Humans for Dogs

Is it safe to give your dog a bone?

There's been a lot of debate about whether or not it's safe to feed dogs bones. Here are a few things to consider:

• You want them to chew the bone, not swallow it. So give them big bones as opposed to small bones or pieces of bone.
• Bones that are likely to splinter, like chicken and turkey, are not a good choice.
• Although bones have nutritional value, if you are feeding your dog regular dog food, they do not need bones for health reasons.
• Bones can help keep their teeth clean. I've found that compressed rawhide and Greenies are the best for keeping teeth clean.
• Some dogs, especially when they are puppies, like to chew on things. Giving them bones may save many of your other belongings!

Your dogs don't need bones but many really enjoy them. Select the bones carefully and keep an eye on your dog while they chew on them.

Photo by ¡arturii!.

Did I kill my dog with grapes?

My dog Teddy died last year from kidney failure.  After she died, I found out that grapes can cause kidney disease in dogs.  Grapes were her favorite treat.  She used to balance them on the tip of her nose until I said ok and then she'd roll it off an into her mouth.  I'll never know whether all the grapes I gave her contributed to her kidney disease or not, but I know I'll always wonder.

Don't feed your dog raisins or grapes.  According to my vet, different amounts are toxic to different dogs, but you won't know until it's too late if your dog is one of the ones that reacts really badly to grapes!

I do wish I'd gotten a picture of her balancing a grape on her nose!

Photo by Nikita Kashner.

Thanksgiving Dinner for Dogs

We boarded our dog Chase for Thanksgiving weekend but he didn't miss out on dinner!  On Thanksgiving he got turkey and rice with pumpkin yogurt for dessert!  If you decide to feed your dogs Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, try to stick to their regular diet - meat and rice are good foods for dogs.

Photo by image415.

What kind of food do you feed your dog with allergies?

Teddy is allergic to chicken, beef and pork, so I feed her California Nature Lamb & Rice. 

You know your dog is allergic to something when they start gnawing and itching at themselves so bad they leave bald spots that eventually bleed.  Figuring out what they are allergic too is a bit more difficult.  You have two options.  You can run a blood test and find out exactly what they are allergic to - this starts at $250 and goes up from there.  The second option is to try feeding your dog different foods until you find one they are not allergic to.  Here are some foods to cut out of their diet:

• wheat
• corn
• chicken
• beef
• pork

Try dog foods with the following ingredients:

• potatos
• rice
• lamb
• turkey
• deer
• rabbit
• duck

Be sure to read all of the ingredients!  Just about all dog food in the grocery store contains chicken by products!  A good pet store can help you pick the right food.

It might take your dog anywhere from 2 to 12 weeks to respond to the new diet.  Although it usually only takes 3-4 days for Teddy's allergies to clear up, if she eats chicken or beef it only takes 24 hours before she starts itching all over again.

What type of food do you feed your dog with allergies?

Photo by laffy4k.

Helping your puppy to not be food aggressive

When Teddy was a puppy I wanted to be very sure that she never got “food aggressive.” Whenever anybody came over to the house I’d have them stick their hand in her bowl and then pretend to eat some of her food. When I was sure it was safe, I had kids do it as well. I still would never trust a dog not to defend their food, but I feel a lot safer knowing that she’s let lots of people play with her food! (Especially now that she’s in kidney failure and always hungry, I worry about the kids – someday she may want their food!) The only time she’s ever growled over her food is at Chase, our chocolate lab. It’s ok for people to take her food, but not Chase! 

Photo by  Jan Tik.

Free feeding your dog

When I got Teddy, my black lab/golden retriever/irish setter mix, I decided that I would free feed her. Free feeding means making food available to your dog all the time – as much as they want.  If you start when your dog is a puppy, free feeding is really easy. I just put out a bowl of dry dog food and filled it whenever I noticed it was empty. Teddy self regulated herself – never overeating. It helped that I made sure she got lots of exercise. My vet warned me repeatedly that with her lab genes she was going to get fat. I told him I’d watch her and if it became a problem I’d change. (Ironically, Teddy is now wasting away from kidney disease. She never was overweight though.)

