you have an active puppy, you will do anything, to keep them busy.  But you are not going to feed them adult treats, are you?

Often, there are no options just for puppies.  They require a tough surface to chew on, and not a soft chewy treat.  The new teeth coming in, are making your puppy want to chew, and a nice strong chew will be the best thing for them, right?

On occasion, a rawhide can be provided, but only from a reputable manufacturer.  The recommended country of manufacture should be from the US, or Canada.  Do not buy rawhide from China or Mexico.

Even better, use a better rawhide, from a sweet potato.  There are dried sweet potatoes, that are just as stiff and strong as a rawhide.  They provide valuable vitamins and minerals, and are easily digested.  Rawhide is very hard to digest, and can become a problem for any dog.

Nylabones are a great chew toy, but your dog may be consuming the scraps of the plastic bones.  Be sure to watch your puppy whenever you give a treat.

Your Dog’s Liver

One of the most misunderstood organs is the liver.  It is a thing of beauty, for humans and any mammal.  Even fish have a large liver!  It is the filtration system for you and your dog.  All chemicals and toxins get pushed out through the liver.  When you eat some food that has a lot of chemicals or preservatives, you are making your liver work extra hard!

Your dog’s liver works the same way, but because they are smaller in mass, they often have a larger percentage of chemicals, additives and toxins in their blood.  This makes it hard for the liver to process everything, and often it ends up being deposited then to fatty tissues in your dog’s system.

That is why, it is so important to feed the best food.  And, only the best.  If you do not offer good food to your dog, they will often find a real hurdle in life, with an overload of chemicals and toxins in their fatty tissue.

This can lead to being overweight too.  As, not only does the liver filter out the crap in food, water and sometimes in the air, but it as well removes stored and ingested fat cells on a daily basis.  What a miracle organ!

So, to avoid some forms of digestive cancer, and other tumors, be sure to feed only true natural food.  Check the links on this site for your best dog food offering, for your specific best friend!

Essential Fatty Acids

Traditional dog food has some real reasons that dog’s suffer with symptoms of dry itchy skin, ear infections, joint pain, eye infections, and general malaise and just poor coat condition and shedding.  The reason is that most common pet food is dry.  It should be less than 10% moisture to stay sound on the grocery shelf.  It it has more, the chance is, it will rot.  This creates a departure of sorts, as the dog food manufacturers end up removing most, if not all of the nutrition.

Essential Fats are The Key

If you have some of the symptoms I have described above, even hot spots, and they are located on your dog’s back, or rear end, you have a nutritional crisis to deal with.  The first thing you can do, is add essential fatty oils to your dog’s food immediately.  It is a mix of organic oils that you can use to slowly integrate the omega’s into your dog’s diet.

Even if you do not change your dog’s food, HORROR!, you should add a teaspoon of organic essential fatty acids to your dogs food.  You will be on the way to finding good health, with this one action.

Hypoallergenic Dog Food

Seeing as I see this term popping up more often, I feel like it is a great way to discuss your dog’s nutrition, and why it is important to buy only the most natural and correct choices for your best friend.  Dog food is mostly a mixture of by-products, chemicals, preservatives and toxic ingredients that allow the food to stay fresh on the shelf for years.  There is not too much food that is natural, has great nutrition, and that is on the dog food selection shelf these days.

That does not mean you have to cook for your dog, but that is a great option if you want to give it a try.  You can cook any colorful vegetables, like sweet potatoes, green beans, peas, celery and carrots with a whole chicken, and then remove the bones.  The remaining vegetables and meat are a great chicken dinner for you, and will provide a week’s worth of food for a 20 pound dog.

Finding time to do this can be the trick.  So, if you are short on time, and would rather buy a great dog food, you are still in luck!  You can find good choices here.

Do not hesitate on the price, as the most important option is the fact that the food is healthy.  With healthy food, you are going to save money in the long run, as the great food keeps the allergies away, the vet visits to just a minimum yearly exam, and keeps your dog happy.  You actually have less poop to clean up, and the value you bring to your life is immersible.  Any time your dog  is happy, so are you!

http://www.great-dog-food.com

Dog Training Advice

If you have an unruly dog, one that wrecks the house when you are away, and you have tried everything to remove the problem, but still it is there when you come home, do yourself a favor, and find an expert.  You can not do this with just a book or a video.  You need to understand the issue, and it is not just with your dog, it is with you.

Sorry, the problem is with you mostly.  It is true!  We humans communicate in one way, with language and sound.  Dogs mostly communicate with stance, smell, and some sound.  They are mostly aware of your dramatic moments, and will use these emotional outbursts to confuse you.  Since your dog communicates differently, you have to be the bigger person here, and learn to communicate on their level.

That means, finding out what you are communicating, and what your dog is hearing.  And, what things you can do to enable the behaviour to go away, versus staying with the dog all its life.

This really is important for you.  You will learn so much with a great trainer, and not only that, you will learn a lot about life.  Your dog is a messenger, and looks to you for leadership.  Find your skilled leadership communication with a great team leader, like a good dog trainer!

