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Dogs are born into this world with nature's expectation that they will travel 30 - 40 miles each day in packs to run down their prey. In fact, there are many laws against such behavior for dogs living in civilization. It is important, therefore, to maintain a regimen of regular exercise for your dog.
Dogs are long
distance runners. Wolves and coyotes travel in an area of about 50 square Km
each day. They are long distance runners by definition. They are
deep chested and narrow wasted as is any long distance runner. The
stomach and liver need to pushed up against the diaphragm by the abdominal wall to enable maximum
expiration, which allows maximum inspiration. The dog is born with and
needs to maintain a strong sinus arrhythmia of the heart rhythm. This is
"wired in" because of the great amount of blood that is being
"sucked" into the thorax on inspiration and this speeding up
allows the blood to exit the thorax and allow more oxygen to be exchanged during
these long periods of running activity. Thus, the speeding up of the heart
on inspiration and the slowing of the heart on expiration (sinus arrhythmia) as
well as a narrow abdominal waist compared to the chest should be maintained for a long life to ensue.
Castration and spaying are necessary for dogs to live successful orderly lives in our society. These two procedures cause extra accumulation of fat. The best way to eliminate this accumulation is to limit food intake. In fact, it has been shown that restriction of dietary intake can increase longevity by as much as an additional
100%.
Dogs have been studied for centuries by archaeologists. It has been determined that historically
domesticated dogs have eaten grain for much of their diet. Recently it has been found that the longest lived dogs are those maintained on very low protein diets. Groups of similar dogs maintained on higher protein diets have lived significantly less long. Therefore, we recommend a regular protein dry dog food from a reputable manufacturer meeting the National Research Council requirements for dogs.
One such diet is Blue Seal Krunchies. This diet may not be exciting but is all
that the dog needs and will keep the dog in good shape. Feed three meals each
day until the dog is 14 weeks old and then feed 2 meals a day. At the end of
each meal the pup should still be a bit hungry. Because they have a difficult
time with training it is best with puppies to feed them shortly before a time
when you can take them for a good long walk. Try to keep your eye on a pup and
allow it to go out when it needs to. These times to go out are significant, but
the pup's signal is often very subtle. Female pups are usually trustworthy at
about 4 - 4.5 months and males at about 5 - 5.5 months. Before these ages limit
water availability to times that allow you to take the pup out if it asks you to
do so. After these ages the water can be left out 24 hours per day.
Alternatively, a more difficult method is to allow a pup to realize that dry
food is available 24 hours per day and eat ad libitum. Training is
initially more difficult but has other rewards as discussed below.
As your dog matures you will have to adjust the amount of food to keep the dogs
conformation trim, deep chested and narrow waisted. Castration and spaying
cause weight gain and, therefore, the amount of food fed needs to reduced after
these procedures. Even though dogs eat grain and
sticks and leaves and berries in the wild, there is no dog who yearns to go into
a wheat field (with the wheat ripe on the stalk for 1-2 weeks) except to hunt
the mice. All mammalian bodies including dogs and the mice that they eat and
vegetation are 60% or more water. If the food in the
intestine is less than 60% water solid matter cannot be absorbed or the body
will become dehydrated. Solute must be absorbed with solvent to maintain
the 60% water environment. Grain is 10%
water. Therefore, the most important ingredient in the diet is
water. The food fed to your dog must be 60% water. This is prepared
by mixing 2X the amount of water with the dry food. For example, if you
feed your dog 1 cup of dry food 2x/day, you
need to mix 2 cups of water with the food before it is fed. You
need to put the water in the food before it is ingested. We have found from clinical trials with dogs that
if a dog is fed 1 cup of food once daily and the bowl of water is next to it the
dog will maintain its body weight. But if the same dog was fed 1/3 of a
cup of dry food mixed with 2/3 cup of water the dog did not loose weight but
maintained the same body weight. When fed dry the
food enters the small intestine without enough water to allow nutrient
absorption and, therefore, 2/3 of the diet is wasted. If that dog was
fortunate as a puppy to have learned to eat the same 1/3 cup ad libitum over the
day so that it ate the dry food and then consumed water after ingestion multiple
times during the day, it would maintain its body weight similarly with 1/3 cup /
day. In addition,
allowing less than 60 % moisture diets into the small intestine slows the of flow of the ingesta through the bowel causes more
gastrointestinal work, adding to the possibility of constipation,
intra-abdominal fat accumulation, and "food
allergy".
