Why Switching Up Food Varieties Good for Your Dog

A common belief amongst pet owners is that constantly switching up food brands and food types for your mutts is bad for their health and digestive systems. Recently, however, certified veterinary nutritionists have been challenging this belief and have found that NOT changing your mutts' daily diet on a regular basis can actually cause nutritional deficiencies later on.

When you are feeding your mutts the same chicken, rice, and/or dog food pebbles every day, they are only getting the nutrients offered in those foods instead of a good variety of other vitamins and amino acids in foods like fish, beef, or other fruits and vegetables. So mixing up your mutts' daily diet is a good habit to acquire, but as a responsible pet owner, you still need to handled the change with the right care and precaution.

Below are a few tips as to how to safely and successfully switch your dogs' diet:

1. Decide on different main ingredients - If you've been feeding your mutts chicken and rice, you may look to change to something completely different like beef and vegetables. Just be sure that whatever you're feeding your dogs is safe for them to eat.
2. Switch up dog brands - If you are looking to switch dog food brands, compare the labels on the package and see what good nutrients and new formulas are lacking from your current brand. It's important to stick to the high-quality mixes for optimal nutrition. 
3. Watch the caloric intake - Dogs being overweight is a huge issue and chronic problem that, as a responsible pet owner, you should help your mutts avoid. Make sure that whatever new diet you're feeding your mutts does not exceed the right amount of calories they are supposed to have. 
4. Make the switch slowly - To avoid any digestive problems for your mutts, switch out their diets slowly by increasing the new food and decreasing the old food over a 7-10 day period. In terms of how often to change, you can consider buying a new diet plan for your mutts every time you need to go shopping for their food. 

How to Keep Your Dogs Safe From Bees

For humans (who are not allergic to bee stings), a few pricks of the skin from a small bee is just a little bit of pain and irritation. For mutts, however, multiple bee stings can lead to serious health problems like kidney failure or even death.

A main key to keeping your mutts healthy and happy is to take precautions for your dogs from bees. Below are a few tips on how to keep your mutts safe from troublesome stingers:

• A clean area to play in: Bees are attracted to strong smells and messes like leftover food in the garbage. Maintaining the cleanliness of your backyard, picnic area, and barbequer will help prevent bees from taking over the outside of your house. 
• Flowers & fragrances: It's not a big surprise that bees like flowers. So if you're walking your dogs, it's best to keep them away from big flower bushes to avoid getting stung. At the same time, bees are also attracted to sweet fragrances, so be aware of how much perfume or deodorant you apply - not only for your dogs' safety but also for yours. 
• Right times to go out: Bees tend to have the most activity during the hours of 3 - 6 p.m. So it would probably be best to plan around those times for your outdoor walks and exercises with your mutts.

Keeping your mutts happy, healthy, and hearty!

What to Know About Dog Allergies

The Science Behind Allergies
Just like humans, many of our beloved mutts will suffer from environmental substances, or allergens, from time to time. These allergies usually occur when the dog's body mistakes the allergens as harmful substances. Therefore, the immune system sees it as a threat and goes into overdrive.

Symptoms to Look Out For
Depending on the allergy, you may notice that your mutts are behaving differently. Excessive licking, itching, scratching especially around the face, ears, feet, armpit, and belly areas are all typical signs of allergy symptoms. More serious allergy situations may also include redness (or hot spots) and hair loss.

Things That Can Cause Allergies
There are certain things that can cause allergies in dogs such as pollens, dust bites, molds, and fleas. Other allergies can come from food products including chicken, beef, fish, and soy.

At-Home Remedies to Treat Allergies
If your mutts' allergy situation is minor, there are a few things you can do at home to do to help make your dogs more comfortable. On the days that the pollen count is high, wipe your dogs' feet with a cold, wet towel when coming into the house from outside to avoid tracking in the pollen. Scheduling a weekly bathe in cool water can also rinse off any unwanted residue on your mutts' body. Be sure to consult your trusted vet before giving your dogs any allergy medicines or vaccines.

Keep your mutts happy, healthy, and hearty!

Top 4 Tips to Choosing the Right Veterinarian

As loving and responsible pet owners, we naturally want to provide our mutts with the best animal care, and a huge part of that is finding the right veterinarian. Unfortunately, not all vets and vet clinics are created equal.

Below are six tips to keep in mind when you are shopping around to find the perfect pet care and physician for your mutts:

• American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) accreditation - This organization helps with ensuring that a veterinary practice is operating at a high level of standards in pet care. Even though animal hospitals are not required to be accredited with AAHA to practice medicine, a place that has the membership will help guarantee a certain level of expertise and professionalism.  
• Medical equipment, service & information - A good medical clinic or hospital should have the right medical equipment to help provide the best quality care for their patients. Getting timely, honest, and clear answers from doctors and technicians are important too. Ask to tour the facility and meet the physicians - a good organization should have nothing to hide from its customers.
• Staff customer service - The staff's attitude, energy and overall customer service of a vet clinic or hospital should be a big indicator as to how they treat and value their patients. Again requesting to meet the staff in person and/or going online to read multiple reviews on the clinic will help you determine whether or not this is a good place to take your pets.
• Personal convenience - Another important point that some people tend to forget to consider is the convenience of the clinic or hospital. Finding a medical center that is close to where you live, is easy to find, and have office hours that work well for you and your dogs will make a big difference in cases of emergencies.

