Socrates once said. "There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance." Our actions should be guided by this statement, especially where our dog’s health is concerned. When an illness strikes we rely on our doctors to cure us, however we fail to realize that "the cure" come from within. Nature has provided us with a wondrous immune system and all we have to do is feed this system and it will heal and maintain us for life.

Photo: janewalksspot.com

Research has shown that each part of the body contains high concentrations of certain nutrients, A deficiency of any one nutrient will cause the body part to malfunction and eventually break down - like dominos, other body parts will follow. If we do not give our dogs the proper nutrients, we can impair the body’s normal functions and cause great harm. Even if there is no sign of illness it doesn’t necessarily mean the dog is healthy, it simply may be that they are not exhibiting symptoms of illness yet. Often you will not see the signs of deterioration as they are so subtle and develop so gradually that they go unnoticed until the problem becomes serious then they want a "quick fix" which may fix the symptoms however not the problem.

What symptoms does your dog display? Are they signs of well-being or illness?

1. Do they have good energy levels with an even temperament even if the dog is old or are they legarthic, slow moving and lack energy and are irritable?

2. Are their skin and hair coat shiny with good elasticity or is the skin dry and scaly with a dull coat containing patches of hair loss?

3. Do they have bright clear eyes or are their eyes sunken, dull, and cloudy?

4. Do they digest their food completely with no stomach problems or do they have chronic diarrhea, feces have foul odor, difficulty maintaining weight, high stomach acid content causing ulcers, acid reflux and bleeding?

5. Are they able to withstand the rigors of weather and have stamina or do they have increased diseases and infections affecting their well being and comfort levels?

Many dog owners feed foods that are processed and/or cooked (as most senior feeds are) thus destroying most of the nutritional value. The use of pesticides and other toxins in the environment compromises the dogs health along with the over use of antibiotics, the use of corticosteroids, vaccinations, wormers and just the air we breath (smog and exhaust fumes).

Much of the feeds are stored for a length of time and the nutritional value is decreased as many of the nutrients are lost due to age, heat, and time. Good nutrition is the foundation of good health. Everyone needs the four basic nutrients - water, carbohydrates, protein and fats - as well as vitamins, minerals, enzymes and other micronutrients. The first four are the basis for a good diet, by getting the other nutrients - which are essential for life - the body can utilize the first four for maximum performance and functioning.

Take a look at your dog and decide if they are missing something in their diet and need a good supplement to supply the missing nutrients and give them the quality of life they deserve.

Audra Jensen sees the effect of supplementation and what it does for her dogs and the decrease in feed costs and vet bills. For more information on attaining a healthy dog, visit http://www.totalsupplements.com/dogindex.htm 

The food you feed your dog is the single most important factor affecting his or her health. Organic dog biscuits provide more than merely calories for your dog. Aside from energy, healthy dog biscuits must provide appropriate amounts of protein, fats, carbohydrates, and all associated bio-available nutrients. The quality of the ingredients used in a given pet food determines how much nutrition your dog will get from that food. The healthiest ingredients are those that are USDA certified organic because they contain much higher levels of nutrients, such as vitamins, antioxidants, and minerals, than non-certified organic-or conventional-ingredients. Foods containing organic ingredients therefore supply your dog with naturally occurring nutrients that are important for both the maintenance of health and proper healing after injuries. It is a well-known fact that USDA certified organic ingredients contain significantly lower loads of pesticide residues, as well as other potentially toxic chemicals, which might otherwise accumulate during the manufacture of conventional dog biscuits and their ingredients. Another reason the healthiest dog biscuits are USDA certified organic (as only organic certification is regulated by current US law) is that organic regulations prohibit the use of ingredients that cannot be traced to their source or that were genetically modified. Organic certification excludes the use of inferior or otherwise questionable dog biscuit ingredients, such as by products or so-called ‘meals,’ as well as the use of potentially toxic synthetic ingredients.

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Ideally, a healthy dog biscuit should contain a variety of naturally occurring nutrients, and would not contain a lot of nutritionally empty ingredients or the arbitrarily established spectrum of generally low quality synthetic vitamins and minerals that are often added as supplements to conventional pet foods and pet treats.

Dogs are carnivores by nature, and their teeth and digestive tracts attest to this fact. Although some dogs can thrive on closely monitored and well-supplemented vegetarian diets, dog biscuits can contain a reasonable amount of animal-derived ingredients. Many dog biscuits contain more starch and carbohydrates from grains than protein from other plant or animal sources; this can lead to health problems, as many dogs are allergic to grains. A healthy dog biscuit should therefore contain no grains or only high-quality grains that have been processed to be suitable for a dog’s digestive system. Although many dog biscuits are non-vegetarian and contain some sort of meat, in most cases, the animal-derived ingredients used are low quality, and might include such ill-defined components as so-called ‘animal meals’ or byproducts.

