DOG FOOD AND ATTITUDE; what our dogs eat and how it may be affecting ability to change behavior

DOG FOOD AND ATTITUDE

What our dogs eat and how it may be affecting ability to change behavior

I was excited to have an appointment with Craig and his dog Jake last week. Craig’s original complaints for me to address were counter surfing, excessive whining, barking at what appeared to be ‘nothing’ and leash pulling.  It quickly came to my attention how dull his coat looked and felt as I reached out to pet his German Shepherd frame. When I probed what Craig had been feeding, he responded, ‘I’m spending a lot of money on premium kibble! How would a change in his food affect his coat and behavior?’

So begins our discussion.

Jake is on a 95% kibble diet, and has been for 3.5 years. (treats making up the other 5%).  The kibble company spends a tremendous amount of money overriding our common sense approach that anyone eating the same anything for 3.5 years are at risk for experiencing potential problems.  Add to this that kibble is a highly processed, nutritionally devoid, carbohydrate-ridden food.

Craig has been feeling as though he was upgrading when he began feeding Jake ‘grain free’ and while this has been a positive direction for kibble companies to travel with their formula, there is still a HUGE carbohydrate load to these foods.

Awareness of human and canine nutrition and its affect on body/mind chemistry is a tap on my shoulder when I hear people tell stories of dog dilemmas.  For Jakes situation:

1. Can we blame a dog that is not getting his nutritional needs met when they forage on a counter?

2. Is it fair to punish the counter surfing behavior, and not a potentially strong physiological need behind it? 

3. Is it realistic to ask whether highly processed food could be manipulating his blood sugar, contributing to anxious displays (whining) of behavior?  If we were to consider the effects of nutrition on our human bodies, there has been much research to determine that what we eat can (and does) affect our behavior, so is not a huge leap to consider any other living form is affected as well.  

Consider these facts and participate with me in a little exercise:

·      Begin with a piece of paper with 100% written at the top. 

·      Subtract the % of protein, % fat, and % moisture listed on the back of the kibble bag you feed,

·      The remainder you see is carbohydrate composition of the food!

·      Most will be surprised to witness this amount in excess of 40% (in other words, you are picking it up in the yard after your dog has spent time and energy processing it)

o   Now consider that your dog operates optimally at between 11 and 18% carbohydrate intake for his system to function optimally.

Now lets look at the first six ingredients in Jakes food:

Herring meal

Potatoes

Sweet potato

Canola oil

Pea protein

Rice

That is the bulk of the food right there, and the remainders of ingredients aren’t any more flattering.  How can a company have good conscience marketing this to us, who wish to do right by our dog. This particular formula rendered 52% carbs for Jake to digest, and there is no real substantive nutritional value in this at all. Dogs are carnivores, and the meat is missing!

When our dogs consume more carbs than their body can use, a list of problems can arise including (but certainly not limited to); blood sugar instability, digestive issues, obesity, imbalance with intestinal bacteria, allergies, arthritis, seizures, cancer, anxiety, and the list is growing with research.  Carbs can bind vitamins and minerals in the intestines, whisking them out of their bodies with no chance of absorption.  Now consider that one of the many duties of B vitamins, for instance, is as a calming influence, as well as capacity to improve brain function.  Behavior problems that are rooted in anxiety, which is of course the opposite of calm, may be affected by not getting enough B vitamins. 

Speaking to a dogs’ species appropriate diet and prior to when kibble came to be, Jake (this time of year for example) would be feeding on bunnies. He would be eating the innards of the bunny first to assist in digestion of the protein, bone, organs and fur they were about to consume. So this would consist of vegetation the bunny had eaten, packed with B vitamins, digestive enzymes, and probiotics that all help the body absorb food optimally. The enzymatic value of fresh food has been found to also help naturally remove plaque from teeth, and keep it off.  Kibble cannot replicate this process.  Maybe the ingredients that went into it at one time were nutritionally viable, but that was a very long time before your purchase. 

Kibble companies would also have you believe that there is ‘better kibble’ than another. This may be the case for the integrity of the ingredients they applied to the recipe; however,  beyond that, each and every kibble goes through the same nutrition degradation process in the highly processing procedure.

Below are some ideas for canine species appropriate (fresh, real food) commercial and convenient options to a highly processed kibble that are available:

·        Commercially prepared raw diets:

o   Darwin’s, is delivered to your door on auto ship basis

o   Northwest Naturals

o   Stella and Chewys

o   K9 Naturals

o   Tuckers

o   Answers

·       Commercially prepared dehydrated diets:

o   Stella and Chewys

o   K9 Naturals

o   Northwest Naturals

o   Addiction

And ideas for Movie Night!  Suggestions to bring ideas for further discussion:

·      ‘Pet Fooled’ Video:               http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com/petfooled

·      ‘Supersize Me’ Video:          http://documentary-movie.com/super-size-me/

Please note, I am NOT suggesting replacing nutrition advice for behavior advice! Although I have witnessed what I consider miracles with a shift in nutrition, I am addressing it here more from the perspective that unless you have as much information about your dog as possible, then a behavior modification plan may be compromised. If a behavior is not responding to protocol that has been revised appropriately, it makes sense to investigate our dog’s physiology – and how they are FEELING!

