Pointers for Taking Care of Your Four Legged Friend

In honor of our beautiful four legged friends, I wanted to just touch on some things that maybe for you aren't second nature like making sure your pet has food and clean water. These are some things that you might not think of each day as being better for your pet.

1. Make sure you feed your pet out of a ceramic or metal dish. Plastic dishes can sometimes cause problems for your pet, like chin acne. If you are finding that your pet's chin has black dots on it or it looks like it's dirty all the time, your pet might have acne and one of the things that you can do to prevent that in the future is to feed out of ceramic or metal bowls.

2. When feeding your pet remember that dogs and cats are carnivores. The more protein in the food, the better for them. Plus the more protein you feed in place of carbohydrates, the less you will have to feed your pet. It's like the difference between eating a steak and a spaghetti dinner. You would eat less of the steak than you would the spaghetti dinner before you were full. Grain free foods tend to have more protein in them than a grained food.

3. Make sure that meat or at least meat meal is the first ingredient in your pet's food and their treats! A lot of well-wishing pet owners out there have never looked at the ingredients in the dog food they buy. Look. A lot of times the first ingredient is corn! Hard to believe, right? Commercials you see on TV and other places can be misleading so before you buy a new food for your beloved pet, check the ingredients. The most important things to look out for are the meat or meat meal as a first ingredient, no by-products of any kind, and no "animal" anything. You want things that are specific, so chicken fat, etc. would be okay, but not non-specific "animal" fats.

4. Be careful with treats! Feed treats appropriate for your pet. For instance, if your dog scarfs down the cheweys in just a couple of bites, don't feed your dog rawhide. Rawhide is NOT fully digestible. So while it might be okay for a dog who chews thoroughly and slowly, it is not okay for that dog who will just choke the rawhide down. The rawhide can get stuck in the intestine and require surgery. Try something different like bully sticks, or pork hide. And for the even bigger chewers, instead of a bone, try an elk antler. Elk antlers are stronger than bone, and don't splinter. What happens with antlers is when they get wet with saliva the outside gets soft and then the dogs can get in to the center where the yummy bone marrow is. Dogs love them! Keep in mind that elk antlers and deer antlers are not the same. Elk antlers are stronger. These are spendy treats, but will last up to a couple of months or longer.

5. If you find that your pet seems to get a lot of yeasty infections, for example, ear infections, try feeding your dog a diet of more protein and less carbs. Yeast feeds on carbohydrates so while you are treating the infection, help it further by cutting the carbs. in your pet's diet. It will help starve the infection. Obviously you will have to treat it other ways, too, but making it so the yeast doesn't have any carbohydrates to feed on will help as well.

Keep in mind that I'm not writing this to give you all the answers about these things, for example, if your pet has an ear infection, feeding more protein and less carbohydrates is just something you can do in addition to getting the infection treated. These are things that can help along with whatever else you are doing to make your pet's life great. I hope you and your pets have a healthy and happy 2012!