A truly healthy dog biscuit should contain certified organic ingredients because this assures that the quality of the plant- and animal-derived ingredients will be good. It also guarantees that the ingredients are free of hormones and antibiotics. The best dog biscuits should contain only those animal-derived ingredients from animals that were humanely raised and grown. This assures that the animal components used are free of external toxins or the hormones that are released during a stressful life on a feedlot or just prior to slaughter, all of which may impact your dog’s health negatively.

Although dogs should also eat some plant-based foods, the plant material should be healthy, toxin-free, and accessible to your dog’s digestive system; here again, certified organic ingredients are the best choice for your dog’s food. This means that plant ingredients should either be ground up finely or processed in other ways that allow the dog to use the nutrients contained in the plant cells. Although many pet food manufacturers bake their dog biscuits, and this would certainly break down plant components (i.e., ‘make it more digestible’), baking is less than ideal, as it destroys most healthful nutrients.

So, to summarize, the best and healthiest dog biscuits are those that are USDA certified organic, whole food-based, and contain high quality ingredients including well-prepared high quality plant materials.

Eric Taylor has years of expertise on pet care and pet rearing. He writes on dehydrated pet products, organic dog biscuit and pet treats that could be used as diet for your pets and ensure their health and wellness.
 

Making dog treats can be really easy and fun. First you need to decide what kind of treats you want to make. You can browse dog treat cookbooks for recipes, the internet or just try to make something up. Chances are, your dog will love anything homemade just for him! (or her!)

Photo: dogtreatcookbooks.com

If you’re making your own dog treats, you have a lot of latitude. You can add flaxseeds to make them healthier (flaxseeds are loaded with healthy fats) and you can make them in any shape you want. You can make dog treat muffins or flat apple cinnamon bones or a meatloaf cake. You can make them for gifts, too.

There are a few ingredients you should not include in your dog treats:

1–Raisins can actually be quite harmful to your pet’s kidney system. Stay away from grapes and raisins in dog treats.

2–Chocolate is probably the best known of the doggie "no no’s" . Chocolate has an ingredient called theobromine in it and it can be really harmful to your pet. Even fatal. All kinds of problems can occur including pancreatitis. The darker the chocolate, the more harmful the chocolate.

3–Onions, too, can be harmful to your pet’s system. They have to eat of lot of them but enough onions can cause a type of anemic reaction.

On the other hand, your pet can enjoy peanut butter, liver, apples, carrots and any number of other ingredients.

If you want to make some nice doggie cookies, first you need to pick out a recipe. Then you need to gather your tools and start baking!

One dog treat recipe my dog especially likes is Pumpkin Wafers. Pumpkin is loaded with Beta carotene and anti-oxidants especially vitamins C and E. These vitamins help to lower cancer risk, cataracts and heart disease.

Pumpkin Wafers:

Directions: Preheat oven to 300 F.

Mix all ingredients together. Drop small spoonfuls ( I use the about half of a tablespoon) onto a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake at 300 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

So there you are, just one of many dog treat recipes you can make. How to make dog treats? Easy, find a recipe and start baking. Visit all-natural-dog-treat.com for over 30 different dog treat recipes.

Browse dog treat recipes and learn how to make dog treats it’s fun and you can spoil your pet even more

Most people don’t stop to think about the food they are giving their dog. The colourful packs on the laden supermarket shelves are normally as far as people give dog food a thought. You may be one of them, but are now branching out and looking for something a bit healthier.

Photo: thriftyfun.com

Believe me, the packs can look tempting and with smiling veterinarians and dog breeders on the cover, you’re not that hard to convince.

But stop for a moment and consider a wild dog’s diet. Dogs are naturally pack animals and so they hunt in packs. They can bring down a large animal, as large as a cow, with their combined efforts. Then they all gather round, with much growling and snarling and consume most of the carcass, bones and all. Probably the only parts left is the hide and hooves.

Whether or not you can accept this idea, that’s how dogs evolved. And the wild dogs still manage very well. This is the most healthy dog food. There is nothing that can beat it.

Man, with his puny pseudo scientific ideas of improving on the natural diet of dogs is going down a dead end. You can’t.

Period.

There is only one type of healthy dog food. And that is the one which so closely resembles a wild dog’s diet, as to be virtually the same as far as health benefits are concerned.

Lets look at some of the differences between a wild dog’s diet and commercial dog food, a diet most dogs exist on (I won’t say live, as it’’s hardly a life).