The reasons I wanted to free feed were:

• I don’t like it when dogs fixate on food. You know the type, it’s dinner time and they are jumping and slobbering all over. I had a roommate who had a cat who thought he ought to be fed at 6am every morning. If she wasn’t home he’d gallop down the hall and slam into my door. Repeatedly. And he weighed 30 pounds.
• I knew I wouldn’t be home everyday at the same time and I didn’t want my dog feeling like she was starving.
• I figured she could self regulate and just eat what she needed better than I could regulate for her. On weeks where we went backpacking and 6 mile runs, she might need more food. On days where I spent all day in meetings and went out for dinner instead of running, she might need less food.

A couple of warnings or caveats:

• It’s much harder to start free feeding when your dog is already used to a scheduled diet. You can try but for the first few days they are sure to stuff themselves. They may or may not even out.
• You should stick to dry food. Wet food shouldn’t sit out all the time.
• Introducing a new dog into the situation creates difficulties. I had to stop free feeding Teddy when Chase joined us. She would gobble down all her food as if she was terrified Chase would eat it all and there wouldn’t be any more. Now we pretty much free feed both of them but Chase still insists on being fed at 6pm. If there’s still food in the bowls, we pick up the bowls, pour food from one to the other and put them back on the floor. Then he eats!

Photo by leff.

How Much Chocolate Can Your Dog Eat?

My dog once ate an entire platter - a double batch - of chocolate fudge.  You couldn't even tell that there had been any fudge on the platter, it was that clean!  She didn't die but she did vomit quite a bit.  Here's what you need to know:

• It's theobromine, not caffeine, that dogs doesn't sit well with dogs.
• It causes vomiting, diahrrea, then an increase in heart rate, muscle tremors and eventually seizures. 
• Baking chocolate has six times more theobromine than milk chocolate.
• How much chocolate your dog can eat depends on his/her size.  Four ounces of milk chocolate may be too much for a small dog.  My 70 pound lab/retreiver mix had about eight ounces of baking chocolate.
• Call your vet if your dog ingests a lot of chocolate.  They can tell you, based on the dog's size and the amount of chocolate, whether you should bring your dog in.  My vet told me to run around with my dog to help her start vomiting but said that she'd be fine.

So your dog can eat chocolate ... it's just not a very good idea.

Photo by Farl.

Beer for dogs

Many of you have probably already read my post No Drinks for Dogs!  Quite a few posted that they like to give their dog beer.  Well, now there's a safe option.  A pet store owner in the Netherlands commissioned a local brewery to make a beer for her dogs.  It even has beef in it!  Best of all, it's nonalcoholic, so it's safe for your dogs.

Remember, dogs don't react to alcohol the same way people do.

Why do dogs eat grass?

Why do dogs eat grass?  While there's a lot of theories, I think the basic answer is "because they like it."  Our dogs will eat not only grass but also wood and rawhide and anything else edible that happens to be lying around. 

Some of the theories on why dogs eat grass (other than because they like it) are:

• To aid in digestion
• To provide roughage. Wolves and coyotes eat the whole animal not just the meat so the theory is, dogs might need something more than dog food.)
• To vomit.  Since many dogs throw up after eat grass, the theory is maybe they ate the grass to throw up.  (Why do dogs throw up after they eat grass?  They throw up because grass is not very digestible.)
• Because they like it. :)

The short answer is we don't really know why dogs eat grass but I think they do it because they like to eat and the grass is available.

Grapes and raisins can cause kidney failure in dogs?

I was looking for information about kidney failure in dogs and the following article caught my eye: Kidney failure in dogs following ingestion of grapes and raisins - College of Veterinary Medicine - University of Minnesota.

The ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center has received more than 50 well-documented reports of dogs developing acute kidney failure after ingesting grapes or raisins.

All I can say is it must be a lot, and I mean a LOT, of grapes.  My dog Teddy loves grapes and one Christmas everyone was giving her handfuls until I found them out. 

Teddy has kidney failure now but she's nine years old and she's been eating grapes since she was a puppy.  This study says the dogs developed kidney failure within 72 hours.