In terms of Jake’s behaviors, I’m thrilled to say Craig’s now looking to his food bowl as potentially part of the solution.  We are working diligently on Jake’s issues, as he has been reinforced in many ways, but we will save that for another chapter.  Furthermore, Jakes coat is shining, and he loves mealtime!

There is still much to learn in the area of dog nutrition, many scientific case studies to be performed; however, we can take the gift that research has given us to move in the right direction.  With all the good intentions of feeding what the kibble companies would have us believe is the highest quality food, we are picking up much of our money with a pooper-scooper. 

For references of dietary suggestions, to learn how to begin feeding a more natural diet, or to unlock the mystery of the ingredient list on your bag of kibble, please contact Patti Howard for a copy of nutritional recommendations, free, via www.yourcanineresource.com   Patti is Certified Specialist in Canine Training/Behavior, and holds Advanced Canine Nutritional Certification. Patti is convinced with 25 years experience in these areas that Your Dog Can’t Do Anything Wrong, as will be interpreted by her book of the same name, available this fall/winter.

YOUR DOG CAN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG; as in the title of Patti's book!

Your Dog Can't Do Anything Wrong (just consider it a training opportunity)

What kind of feelings come up when you hear that your dog cannot do anything wrong? Does your primate kick in and defend its position in your relationship? If our dogs aren’t listening it must be because THEY are wrong! Right?

From my years in responding to requests for behavior modification, most people misunderstand (and therefore label) a lack of compliance from their dog as being ‘stubborn’ or ‘willful’.  We are assuming in that statement that the dogs brain is sophisticated to the degree that those labels are fair.  For the sake of conversation here, I have seen dogs hesitate complying with a command, (which may be more common in certain breeds, you know who you are) though by and large many more times they are simply not understanding what we are attempting to communicate.

What is apparent to me as a teacher is that in order to recognize a training opportunity, it will be helpful to recognize when you are feeling they are being stubborn or willful.  Let that be your information, not your frustration!  Take a step back to ask if you have trained them to the level you are asking.  Taking responsibility, as their humans, to help them learn what you are communicating IS the training opportunity.

In the simplest of terms, if our dogs don’t know what it is we are communicating, it falls on us.

Let’s look at the human experience of communication, for example. The way we communicate is if we do not get a response, or the one we’re expecting, we tend to repeat the same thing over and over, possibly louder and louder.  Whether we know they are hearing us or not, it’s apparent they aren’t listening.  Therefore, this is the way we tend to communicate with our dogs, and it is as ineffective, if not more so.  They can hear a potato chip drop in the next room, significant to ‘hearing’ not being the problem.  Since English is not their first language, I suggest slowing down a bit, training them to hear our first request, and not repeating as though we were in a burning building.  Sit, SIT, SIT, SIT, SIT!  This is a most INeffective way of communicating with a species that is adept at reading energy.

Here’s a training opportunity story:

Your dog, Pearl, slides out the front door and is on an all out, ears-flapping-in-the-wind run for a passer-by and their dog. You call out to her to come back, then again louder, all the while chasing after her full speed, in panic.  Game-On!  So, aside from feeling embarrassed, angry or frustrated, how are you going to react in this scenario?

According to Pearl, she’s not being stubborn to not come to you.  Rather she is in an exciting, low threshold environment for her.  So where is the training opportunity in this, and how is it she isn’t doing anything wrong? Simply put, you may have worked with Pearl’s recall in your home, or in the fenced yard, but have not taught her to come to you in a highly distractive environment.  She has likely not generalized that coming to you in the house is the same as when she is excitedly running after something. The training opportunity is training her when she’s running away from you, and this requires hours of practice with her on long line running after things, and coming back to you when called.  It requires that it works for her to whip around and run to you when called, and practicing the recall when she’s running toward different yummy things will accomplish this for you.

I will add that no amount of frustration or anger for not coming will teach your dog a thing, except possibly that if it wasn’t fun to come when called before, it certainly isn’t now.

Consider the association she has with how it feels to come to you. Have the times she has come to you ever been aversive? Have you called her out of the back yard (where she was having a blast) and then locked her in the house for 8 hours while you rushed off to work?  Have you called her numerous times (missing the training opportunity) and so frustrated when she finally got to you that you exhibited anger? That would explain the next time you call her to you and she hesitates, or that she possibly does NOT come at all.  Instead, in this scenario, make a game of running into the house with you, or having her wait while you leash her up and she walks nicely into the house with you. This will help you achieve your goal, with no breakdown to the recall command.

