I’m writing this, as usual, in the frenzied build-up to
Thanksgiving. Only this year, I’m not hosting a pack of friends and relatives
and their dogs as usual; instead, I’m preparing to be one of those millions of
people taking their chances on traffic-snarled freeways and crowded airports.
Yikes! Taking a midnight flight to the East Coast, to spend the holiday with my
husband’s adult children and their children.
The dogs are staying home, of course. Otto takes his
vacations at my sister’s house, where he is the much-loved, much respected lord
of the manor, Gulliver to my sister’s pack of noisy little dogs. He’s always
very dignified when I drop him off, but I hear stories about how he loses that
dignity once I’m gone and starts to romp and race about with Lucky, a stray I
picked up off the side of a country road about three Thanksgivings ago.
Lucky
Lucky was thin and covered
with ticks when I found him, and it took me over an hour in the rain to
convince the very hungry little dog to either let me catch him or to jump into
my car. I took him to my local shelter, where he spent a month waiting in vain
for an owner to claim him and flunked all of his temperament evaluations. He
snarled viciously at every passerby and bit one kennel attendant in the behind
when she was in his run trying to catch another dog, her rear end facing him;
but every time I stopped by the shelter to see how he was doing, he would light
up like a candle and leap into my arms, covering my face with kisses.
I made the mistake of mentioning this to my sister. When she
heard that the shelter evaluators didn’t think the little dog was going to make
the cut and go up for adoption, she insisted on coming with me to the shelter
one day to see him for herself. Oddly enough, he took to her just as readily as
he took to me, and the shelter staffers were puzzled but happy to adopt him to
my sister on the spot. That’s when he got named Lucky; it ought to be Super Lucky.
Anyway, at just about 10 pounds, Lucky looks like Otto’s
Mini Me, and though he ordinarily rules the roost at my sister’s house, he
shares the command with Otto when Otto comes to stay. Then, supposedly, the two
scruffy dogs have a warm bromance going, and they race up and down the hall
together and wrestle. I am waiting for
video evidence of this, Pam. At my
house, Otto doesn’t ever deign to romp and play with other dogs. He’ll play
chase and hide-and-seek with me, but
not other dogs.
Otto at my sister Pam’s
Woody gets to stay home, and one of our friends is coming to
stay at our house with her two dogs. One is another one of my former foster
dogs, Chaco. She’s an old lady now, with bad knees and arthritis; she will
likely enjoy sleeping on Otto’s super-thick bed by the woodstove. The other is
a big young Husky-mix, Ricky, one of Woody’s favorite playmates. They will have
a blast romping around our fenced two acres. I’m not sure my dogs will miss me
at all!
I’m sure going to miss them, though; Thanksgiving Day hikes with my dogs and friends and family and their dogs are usually my jam! But I’m looking forward to seeing the (adult) kids and grandkids playing tourist. In the meantime, my guys are in good hands – and for that, I am incredibly grateful.
Have a happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Kiss those dogs!
Remember when you were a kid and your mom would catch you doing something you weren’t supposed to be doing, even though she wasn’t even looking at you? How did she do that? It was magic!
When we were little, we thought our parents must have eyes on the back of their heads, and this may well have influenced our behavior. We could never be certain that an authority figure like a parent or teacher couldn’t see what we were doing, so in order to avoid punishment we might try to be on our best behavior, just in case.
If you’ve done any training with your dog at all, you have probably managed to train your dog to pay attention to you when you are paying attention to him, as seen in the first photo. Its even more advantageous to teach him to be attentive to you when you have to take your eyes off him, in order to manage some other task. Read on! We’ll show you how!
The same principle can be applied to positive reinforcement techniques. A child – or, in our case, a dog, can learn that he can be rewarded for good behavior even if the behavior takes place while a parent isn’t looking directly at him. Let’s consider how we can use this “magic” to obtain and hold our dog’s attention, even in the midst of some pretty exciting distractions.
WATCH ME WATCH YOU
You may have learned to reward your dog for looking at you or for tossing unprompted glances your way. This important behavior is often referred to as “checking in,” and I encourage everyone to reward it generously and frequently so that your dog learns to look to you for guidance in any number of situations. (See “Train Your Dog to ‘Check In,’” WDJ March 2017.)
When you’re teaching this basic skill, one element in particular easily stands out: Every time you reward your dog for checking in with you, you are also checking in with him. In other words, you are looking back at him.
