|
Proper nutrition is extremely important for every aspect of your dog’s life.
High quality dog food affects a dog's health and wellness by offering a vital balance of proteins, fats, complex carbohydrates and the trace nutrients and minerals its body needs for the growth and repair of the immune
system.
Nutrition plays a vital role in your dog’s ability to think clearly, lowering his/her stress levels, and
producing a calmer demeanor. The act of thinking requires a lot of energy. Dogs involved in a training program expend lots of mental energy focusing on the tasks they are being asked to learn.
If dogs start with minimal nutrition, they become lethargic, grouchy, or hyper when they are asked to perform even the simplest of tasks. They simply are incapable of focusing properly and lose concentration after a short period of time.
They may also become confused. If a dog is constantly being asked to do something it can't understand, this confusion can lead to an aggressive form of acting out.
When training a dog, the first thing I look at is its diet. I work from the inside out. The effectiveness of training becomes less and less if the causes for the unwanted behaviors are not addressed.
Hyper, unfocused, and out of control dogs and puppies often are eating foods with extremely high levels of cereal foods such as wheat, corn, and/or corn meal.
Aggressive dogs eat food containing higher levels of incomplete protein which doesn't digest very well. Shy and stressed dogs do not digest their foods well at all and often suffer from intestinal complications such as diarrhea.
Also, their coats are often extremely dry and shed heavily. One way to test the foods you are feeding to your dog is to soak the food in water for about fifteen minutes. If it swells in size and becomes somewhat mushy, it consists mostly of cereal.
Are your dog’s stools often soft and loose? Is your dog gassy? If so, he/she is not digesting the food properly. By looking at your dog's food, you can encourage better behavior as well as contribute to better health and increased longevity.
About the author:
Jeanne Perciaccanto has a degree in Health and she has been a professional dog trainer for 20 years. She has combined both disciplines and researches diet and nutrition as it pertains to canine behavior. Visit her at
www.ultimatedogtraining.com.
More Interesting Articles
|