A wild diet, a healthy dog food, consists of:

• raw food
• lots of raw bones
• internal organs are consumed, but these are scarce compared with the muscle meat
• carbohydrates which are limited to the stomach contents, so is small in the overall content

A typical commercial dog food consists of:

• cooked food (many vitamins, enzymes and other nutrients are destroyed by cooking)
• the meat is of poor (often extremely poor) quality (humans get the good stuff)
• carbohydrates, in particular sugar, are a major part of the food - it’s cheap and bulks out the ‘meat’
• the food is fortified with strong preservatives (not allowed in human food for their dangerous impact on health) - DESPITE WHAT THE LABEL SAYS
• to try to redress the nutritional imbalance, isolated and synthetic nutrients are added - nutrients which can’t be properly absorbed and utilised when they are in isolation, or if they are synthetic

So in your search for a healthy dog food, keep firmly in mind the diet of a wild dog. It’s OK to take your time to get used to the idea. If you find the idea repulsive, just go slowly. Try to replace one thing at a time. Just keep in mind that dogs have evolved over millions of years, on this diet. Humans have only been producing (poor quality) commercial dog food for a few decades.

If you don’t like the idea of raw meat for your dog, that’s your issue, not his.

I also suggest that you keep in mind the concept that most people are lured by price. With the best will in the world, if a commercial pet food manufacturer suddenly started to produce quality pet food, because it would be more expensive, do you think it would be a sell-out?

That would only be possible if people had already started to reject the current commercial dog food and were now looking for a healthy dog food, so were prepared to pay a little more.

However, if you make your own dog food, you won’t need to find the extra cash. Not only is a homemade, healthy dog food economical to produce, it has an enormous impact on the health of your dog, often beyond your wildest dreams.

Madeleine Innocent has been a homoeopath, a natural health therapist, since 2000. She treats both people and animals and finds that when the diet of her patient is addressed, to one that is more in keeping with natural laws, at the same time as her treatment, enormous strides in the resultant good health are made. To underestimate a good, natural diet is to play Russian roulette with life.

For more information, click on this website:- http://www.naturallyhealthydogs.com

Dogs are one of the best pets to have around the house. The readily accept the love and care that the owners bestow on them and readily reciprocate by being loyal to the owners. Owners love to pamper their pets with delicious food and toys. And to reward pets for good behavior or just for being beautiful the owners give them dog treats. Dog treats are more special than the staple food. They are usually shaped in different dog favorites: bones and twisted material. By far, Dingo, with their exclusive line of Dingo Dog Treats, is the best in terms of providing delicious and special treats to dogs of all sizes and breeds.

Dingo has taken pride in being the best dog food and dog treat manufacturer with treats specially designed to have the most delicious taste of real meat that dogs love and crave. The treats are hand rolled using only the best rawhide and pork hide there is. This ensures that the treat would be of the highest quality and best taste. All the treats come in different sizes and shapes to fit the dog breed and size. Dingo Big Chew Compressed Bone is recommended for large dogs such as pit-bulls and German shepherds. For playful breeds such as the Spaniel and Yorkshire Terrier, the Dingo Fun Shape Chews is recommended. Owners could also give their dogs some treats that will not harm their sharp canine incisors: Dingo Denta Treats and Dingo Denta Bones are perfect for the teeth because they were formulated to remove tartar and plaque while still managing to be delicious and irresistible; there is no need to brush the pet’s teeth.

Some of the really delicious Dingo dog treats are Dingo Wag’n Wraps, Dingo Munchy, Dingo Beefy Jerky, Dingo Chip Twists, Dingo DynoStix, Dingo Goof Balls, Dingo Porkie Rolls, and Dingo Twist. And one of the best treats is the Dingo Double Meat Bones, which, as the name suggests, contains twice the meat fillings that the dogs love. Dingo also produces the Dingo Ringo, which is shaped like a donut and looks like a toy. The dogs will be surprised to discover that the toy is actually a delicious treat. And to satisfy the dog’s canine urge to chew on real bone, Dingo Munchy Bone 6-inch is a big, hard but chewy bone that would be perfect for the age long bone-burying instinct of this canine variety. And for that dog dreaming about the old days when his ancestors help hunt for food, Dingo Large Porky Ears are available in packs of two to create the illusion that the dog caught this large pig and was rewarded with its ears.

It is good to check if your dogs are allergic to chicken or some other food type. Aside from chicken, Dingo has a wide range of meats to choose from so that the allergic dog can still enjoy the treats without having to undergo allergic fits. Dingo emphasizes that all their dog treats were formulated to remove tartar as the dog chews the food and are therefore good for the canine teeth.