Sample Ezine Edition

Hello valued reader,

Today I thought I’d share with you my thoughts about the importance of dog vitamins.  It’s something which I feel very strongly about.

But first, I have an article about effective communication with your dog so as to maintain the pecking order in your home and ensure that you remain the top dog.  Allowing your dog to dominate you in any way is unhealthy for your dog (as well as potentially dangerous for you, particularly if you have a big dog).

Failure to understand your dog’s behaviour and how to properly train your dog is the cause of some people giving up on their dogs and abandoning them in some instances.

Actually, your dog does communicate with you for much of the time you spend together  So not learning to understand your dog’s body language is similar to living your life with someone who speaks another language, and never learning any of that language in order to communicate with that person.

Two way communication is obviously important, especially with your dog who does “speak another language”.  Dogs love to play, but their primary concern is often their position in your “pack”.  Dogs will always make attempts to get to the top dog position if you allow this to go on.

Some dogs do this as a game to see how much they can get away with, (my Kara is like this).  Other dogs can actually take this issue very seriously, and may threaten any “pack” member who doesn’t defer to them – sometimes even including their owner.  Large dogs often like to jump up and stand with
their front paws on the owner’s shoulders. This can be a friendly gesture,  but is often actually a posture of dominance.

A better greeting to encourage your dog to use is to have your dog sit and then you offer a greeting to your dog. In this way, the dog has assumed a subordinate posture, and you retains your leadership role and your position as the top dog.  And your dog will love this exchange with you.  The important thing is that your dog understands his/her position in the “pack”.

One of the more tragic misinterpretations of body language I’ve heard about involves what’s called the canine grin.  Many dogs, when they are happy and excited, pull their lips back in a happy grin, which is a submissive gesture. They are simply very happy, but some owners have actually misinterpreted this submissive grin  as a snarl and, heaven forbid, even had the dog euthanized because of what they thought was aggression in their dog.

Now onto the importance of dog vitamins …

Do you supplement your dog’s health?

There is evidence to suggest that a good vitamin supplement for your dog not only helps prevent, improve or cure many degenerative type illnesses and disease, but may actually lengthen your dog’s life span.  Really!

This is particularly the indication if you supplement with vitamins while your dog is young and healthy, rather than waiting for your dog to get sick or show the usual signs of aging and degeneration.

So let’s start with a little lesson on the cause, and effects, of disease. …

Disease is a process which gradually debilitates the cells of an organism. The organism may be you, or me, or your dog (or mine!)

Debilitated cells are unable to rebuild, regenerate and repair damage which inevitably occurs just through the fact of being alive and moving day by day closer to the end of life.   Of course, much greater damage can be caused by poor nutrition or other dietary deficiencies or excesses, environmental poisons, physical and/or emotional stress or insufficient exercise.  In short, anything which pushes the organism past its optimum capacity, or causes it to fall short of its optimum capacity, can and will cause damage and will debilitate the cells.

Do you ever supplement your own diet and lifestyle with vitamins and/or minerals?

Me too.

But you know what? It didn’t occur to me that my beautiful dogs would benefit from a good vitamin supplement until recent years.

I always (wrongly) assumed that if I gave my dogs a largely natural diet of raw meat and bones, with the occasional addition of steamed vegetables and rice or pasta, and with a morning snack of a small handful of commercial dry dog food, my dogs would always remain in tip top health.

Luckily for me, I was on the right track, and my dogs have always been very healthy.  My vet routinely compliments me on their great teeth and gums and wonderful general health.

But as they started getting past their prime, some health concerns started popping up.  Kara, my Rottweiler, started developing arthritis and the effects of hip dysplasia (which she’s had since very young, but without any symptoms).  Similar to my own parents (who’re well into their 60’s), Kara started to look a bit older and stiffer when she moved, and especially when she got up after lying still for a while.

So I started Kara on a dog vitamin supplement.  And, oh, what a difference!  It took a few weeks to kick in, but once I’d found the right dose and the vitamins started to show their effects, Kara appeared more youthful – less stiff – and she didn’t look so uncomfortable when moving around.  It really has done wonders.

And still I didn’t “get it” in general terms.  Because Kara clearly had a problem, I decided to treat it with a supplement.  But I didn’t think to treat Jet, my Staffordshire Bull Terrier, as well, which I should have done just to keep her in tip top health even though she had no specific problems back then.  Besides which, Kara takes her vitamins in tablet form, and you may recall that Jet is a tablet nightmare!

But when Jet was also diagnosed with the early stages of a degenerative disease – gradual loss of her eyesight – the penny finally dropped.  I thought “Why on earth am I not giving Jet a vitamin supplement as well?”  So I use a tablet crusher and mix the crushed tablet with peanut butter.  Yes, these tablets crush pretty well.  And Jet eats them!  I have to admit that she still looks suspciously at the concoction each day, but the lure of the peanut butter usually gets the better of her!

Nowadays I absolutely swear by dog vitamins.  I really don’t know why I didn’t think them necessary long ago.  But better late than never.

And my dogs are now in peak health even though they’re both now 9 years old.

Do you want your dog to enjoy peak health?  Stupid question, I guess.  Why else would you be subscribed to the Healthy Happy Dogs newsletter?

You can check out what I consider to be the absolute best vitamins available for your dog at:

http://www.HealthyHappyDogs.com/Vitamins-superceded

There’s some very interesting testimonials on how these vitamins have helped, or cured, a multitude of quite serious ailments.  Amazing stuff.

Let me know what you think.

Until next time,

Regards,
Brigitte Smith,
Healthy Happy Dogs
contact:  Brigitte@HealthyHappyDogs.com
8 Mavis Avenue,
Peakhurst.  NSW  2210,
Australia.