For a very good guide to all sorts of dog training processes and dog behavior challenges, I use and recommend Clickertraining ...that link goes to the description of this terrific ebook you download immediately, wherever you are! -- Rosana

The vast majority of dogs are fed commercial pet food. Whether it’s canned, bagged, or semi-moist, until recently dog owners have just grabbed their dog food off the grocery store or pet store shelves. Most still do.

Happily for the dogs, in the past few years, more and more dog owners have begun to realize that the commercial foods, with their additives and often questionable ingredients, are not the healthiest choice. Road kills, body parts of diseased animals, heavy-metal contaminants, and other charming items end up in many brands of food. I could write a whole article about this alone, but I would rather not think too much about it!

Where do you turn to find good information on what to feed your dog?

When the pet food recall of 2007 had many dog owners asking that question for the first time, the American Veterinary Medical Association put out a press release, “Homemade Pet Food Requires Study of Nutrition, AVMA Warns.” The sentence that made me laugh ruefully was, “certainly home-cooked diets are not created with the care that these commercial pet foods are.” The short press release did not address the relationship between dog food and dog behavior.

At the end of this article, I will list some resources for finding out how to feed an optimal diet for both health and behavior, but now — in contrast to the AVMA — here are the findings of noted dog trainer Wendy Volhard. She and her husband Jack Volhard have been breeding Newfoundlands for decades, and they are co-authors of Dog Training For Dummies. You only get to write a “For Dummies” book if you are an acknowledged authority on the topic, and in fact they have written quite a few other books on dogs and dog training as well.

She says on her website, “We have made our own food for well over 30 years now, and our dogs are living longer and longer each generation.” She adds that ten years ago Newfoundlands lived to be 6.2 to 6.7 years old on average, but now their Newfies have even reached the advanced age of fifteen! (I couldn’t help noticing that she is comparing apples and oranges here, average age versus longest, but still the numbers are so different that they impressed me.)

She also states on her website, “Behavior problems, even aggression, can be caused by what you feed your dog…after years of virtually being ignored, the connection between nutrition and behavior, longevity and overall good health is finally being recognized.”

Some people try to discount the work of the Volhards because they are not veterinarians. They can’t say that about Richard H. Pitcairn, who has not only a DVM degree but also a PhD in Veterinary Microbiology. Over twenty years ago, he and Susan Hubble Pitcairn wrote a book that has become a classic, selling over 400,000 copies thus far: Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats.

This large book explains what is really in commercial pet food and how it is deficient, then describes how to create a nutritionally balanced natural diet for your dogs and cats. It covers a lot of other topics too.. . I’ll just quote one bit here that is pertinent to the discussion of homemade dog food and dog behavior: He says — based on his many years of working with dogs as a veterinarian — that if you are dealing with behavioral disturbances, “Take your pet off commercial food, if you have not already done so. Any food that contains artificial preservatives, coloring agents, or other additives contains chemicals that can irritate the brain tissue and cause abnormal responses. Feed our fresh foods diet.”

To sum up, if you want a healthy and happy dog, you need to consider your choices of dog food. Will it be commercial, homemade, or (as I do) some of each? Even since the most recent edition of Pitcairn’s book came out, there has been a blossoming of much higher quality commercial dog food, typically made by small companies. While experts may know more about some aspects of the topic than you and I do, we still ultimately have to make up our own minds regarding what we will feed our dogs.

Resources:

Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats, by Richard H. Pitcairn and Susan Hubble Pitcairn. The link takes you to Dogwise.

Whole Dog Journal is an excellent magazine, available both in print and PDF formats. It takes no advertising, which gives it a rare objectivity. It does annual dog food reports that are highly respected; I have found them very useful. This is where you can find the best choices in commercial food, in my opinion. WDJ also provides a lot of great dog training information. You can buy reprints of back articles from the site.

Wendy Volhard has detailed information on her dog food recommendations at http://www.volhard.com/holistic/artbywv.htm

She has also written, with Kerry Brown, DVM, Holistic Guide for a Healthy Dog, which I have not read. It seems to cover similar topics to Dr. Pitcairn’s book. The link takes you to the book at Dogwise.

There’s a widely publicized ebook called Dog Food Secrets — the link takes you to my review of it. I didn’t like its over-the-top scary sales page but found the book to be reasonable, informative, and useful. Its author is not an expert per se, but then, sometimes that is fine.

There are many other good books on natural health and nutrition at Dogwise; the link takes you to the page where you can browse them.

Technorati Tags: dogfood,dog food,dog books

I didn’t start this website thinking that I would be writing about natural dog food, massage, alternative remedies, and so on. But these topics are just naturally flowing from the focus on training our dogs. There are so many interconnections! I’m please to announce an ebook that I edited from writings I got from an online friend of mine, Rebecca Simon. She’s allowing me to offer the ebook at a very low price. I’m doing this to get the information out there. It’s immediately downloadable.

