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Grey Matters

Grey Matters

Does Your Dog Need Senior Dog Food?

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.

5 Healthy, Homemade Treats to Use for Dog Training

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.

Saying A Dog's Name Once: The Science Behind a Dog's Name

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?

Car Safety and Your Senior Dog

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.

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