Older dogs (more than 10 years old) need less protein. It is best to feed these dogs two times each day and to feed dry food at 1/2
the daily volume consumed before 10 years of age. Add to this boiled rice, 1/4 of that usual volume, and elbow macaroni, 1/4 of that volume (these can be prepared once a week and refrigerated). The final volume will be the same as in the past but its protein and salt content will be lower.
In this case add 2X the volume of the dry food as water, the rice and noodles
being about 70% water.
The shelves of supermarkets are filled with all kinds of pet foods. The reason for this is to entice you to entice your dog to eat. That will get your dog fat and lazy. There are however, canned diets that are good foods.
Any brand name chicken dog food (such as Stop & Shop or Pedigree) are such
diets. Chicken meat exemplifies the light meat eaten routinely by the wild
canid, such as rabbit, rat and mouse. Also, since the chicken meat in
these products is the byproduct of old egg laying hens the amount of meat
can be provided to your dog economically. As these diets are not
all meat the omnivorous ability of the dog will deal with the mix. These foods can be fed alone.
It is the ideal diet for all dogs especially smaller dogs who often consume
one can or less. For certain digestive tracts canned chicken dog food
is the best choice of diet. It is not necessary to mix canned food with dry food in order to provide good nourishment and it is certainly not necessary to entice your dog to eat the food!
There is great variety in dog digestive tracts. Some of these do not tolerate the foods that most dogs can eat. Be careful to watch your dog's stool; if it is not of a good consistency, a new food should be tried. Dogs should not be flatulent! Do not switch dog foods.
Once your dog has eaten a 25 or 50 pound bag of food it's digestive tract is used to that food and that food should be continued. Dogs will not get bored with their diet unless you convince them that they should be tired of it. It is always better to eat to live
than to live to eat.
Puppies intestinally absorb antibodies from their mother's milk in the first few
days of life. This antibody protects the pips against viral diseases. If the
mother has been vaccinated recently she will have more antibody in the milk to
be delivered to the pups. These antibodies dissipate over time, with higher
concentrations yielding longer lengths of immunity. A vaccination schedule is
set up to protect against various diseases by vaccination at the point when
there is no concentration of mother's antibody present in the puppy. Early
vaccination is necessary for those pups whose mothers have not delivered much antibody in the milk
but also stimulates activation of cellular immunity against Distemper, Parvovirus, Parainfluenza, Hepatitis. Rabies vaccination
is performed at 3 months of age at which time there is no maternal antibody to
neutralize the vaccinations ability to produce antibodies in this pup.
Rabies vaccination is repeated one year after the first vaccination and then every 3 years. If rabies vaccination is administered back to back 9 - 12 months apart once in a dog's life, all
subsequent rabies vaccinations are legally 3 year vaccinations (in Massachusetts) after
that. The vaccinations for the other viruses and bacteria are repeated periodically.
Recent evidence has revealed that antibody levels are significantly maintained
to allow protection against viral diseases for three years at least.
Therefore, after the 1 year inoculation, we will vaccinate for the viruses every
three years. Leptospirosis and Borrelia (Lyme organism) are spirochetal
bacteria which need to be vaccinated against annually. These vaccinations
need to repeated annually because the duration of immunity from a bacterial vaccine is only
about 1 year. Dogs that are exposed to alkaline brackish water in the
summer are especially susceptible to Leptospirosis. Lyme disease is
spread through the small Lyme tick much of the year. It is absolutely
necessary to vaccinate for Lyme annually
because the presence of these small ticks, laden with the Lyme causing bacteria,
are all over
this area. Lyme, discussed elsewhere on the site, is a disease of
inflammation. Experimentally most dogs exposed to the organism show no
reaction. However, 5% of the population who are truly infected with Lyme will die
from Lyme. Vaccination:
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