THESE are ideas of how you design the recall to ‘work for her’.

In order to fully train your dog to your communication, it is important for you to generalize the communication with her. There are ways to incrementally introduce levels of training to your dog that will help build confidence and levels of compliance, showing that taking advantage of a training opportunity is rich in rewards for you both.  In this series, we will explore many more training opportunities and how to recognize when they’re presenting themselves.

In conclusion, if your dog ‘blows off’ a command, pack your frustration and anger away, and look for your training opportunity, because they aren’t doing it wrong, they just don’t yet know how to do it RIGHT! 

  

Patti Howard BS, CCS is certified in Canine Behavior and Nutrition, and owner of Your Canine Resource in Olympia WA  www.yourcanineresource.com

A HEATLHY CANINE THANKSGIVING FEAST

Before we launch into holiday foods for our furries, a behavioral reminder: It takes a long time to reorient begging behavior if you feed from the table on this or any other day. Begging behavior results from reinforcement. In short, dogs beg if it works. And Thanksgiving is notorious for dogs receiving scraps at (or near) the table.

As we sit down with family and friends to our Thanksgiving feast, our dogs with eyes (and noses) are longingly engaged. There are seasonal foods our dogs can enjoy with us. What we may not be aware of is how the preparation of these good foods can affect their digestibility for dogs. The more we season, butter, spice and salt our food, the less digestible it becomes for them.

Speaking of digestibility, there are many who feed a daily ritual of kibble, and then one or two days a year, feel tempted to load their dogs up with rich food. Doing so is likely to upset your dog’s system and make for a miserable evening of gas, diarrhea and even vomiting, depending on how healthy your dog’s digestive tract is.

Let’s run down the short list of our typical holiday meal, with the taboo ingredients in RED.

TURKEY:  This protein, like all fresh proteins, is wonderfully good food for our pups, unless it’s too highly seasoned. Go ahead and treat your dogs to chunks of white meat in their bowl. And don’t forget bone broth, which is especially beneficial to dogs. Simply boil it up after removing the meat from the carcass.

If you can’t resist throwing your dog a turkey treat, make sure to remove both COOKED BONE and FATTY SKIN. They can create havoc in a sensitive system.

STUFFING:  This is in the RED for our dogs, who don’t tolerate wheat well.

GREEN BEANS:  Before the ONION is added, throw a few green beans in the blender, or offer as a treat whole.

POTATOES: …if you must. Potatoes aren’t bad for a dog, yet the BUTTER, SALT, SOUR CREAM added take this tuber over the top. Scoop out a little before adding all of the good stuff and add it to the blender with other goodies. Believe me, it will settle better.

GRAVY:  Nope. Nothing good can come from this.

CRANBERRIES:  Tart as they are, cranberries are fine. If you want to blend a few in with those green beans and potatoes, all will be healthier!  If you happen to add RAISINS AND GRAPES into anything, avoid sharing it with your dog. They are toxic.

PUMPKIN:  Canned pumpkin is an amazing ingredient for our dogs. If you feed your dog one extra thing all day, make it pumpkin! It is loaded with nutrients while also acting as anti-inflammatory and helping to prevent tummy upset. Note that this should be the 100% blended pumpkin, not CANNED PUMPKIN PIE FILLING, which is full of sugar. Your best bet is to scoop the unseasoned blended pumpkin into your dog’s bowl. Or, better yet, toss some into the blender (before it has turned into a pie filling) with the rest of the good stuff you’ve set aside.

PUMPKIN SEEDS are amazing source of nutrients as well…with the added benefit of preventing and removing worms.

ANY OTHER VEGGIES:  All good, throw into the blender too!  Especially the green leafy ones!

SWEET POTATOES AND YAMS:  These contain Vitamins A and C, which help regulate blood sugar, while acting as antioxidants and an element of soluble fiber.

HAM:  Nope. Packed with nitrates and nitrites, sodium, and other carcinogens, smoked meats aren’t a protein source you want to share with your dog.

APPLES:  Absolutely! Apple and its skin have many valuable nutrients. Don’t feed the core as it contains arsenic.

YOGURT:  Yogurt or any source of probiotics, which also includes Kombucha or fermented veggies, will create an easier digestion for us ALL!

NUTS:  All but MACADAMIA! ALL in moderation. If feeding a nut butter, make very sure it doesn’t contain Xylitol. Though it appears safe for us, Xylitol is deadly to our dogs.

GREEN JUJU KITCHENS offers a holiday blend with many of the organic ingredients I’ve mentioned in this article. Best of all, they already professionally prepared for your dog! Visit www.greenjujukitchens.com for a location near you for your holiday purchase!

Wishing you and all canines a delicious and digestible holiday! Happy Thanksgiving.