Grey Matters

As our dogs get older and enter their senior years, their bodies change. Their activity levels may drop and new health issues may pop up. One of the key pillars of health is diet - what we feed our dogs is important. So do we need to feed our dogs “senior dog food” to keep them healthy? Is it worth switching them to a different dog food if they’re already eating “adult dog food”? These are the questions we’ll try to answer by comparing senior dog food against other dog food lifestages.

If you’ve ever been lucky enough to share your life with a dog, then you know the ways they can lift your spirits, offer companionship, and even keep you active. Senior citizens can benefit many ways when dogs are present in their lives. And, when senior citizens are paired with senior dogs? Both humans and dogs can benefit and support each other.

Dogs, like humans, can suffer from degenerative brain conditions in their senior years. These conditions are called canine dementia or Canine Cognitive Dysfunction (CCD).

There are many symptoms of canine dementia. The warning signs can be slow to develop, which is why dementia is often undiagnosed.

Your dog is a part of the family. Unfortunately, dogs don’t live as long as humans, so we’re forced to watch them age, and eventually make some very difficult decisions about the end of their lives. It’s not easy to make the decision to euthanize an older pet, and you can go through feelings of extreme grief and guilt after doing so.

The holidays are for spending time with family and relaxing in your warm and cozy house. Whether you’ve rescued a senior dog or have had your senior dog all of his life, creating a special holiday space for your dog can make for the perfect gift. As your dog ages, his needs can change, too.

As much as we’d like, we can’t turn back the paws of time, so there are some things we just can’t change about our senior dogs:

John is a dog trainer with many years’ experience in training companion dogs. Sometimes when it comes to training a dog, especially for those food orientated dogs, we can often wonder how the amount of treats we use in their typical training sessions are adding to the calories they eat on a daily basis.

Data collected in 2018 suggests that nearly 100 million pets in the US are overweight or obese which includes a whopping 54% of all dogs in the states.  Not only does obesity shorten lives, but it is associated with a range of other health conditions including arthritis, bladder issues, liver disease, heart failure and high blood pressure.  If you are considering swapping out the treats you use for more healthy, low calorie ones, we have put together our top 5 healthy treats which you can prepare at home.

Why do we name our dogs?

Seems a bit of an odd question doesn’t it. But when we try to answer it, we struggle to come up with an answer any more detailed than, “so they come back when I call!”

What do you use your own name for?

Identification mostly. Imagine the confusion in a waiting room without names!

This also applies to dogs. We use a dog’s name to identify them, in the Veterinarians office, in the grooming salon, in daycare; and to get them to come back to us in the park.

So, if their name is actually a vitally important part of their life (like ours), why do we sometimes have dogs that appear to have no concept of their name?

It is the height of summer travel season, and pets are part of the family, so many may be hitting the road, but thousands of animals are injured or die each in car accidents. The cost of a properly fitting seat belt or harness is nothing compared to the cost of your pet not wearing one. A 50-lbs. dog, traveling 30 mph, will feel like nine 170-lbs. men pushed him against a brick wall if he is thrown during a motor vehicle accident (that’s “ruff”ly 1,500 lbs. of force)! Thinking back on our high school physics class -- a body in motion stays in motion until acted upon by an outside force.

Just like people, many dogs live with feelings of anxiety. Some dogs have anxiety due to past experiences, and others may have anxiety related to their breed. Some animals may have been anxiety-free their whole life and then develop anxious tendencies in their old age. Whether your dog has always been anxious or is just now developing symptoms, there may be some natural ways to treat it.