By Canine Arthritis And Joint
​
To start preparing your dog for treatment at home, you have to first start with the diet. Most people are busy and don't have a lot of time to spend on feeding their pets. What you can do is find what works for you. You may know but kibble isn't good for many things. It was created for convenience mostly for humans. There isn't anything nutritional due to over processing of the ingredients. I recommend a high quality canned food or switching to a raw or homemade diet. As I was growing up, my mother always told me to cook your meat completely or you could get sick. So in my mind, food needs to be cooked, no matter what it is. We, as humans, cook our foods and we survive. Dogs eat their kibble and they survive, but that's it. You and your dog are only surviving. Now I am not here to talk about human food other than a comparison. When we humans cook our foods, we cook out the vitamins. To supplement the loss, we have to take vitamins and try to eat more veggies and fruits. Not much nutrition there, is it? In today's world, we eat what we can buy from the market.
​
A little known fact is that the foods coming into this country and sold on store shelves today have not been checked for any chemicals or toxins. Only 1% of foods coming from an outside source of the USA are inspected. So when you buy foods, buy organic and learn to read labels. When you take precautions and try to eat better yourself, think about your dog too. Your diet and your dog's diet play a very important role in how your body fights against diseases. So that leads us to here and now.
Your dog has arthritis or some joint disease and now we have to spend that EXTRA time in our BUSY lives to help our dogs be pain free or comfortable. Do you see where I am going with this? Either way you will spend that extra time caring for your pet. Think about all the visits to the vet to help your dog when he/she is hurting. If we had of known in the early years that diet played a role in joint issues, we may have made extra time to pay attention to the diet. If you are lucky enough to have a younger dog without issues yet, maybe it's time to concentrate on the diet. Start now, start thinking about what you can do for your dog BEFORE it takes on the pains of arthritis. And if they are already ridden by the joint pain and inflammation, let's make some changes today.
​
Most all pet foods today have potatoes and corn in them. Potatoes or corn aren't good for arthritis and joints. Potatoes are part of the nightshade family food group as well as all grains. If you are feeding kibble, start today by getting your dog (if they are not already) on a joint support. Add in some vitamins and minerals, probiotics and digestive enzymes. Fish oils are a wonderful addition to your dog's daily meals. It helps lubricate the joints and keeps them lubricated. Buy high quality fish oils. It will only contain a small amount of Vitamin E as most do just to preserve it, so add Vitamin E (dry Succinate) three (soy free) times a week to your pets diet. Also give milk thistle daily for at least 30 days. It helps cleanse the liver and keep it from being overworked trying to digest kibble. It takes approximately 12 hours for a dog to digest kibble. In that time, the digestive system is working extremely hard and is over stressed trying to break down the foods. The liver is busy helping to filter out the toxins. Yes, toxins in foods. There are a lot of them - meats, vitamins, and even water has toxins in them. A lot of the pet foods on the market get their meat from an outside source and much of it comes from China. They do not regulate the meats and there are lots of toxins/arsenic in these foods. We consume these foods daily along with our pets.
Any pet eating commercial foods needs to detox every 6 months. The first detox should last up to 3 months. After the initial detox, you can do it for a couple of weeks at a time each time after that. Once you start getting these toxins out, replace it with good things like probiotics and digestive enzymes. They help break down the foods, add in good bacteria and build the immune system. This is the key to having a healthy pet.
Vaccines, medications, unfiltered water and pet foods all break down the immune system. So you see, ALL pets need to detox and rebuild the system.
​
If you feed a raw diet, the body digests the food in about 6 hours. This is because the body is taking in its natural source of foods which the body doesn't have to work hard to digest...so the liver isn't taxed either. It helps the body to function properly. If you add in greens to the diet, that is a natural cleanser. Greens also provide a lot of vitamins and minerals to build a strong body. I have one I really like that I give my dogs called Green's Power. It has a lot of your greens and is 100% organic. NO preservatives. It is a powder that can be easily mixed in with canned foods or wet foods. Kibble diets only, you would have to resort to some sort of pill form or fresh frozen raw finely chopped kale, spinach and/or broccoli.
There is another form of organic minerals and some vitamins you can give also called Humic/Fulvic Acid. It is tasteless and odorless but dark in color. Can be used along with the greens powder.
Coconut oil is great to add into foods also. It's an oil that has all kinds of healing properties and will also help fight the bad bacteria, make the skin healthy and the coat shiny. It is great to rub on ears that may have yeast build up or on paw pads to soften them. Many dogs like it as well. It is great to put on scrapes or superficial wounds. In fact, coconut oil and apple cider vinegar work on just about everything. I always look for and buy organic extra virgin coconut oil in a jar. Plastic containers may contain chemicals that are toxic so I always recommend buying anything you can in glass jars.
​
I didn't touch on canned foods today because it is the middle of the road. It still has the ingredients sourced from other countries in them but they hold more nutrients than any kibble and carry more moisture content. Kibble always keeps a dog partially dehydrated so make sure your dog has plenty of water around. I definitely recommend a canned food over kibble any day. Oh and that age old myth of kibble cleans the dog's teeth, well that is false. Give them a raw meaty rib bone to gnaw on twice a week and the teeth will become pearly white. ~C.A.J.