Keeping your mutts happy, healthy, and hearty!

Tips to Keeping Your Senior Dog Healthy

As our beloved mutts age, it is essential for pet owners to become more aware of the needs of their senior dogs. Implementing healthy habits is the key to your mutts' (and you as a pet owner) quality life, especially for the latter years. While different dogs may require different needs, below are a few tips as to how to keep your senior dog healthy:

• Healthy, appropriate diet - Feeding your old mutt a high-quality diet can significantly help with their bodily health. If your dogs have heart disease, giving them a dog food that has lower sodium levels will help. Foods that have controlled levels of calcium, phosphorus, or other electrolytes are ideal for mutts that have kidney disease. Consult your trusted vet to see which diets are appropriate for your mutts.
• Weight control - Exercising your senior dog is just as important to weight control as watching what you feed them. Even though your aging mutts may not be as energetic or speedy as when they were a pup, consistent exercise is still going to help maintain their healthy weight, joints, and muscles. Being overweight is extremely harmful to dogs' bone structures which often result in hip dysplasia. 
• Dental care - Not taking care of your mutts' teeth and gums at an early age is one of the biggest mistakes pet owners make, and they usually don't realize it until it is too late. Dental disease is painful and usually causes your dogs to loose its teeth when they get old (some even get diagnosed as early as 2-3 years old!). This may cause your senior mutt to stop eating overall and result in unhealthy weight loss.
• Regular vet visits - Taking your senior dog to the vet at least yearly is critical even if they appear healthy (more needed visits for unhealthy dogs). It is also smart to ask for a body condition evaluation each time to make sure that there are no hidden signs of major illnesses. Remember, health prevention is a lot cheaper and less time-consuming than disease treatments!

Keeping your mutts happy, healthy, and hearty!

Tips & Tricks to a Healthier Dog Coat

The most common form of affection for dog lovers is touching and petting their mutts, and a part of that pleasure is being able to run their fingers through a warm, soft fur coat. Some dogs, however, tend to develop a more coarse and unhealthy layer.

Below are some tips you can try at home to help restore your mutts' shiny and healthy coat:

• Omega 6 Fatty Acids - Quality dog food brands tend to already have Omega 6 in their ingredients. Pumping a small dose of salmon or vegetable oil into your mutts' daily meal can also help boost their coat and skin quality. Pet stores will sell oil supplements - just be sure that these oils are fresh and refrigerated after use. 
• Daily Grooming - A huge part of why your mutts' coat may feel coarse is because there are dried and damaged strands. It would be extremely helpful to groom your dogs' body on a daily basis with a good brush, and taking them to a professional groomers once in a while will also improve the quality of their hair/fur. 
• Well-Balanced Diet - Feeding your mutts quality dog food will greatly impact their coat conditions. Healthy fats are an essential ingredient to curing dried hair and flaky skin. Puppies that are on a low-fat diet are more prone to developing coarse and itchy skin/fur that can lead to infections from their constant scratching. To find out which dog foods are good from your mutts, please consult your trusted vet. 

Keeping your mutts happy, healthy, and hearty!

Health Benefits to Spaying/Neutering Your Dogs

Much discussion and dialogue has surrounded the issue of spaying/neutering dogs. Some pet owners hesitate at the thought because they either think it's too painful or inhumane for their mutts. However, the fact is if you're not going to breed your dog (in a legal, healthy way of course), then spaying/neutering them IS the better way to go.

Benefits for your mutts:

• Spaying/neutering your dogs will significantly reduce the risk of getting prostate, testicular, or ovarian cancer when they get older.
• For most dogs, the lack of hormones will help them be more mentally and emotionally balanced/stable.
• Spaying/neutering your mutts will allow them to live a longer and healthier life.

Benefits for you as a pet owner:

• A more balanced and stable dog will be a better and friendlier companion for you in the long run.
• A spayed/neutered mutt will be easier to train and eliminate unwanted behaviors like aggression and being territorial.
• You will less likely attract unwanted male dogs to your home when you have a female in heat. Vice versa, your male mutt will not act crazily when he senses a female in heat.

Benefits for your local community:

• Millions of tax-payer dollars go into trying to control the dog population every year.
• Animal shelters around the country have to euthanize millions (yes, millions) of dogs every year because they simply do not have the space to care for unwanted mutts.
• Unbalanced dogs often lead to aggression which puts members of the community in danger of dog bites and attacks. 

Spaying and neutering your mutts does not have to be expensive. There are plenty of nonprofits and animal shelters around that would perform the procedure for cheap. Consult with your trusted vet for when to spaying/neuter your dogs and for any other health concerns or questions.

Keeping your mutts happy, healthy, and hearty!