You can tell from the page where I describe the ebook whether you’d be interested. I’m sure it’s too alternative for some people, but if you’re reading this website you’re already interested in what’s effective, whatever the traditional wisdom has been!

Here are some tips from “The Natural Dog.”

[1] The day you get your pup and every day thereafter scour the floor for little items that your puppy might pick up on and swallow: pieces of string, coins, paperclips, pins and needles, dental floss, rubber bands, jewelry, children’s toys and clothes, nails and screws, thread, game station items like Playstation controls and cords, bits of food, napkins and tissues, rags and sponges, remote controls, batteries, etc.

[2] : What types of cleaning products do you use? Have you ever used a cleaning product that made you cough or was so strong you couldn’t stand to be nearby until it dried or dissipated? Consider that same cleaning product from your dog’s perspective.

[3] There’s evidence that suggests that annual vaccinations may not be needed – and in fact, some people suggest that continuing with them may in the long run do more harm than good.

To find out more about “The Natural Dog,” see my webpage where I give the full description….
http://training-dogs.com/natural-dog-ebook.html

It’s only $7, via PayPal

[tags]dog ebooks, dog health[/tags]

This is the third of three posts telling the story of Marley, a puppy who has had numerous behavior problems which turned out to be directly related to his diet. He was very sensitive to what dog food he ate, and he became hyperactive — with biting episodes involving children and adults — on a number of occasions. The mystery seems to be finally solved in an email which I just received lately. Here is Marley:

A beauty, isn’t he? But I’m sure he could be a handful when hyperactive. Here’s the latest from his owner Karen:

There has been a further development that I would like to tell you about.

During our annual holiday in July, Marley was sent to the kennel to stay for a couple of weeks. When we came back I went to fetch him and he didn’t seem himself. Within a couple of days however he seemed to bounce back and thereafter reverted back to his old hyper self. Over the next week he became worse than ever and started to bark and bite again. I rang the kennel and spoke to them about his behaviour and asked if he could have eaten anything that may have triggered this episode. To cut a long story short, it turned out that they had not been feeding him with the food I had provided but had been giving him the one that was included in the price. This was a super premium food that is one of the better ones sold in the UK. They had been giving him a large breed puppy food that was 32% protein. As you can imagine I was not pleased but the damage was done and I set about trying to put it right.

Throughout the summer holidays Marley was a totally uncontrollable terror. The food that worked before didn’t have as quick an effect as the first time. I was again at my wits end with him. I started to keep a record of what foods he had eaten and when and also what effects they appeared to have on his behaviour. During this period I was simply fishing around for information, comparing ingredients, protein and carbohydrate content, etc., I suddenly realised that all of the foods he had reacted to had just one common ingredient – BEET PULP. The food that he was okay on didn’t contain this ingredient. I could find only one other food that does not contain beet pulp and decided to try him on this to see what would happen. Marley had no reaction to the second food that did not contain beet. I took my findings to the vet who at the beginning of September confirmed that Marley has allergic reactions to Beet.

Breakthrough!!!! Marley has been on a completely Beet free diet now for 2 months and is again a wonderful and lovely dog. He is still a willful puppy but with firm handling he is controllable. I have read quite a few documents and it appears that the subject of the use of beet in dog food is quite controversial. There are a few who say that the sugar content in the beet pulp is so low not to have an effect. I for one will never feed anything to my dog, ever again, that contains beet. He has only his dried food three times a day, he receives no scraps or other treats of any kind. People accuse me of being cruel when I refuse to let them give my dog a biscuit or some such thing. But hey I can live with that and better still, so can Marley.

Here’s a website with the bad news about commercial dog food and the good news about what you can do.

Marley is a puppy who was attacking members of his family, both children and adults, for no evident reason. His owner Karen and I exchanged emails about the situation, and not long after that, I got an encouraging report from her. Marley had had a very thorough veterinary examination and nothing was obviously wrong. Karen had changed dog foods to a higher quality, higher protein one, and she been able to consult with a dog behaviorist who was also a dog nutritionist. This woman felt that the dominance-based training that Karen had been trying after advice from a trainer was not helpful. Karen continues:

S. (the consultant) was pleased that we had switched foods, as she feels that the one we were using is not one that she would recommend. Although she has not heard of the food we are now using, she took a look at the ingredients and was very impressed with it. From what I have read and from what S. has said I think it is a high percentage of cereals, wheat or gluten in the diet that can cause a lot of problems. As I am sure you know, dogs can develop allergies to all of the above to varying degrees.

