A dog is a man’s best friend. You do everything you can to maintain your optimum health. Doesn’t your best friend deserve the same? Your dog is an active (rather the most active) member of your family and needs the same, if not more attention to health and nutrition as you do, to stay healthy, and live longer.
After all it’s very easy to get lost in s big pet store. The sea of products that we have today, aisle after aisle is very confusing and also time consuming. However keeping your dog healthy need not be a career option for you. All we need to use is a little commonsense and good information regarding the breed and age of your dog.
Let’s divide the dogs into two categories – small & adult.
For Small Dogs & Puppies
It has long been established and proven that small dogs have a different metabolism as compared to large dogs, due to physiologic effect of their body mass.
For ex.,
Great Dane weighing 100 pounds needs to consume about 23 calories per pound of body weight Pomeranian weighing 6 pounds needs to consume 47 calories per pound of body weight every day-more than twice as much!Â
As owner of a small dog, you need to be certain that your dog’s energy needs are being satisfied. Be sure to choose a diet that’s been formulated properly with optimal balance of highly digestible nutrients. Digestibility determines how much your dog can actually utilize each nutrient in a diet.
Puppies require almost twice or thrice as much food as adult dogs per pound of weight. To keep up their energy levels, they have to be fed as frequently as three to four times till they are six months of age.
Diet is always the key to raising your children or puppies. The diet should balanced, nutrient rich, should contain high levels of phosphorous and calcium and be highly digestible. It should also contain high-quality proteins and should adhere to Association of American Feed Control Officials’ (AFFCO) procedures. This would ensure that the puppy develops strong bones, muscle and tissue. For Adult Dogs
Your dog like you needs a combination of fats, carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, minerals, and water in a balanced diet to meet their daily needs. A lot of dog food bags claim they are in themselves complete food. This ends up as null if the nutrients cannot be absorbed by your dog’s system. Major companies take great care in this aspect by trying to provide the nutrients in an absorbable form. Dog foods must also consist of mineral and vitamin supplements in a balanced form. The proportions should be accurate so that they do not interfere with each other in your dogs system. This would provide maximum benefit to you dog. If the food consists of one ingredient in overdose and the other in lower doses, it could have an adverse affect on your dogs health.
Given below are some feeding tips to make chow time more pleasant:
Always keep the food dish clean.
Feed adult dogs twice a day to prevent hogging at one single meal and lessens the chance of your deep chested dog developing bloat or stomach torsion.
Feeding Schedule should be relaxed so that your dog knows the meal time but will not bother you if you are a little late.
Keep your siblings away from your dog while feeding, so that he does not get insecure and feel a need to defend his food.
Never let your dog have free access to food, lest they have constant activity in their digestive systems.
Make sure your dog sits and has his food, in which case there is less chance of food spilling all over the floor.
Never play with your dog with his dish, better to teach him manners instead.
Leave the dish for 15 minutes so that he licks it clean.
Jason Swanson
http://www.articlesbase.com/pets-articles/a-dog-is-a-mans-best-friend-671282.html
Is Man's best friend a good trainer group to send my dogs too?
I was just wondering if Man’s best friend was a good organization, because I don’t wanna take my dgos there for two weeks if they suck…
Since this is an international forum I don’t know which country you are in or who Mans Best Friend is…but why don’t you go to training classes with your dog? If you send him to boot camp he’ll know how to respond to his trainer but that leaves you out of the loop.
I would not send my dog away for training. I don’t know how she would be treated and I wouldn’t take the chance of any rough stuff happening to my dog.
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I don’t like training camps like this. I’m sure most do not do anything to hurt dogs, but you can never be sure of the treatment your dog is getting and you are not being a part of the training yourself.
Yes, you may have some training after wards, but I am always suspicious of trainers who would rather work with the dog alone before working with you and the dog together. Any good trainer or behavior therapist should want to put the emphasis on teaching you how to handle and train your dog as it is you that will be handling the dog for the rest of its life.
I don’t know this organization or where they are based, do you have a website link you could post here?
It would however, probably cost less and be more effective to have a trainer come and work with you at home in one to one sessions once a week or fortnight for a few months and you and your dog will benefit more.
Good luck whatever you decide and never just take a trainers word for it. I am a qualified dog psychologist and behavior therapist, but I volunteer my services at my local shelters and vets and ask all potential clients to call them for references if they wish, as well as my paying clients.
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