The Dog Food Files Part 3: Feeding Instructions

Originally Posted 5/1/11. Edited.

How should I change my dog's food?
Some people will tell you to go ahead and switch cold turkey.  However, an abrupt change in your dog's diet, especially from a low to a much higher quality food, can likely cause digestive upset and result in diarrhea.
A much better method is to feed 3/4 portion of your dog's old food and add 1/4 portion of the new for 2-3 days.  Then feed half new food and half old food for 2-3 days.  Last feed 3/4 new food with 1/4 old food for 2-3 days (or until you are out of old food if not wasting is important to you).


How much should I be feeding my dog?

Trophy says food is serious business!

The answer for this is going to be different for each and every dog out there.  There are a few factors that you have to consider.

CLICK BELOW TO READ MORE

The Dog Food Files Part 2: More Food does not equal More Love

Originally Posted 4/13/11.

Podgy pooch Cassie has begun a strict diet after ballooning to over nine stone because she'd been allowed to gorge on roast dinners, takeaways, and fish and chips. The seven-year-old border collie looks almost seal-like after years of unhealthy eating left her over three times the weight she should be. Cassie was brought into the Dog's Trust re-homing centre in Kenilworth, Warks., tipping the scales at 58kg when she should be 18-20kg. They have now been given the task of helping Cassie to slim down so she can be re-homed with a loving family but fear it will take them at least a year. The hefty hound, who is too fat to stand up to eat and suffers painful bed sores all over her body from lying down too often, lived alone with her elderly female owner - who regularly served her gut-busting treats like fish and chips on Fridays and full roast dinners on Sundays.
Picture: rossparry.co.uk / Glen Minikin

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/picturesoftheday/8437486/Pictures-of-the-day-8-April-2011.html  

I was forwarded this picture from a friend and my jaw literally dropped when i read the article.  This poor border collie girl weighed an astounding 127.6 pounds.  (That is the same as my Qwill, Trophy and Shiner combined!!)  All because she was fed dinners of fish and chips and clearly not exercised as she should.

Ask any of my dogs and they will tell you I starve them, and to please offer them some more cookies for their empty tummies.

My dogs are liars.

Feeding Guidelines on dog food bags are just suggestions.  Each dog is an individual with their own metabolic rate.  Qwill and Trophy, for example are about the same weight at 45 pounds.  Qwill can gain weight by breathing air, Trophy loses weight while sleeping.  Qwill eats 1 1/4 cups of food divided by two meals, and Trophy usually eats 2 cups per day.

When training, it is best to use tiny pieces of treats.  The size of the treat is not important - the act of giving the treat to your dog is what is rewarding.  Offer them one large chunk of food, and it is still only one treat... but break that large piece into 5 treats and your dog has a jackpot!  In that aspect dogs are like children.  Try to trade a child 3 pennies for their quarter and see how excited they are to now have 3 coins!

So how much food should you feed?  I'll cover that in Part 3.

The Dog Food Files: Part 1 Top 5 dog foods that make my skin crawl

Originally Posted 4/29/11. Edited.

I've been trying to write this article for several WEEKS.  It's not as easy as you would think to write an article on pet food.  Mainly because a lot of people feed the foods I'm about to talk about and some probably don't hear what I have to say.  Others, however, probably don't know any better.  The foods I list below have large marketing campaigns that have made their food public knowledge and have designed their packaging to be pleasing to the eye.  What would happen to the quality of the dog food, I wonder, if they stopped spending billions on large advertising campaigns and instead used the money to, I don't know, buy better ingredients?  Food for thought right there.

Stick around to the end of the article - ESPECIALLY if you feed any of the foods listed below - I'll go over some dog foods that are of higher quality and how to pick the right food for your dog.

CLICK BELOW FOR THE LIST!

Missing The Point

I recently had to take down my dog training blog I wrote through work because corporate policies changed and the old training methods aren't compatible with the new methods.  It's a bunch of bologna that I don't want to get into, but I love several of the posts I had written.  So until I start my own training business and can say what I want professionally, I'm going to move some of the posts over here.

Originally posted 10/15/11, Edited


Something that has been on my mind lately is something I think many people forget about in the dog sport world.

Dog training is about the journey, about the bond you build with your dog while teaching them to do awesome behaviors. It is *not* about the awards you win at the end of training when your dog is at competition level - that's just the icing on the cake!  Or at least, in my opinion, that's the way it should be.

If you want your dog to compete in a sport, you need to make sure you understand that your dog (most likely) isn't going to just *GET IT*, you need to brake down the steps in order to teach them what you expect.  You probably need to do some cross training to make sure that your dog isn't only in great physical health, but that they understand body awareness and have the mental strength to navigate a course.  For most dogs it's going to take a long time to learn these complicated behavior chains.

If you focus on the end result you're going to frustrate yourself and, more likely than not, burn out your dog pushing them farther than they are ready to go.  If you ever find your self saying "I want to do this with my dog, but I don't want to put the work in to get them there" then perhaps it's time to reevaluate your goals.

Teaching your dog - teaching them anything from sit, to shake, to maneuvering an agility course, or running flyball should be just as fun as the titles you add to their names.

You're going to have good days. You're going to have bad days. You're going to have days where you are going to swear your dog forgot every single thing you ever taught him.   Then you're going to have those magical days where everything clicks, it all comes together and you feel on top of the world.

And those days are going to make the journey seem so worthwhile.