Since we weaned Marley onto this food his behaviour has improved dramatically. He went from having several daily episodes to approximately 1 a day. I couldn’t believe what a difference it made. Obviously the behaviour is still there but improving daily. S. felt we were on the right track – which, as you can imagine, was a relief to hear, at least we are doing something right. She suggested that the rest of the episodes were due to Marley becoming over-tired. S. is a colleague of Turid Rugass who wrote “On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals”. S. uses Turid’s calming methods and showed us how to predict when Marley was becoming tired so that we could de-fuse the situation and thereby stop the behaviour. She felt that I was over exercising Marley and advised that we gradually reduce the length of his walks and make sure that Marley’s routine includes longer rest periods. If Marley doesn’t settle by himself we are to “enforce” this by shutting him in his crate at regular intervals throughout the day. We have also set up a daily routine, which we vary occasionally so that Marley feels secure but doesn’t get stressed if on the odd occasion we have to change something due to other commitments.

Rosana, we have put into practise everything S. told us and in SIX days Marley has only had ONE episode. It is FANTASTIC. The children can play around him – as long as we are around to keep a close eye on the activity and DE-FUSE any situations. I never believed it would be possible to see such a difference in such a short period of time.

I would like to thank you so much for your support. You helped me to be positive about Marley and encouraged me to actively search for a solution.

I was so happy with this news. And I was very struck with how changing the food had made such a difference in behavior. It was then that I began to think about writing here about dog food’s effect on behavior. Soon after, I went on a two-month road trip and then took another month to catch up on things. Then I wrote to Karen again and asked how things were going. She replied:

We are FANTASTIC!!

As you know I changed Marley’s food. Well, we had been told to put him on a low carb/high protein food. The food that was recommended to us was a very natural food and was extremely high in usable protein (45%). This had the exact opposite effect that we were hoping. Within a few short weeks Marley was climbing the walls. I was taking him out for 2-3 hours of solid walking every day but he was still completely hyper. We went back to the vet for tests and still came up with nothing — all the tests came back clear. The vet decided that as he was by then six months old we should have him neutered, which we did.

We had a rethink and decided to do the opposite of what we had been told to do. Yet again I researched the available foods, (we didn’t have as much choice as most, because when we brought Marley home we made the conscious decision that we would only feed him foods that had not been tested on animals. As I’m sure you know most of the big pet food companies do this and also have a monopoly on the market). Anyway we found a food by “The Natural Dog Food Company” that we were happy to try. We bought an adult formula as all the puppy formulas were higher in protein. The one we chose was a Lamb and Rice formula that had a protein content of 20%.

I was getting a bit desperate by this stage and decided I would just do a complete straight switch, (normally I would have weaned him from one food to the other over a period of approx 1 week). My husband, Kevin, works away for the first part of the week. He left on the Monday morning which was when I gave Marley his first bowl of the new food. Since then we haven’t looked back. By the time Kevin arrived home on the Wednesday night just THREE days later Marley was a different dog. Kevin accused me of switching him with a look alike. None of our friends could believe it. It really was as though somebody had pushed a button to calm him down.

The vet was amazed that changing his diet could have had such a dramatic effect and in such a short period of time.

Marley has now become the dog we dreamed of owning. He no longer jumps or bites or barks. The children can play without us having to shut him in his cage. He is sleeping in a regular dog bed and we haven’t used his crate for about two months. I can take him for a walk without having my arms pulled off. But most of all, Marley now “smiles” all the time. We are a different family and a great weight has been lifted from our shoulders.

I am very very careful about his diet. I feed him three times a day. I measure and control everything he eats. When he goes to the boarding kennels we take his own food (pre-measured in separate bags) even though the kennel fees include food. I will not take any chances or give him any opportunity to revert. It may sound harsh, but he rarely gets any treats. I go to the butcher and get fresh bones three times a week which I give him but apart from that he only gets his allocated amounts of dried food.

I wish you much joy with your new puppy and thank you very much for your continued support.

A very much happier

Karen

This second email, several months later, is a great example of how real life is not quite as tidy as theories tend to be. The first dog food switch, to a high quality but high protein food, made a stunning difference in Marley’s behavior, from his being a danger to his people (especially the children) to his being more more trustworthy, and I thought that the mystery was solved. But then the high protein food began to show that it was making him too hyper, and it wasn’t till Karen changed foods again that Marley made the dramatic changes she writes about at the end here.

Well, again at this point I thought the story was over. I emailed Karen with the text of this post and previous one, for her to check them for accuracy. She replied promptly, with a new twist in the tale, which is worth another post tomorrow.
[tags]dog food and behavior, puppy behavior[/tags]