Dogs Cold Feet in Winter Snow and Weather

Using some great waterproof, reflective snow boots on your dogs, can be a great idea.  When the weather gets really cold, and they are raising their paws in the cold weather, you need to give them some relief.  The best way, is to cover those paws.

I have used some winter boots on our girls for years, and they wrap around their leg, and allow the pads and toes of their paws to be covered from snow and ice.  I have a video too, that you can see, where I am showing you our snow, and how the dogs get around in their boots!

Enjoy!

Keeping a Dog Symptom Journal

Sometimes, when you make a change in your lifestyle, or in areas of your life, it can take some time to see the results.  The issue with this is, you forget, very quickly, what has improved.  You may have a dog who has brown streaks down her face from her tears, ear infections, bad breath, and overweight issues with her dog food.  The change of what is normal now, to what could be, takes reflection.

Journal the Symptoms

Simply write down in a journal the date, the symptoms, and what is bothering your dog’s health at this moment.  Do not delay the process of documenting your concerns, and what you pay for at the vet.  Then, buy the great organic food that has no ingredients that you can not pronounce, and let the magic happen.

It will take some time to ensure your new lifestyle takes hold.  You will see some poor results initially, as there are toxins that have to work their way out of your dog’s body. Chances are the food will be a welcome change for your dog, but if the junk food of the corn and by-products were a tasty food to your dog, give your dog time to adjust to the flavors.  Mix in some pumpkin or sweet potatoes, some frozen green beans, or some full fat yogurt.

Document the changes in your dog as we go through this change.  It will amaze you when you look back in a few weeks.

Lifestyle Changes are Amazing

Sometimes it takes time to evolve into a healthy lifestyle, and that can be true for your dog as well.  When you go from crappy dog food to great healthy food, you can expect a real renaissance to occur, it just might not be instantaneous.   There are reasons it takes time for your dog’s body to adjust to all the vitamins and minerals you are now providing, and it can be a while for the good results to occur.

Not a Temporary Measure

If you are suffering an illness with your dog, and you decide to move them into a new and healthier food option, be sure to do it slowly.  The change for any dog is often very hard on their digestive system, but, even more so for dog’s with any kind of illness.  So, a slow transition over a week or 10 days will be a good way to do this change, and make holistic food work best for your dog.

Sometimes the dog reacts Poorly

The initial food change can be hard, as your dog’s body realizes that there are good vitamins and nutrients, and the mass of stored fat and toxins get released in a flood of chemicals.  This can be hard on your dog’s system.  When we rescued our Kiki from a Puppy Mill, she had this happen to her.  Her fur fell out, and she suffered a thin coat for over 4 months.  Then, after the crap that was in her body was gone, she started to develop the most beautiful coat and soft fur.  Her eyes became clearer, and she was not itchy any more.

Do not give up, because it is really worth your time.

Minimum versus Maximum

You need to look at your overweight dog in a new way.  They are getting the wrong food, the wrong nutrition, and most likely the wrong chemicals and additives.  It is a very dangerous situation.

Many dog food companies do not bring the proper nutritional levels to their food.  Extra additives for vitamins and minerals are expensive, so they tend to stay with the minimum amounts of what they should add to your dog’s food.  Chances are you see your dog suffering with allergies, infections and overweight issues.  You are seeing the signs of minimum nutrition.

Be sure to buy the best food for your dog.  Do not skip the more expensive dog foods because you think they are too much money.  If you do, you will only end up at the vet in the long run.  The issues with not bringing proper nutrition to your dog’s table will last a lifetime.

What’s In Your Dog Food?

How is it that your dog food can sit in a garage, your basement, and not get moldy, or go bad?  What can the food manufacturers be putting in your best friend’s food, to ensure it is fresh for them?  This can be at the heart of many of your dog’s health issues.  Are you seeing your dog balloon up with fat, have ear infections, itchy skin, or watery eyes?  You are seeing the signs of fillers, chemicals, and by-products.   The small size our best friends, with their short life cycle, is an indication of the poor nutrition we often feed our dogs.

If you want to save money, buy a dog food that brings your dog only ingredients that you can pronounce.  The best food is usually frozen or refrigerated.    There are a few dry dog foods that are organic, and they disclose everything on the bag.  These are the good dog food manufacturers, and will try to inform you of the great nutrition that they provide.  The food will be more expensive, but you are not going to be visiting the vet very often.

This is often a 6 month process, as the toxins and chemicals in the food you were previously feeding take time to leave your dog’s body.  Do not give up, as your dog’s liver will be working overtime to remove the mass of toxins and fat from your dog’s body, and sometimes, symptoms will get worse.  This is because, your dog’s body is actually getting the vitamins and minerals to move the chemicals and toxins out, and they can overwhelm the liver for a few weeks.

Let me know what food works for you, and I will be glad to answer any questions you may have.  Keep buying that good food!