While your dog’s attention is an excellent thing to reinforce, you can increase the power of the check-in behavior by adding just one more element of difficulty, which I will describe right after I explain why it’s worth your while to try.
Through training, most dogs learn to pay attention to us when we’re paying attention to them. They learn that when we’re focused on them, they have a very good chance of receiving some reinforcement. So they pay attention! They watch for cues, or they offer behaviors they know have been rewarding in the past. Clever pooches!
This is why when you practice the check-in behavior, you soon find you’ve got a dog staring at you or trying to get in front of you to make sure you can see them being a Very Good Dog.
But what happens after your attention is turned elsewhere? Well, most often, your dog goes back to whatever he was doing before, because “Oh, it seems we’re done here.” From your dog’s point of view, your lack of attention or eye contact usually means the opportunity for food or play has stopped.
If you’re working on a behavior that requires your dog’s attention, such as loose-leash walking (staying close to you rather than straining at the end of his leash to greet a person or another dog), you might find that as soon as you’re done delivering a treat and you turn your gaze away from your dog, he goes right back to doing the behavior you’re trying to eliminate. If you’re not looking at him, he’s off the hook and he disconnects. Take these scenarios, for example:
You’re teaching your dog to stand politely next to you while you stop in the street to chat with someone. During training, as you stand with the other person, your eyes are on your dog as you reward him for good behavior. The session goes well and you end it. Later, when you think your dog has the behavior down pat, you stop and talk to someone. As your eyes and attention are focused on the person, not your dog, your dog jumps up on the person.
You’re standing in line at a newsstand with your leashed dog by your side. You’re glancing at him often and he’s being a Very Good Dog as you reward him for good behavior. When it’s time to pay for your purchases and, just for a few moments, you turn your attention away from your dog and to the cashier, your dog starts to pull away, wanting to go check out something on the street a few feet away.
You’re in a group training class and your dog is doing wonderfully while you’re working with him. As soon as you turn your attention toward the instructor who is speaking to the class, your dog turns his attention to Fifi, the cute little number who’s lying down quietly a short distance to the side.
These are just examples; you can probably think up more scenarios from your own experiences. What’s happening here is quite normal. If we only deliver rewards to our dogs when it’s clear we’re paying attention to them, then it stands to reason that they will figure out pretty quickly that if we’re not paying direct attention, there’s no possibility for reinforcement from us and they’re free to find it elsewhere, whether through social contact, getting to sniff around, or other important dog stuff.
Here’s a simple technique that can help you ensure that your dog becomes a pro at checking in with you – and maintaining that attentiveness – even when you’re not looking at him.
TREAT-DELIVERY WITH EYES FORWARD
The first exercise sounds easy enough, but it can actually be a bit of a challenge. It involves being with your dog on-leash and feeding him treats without ever looking at him – like, at all. Your attention will be focused on something else, anything else, as long as it’s not your dog. You can use your peripheral vision to steal glances if needed. You will:
It might feel odd at first, trying to give your dog a treat when he’s not paying attention and you aren’t looking at him. Shorten the leash a little if you need to, and use your peripheral vision.
1. Stand quietly with your dog in a low-distraction area. It can be in the heel position if this is important to you, but it’s not necessary for the purposes of this exercise.
2. Look forward or to the side, but don’t look at your dog.
3. Have some treats ready either in a pouch, a pocket, or in your hand. You can count on using about 15 treats for this exercise.
At some point, he’ll get clued in and realize that you have reinforcement possibilities available, even though you aren’t looking at him. Make sure your treats are more valuable than whatever distractions are present.
4. Feed one treat after another to your dog – blindly, without looking at him. Some dogs will remain close enough to you to make this easy. Some won’t and will already be wandering off somewhere (because he knows you’re not looking at him!). That’s why we want him on-leash, so he can’t get any farther than the length of the leash.
5. Don’t call him, don’t make kissy sounds, and don’t look at him, even if you feel him moving around. He’s not going anywhere, he’s on-leash. Use your peripheral vision to find him and feed him.
In a nutshell, you will be delivering free treats straight into your dog’s mouth without looking at him. Don’t peek! If you reach down and his muzzle isn’t there, use your peripheral vision and your hand to find it.
Once your dog is on board, and you have practiced the physical skill of finding his muzzle without looking for it, you should be able to pay attention to other things while simultaneously feeding him treats.
If your dog isn’t engaging at all, try either increasing the value of the treat, shortening the leash a little to keep him closer, or moving to a quieter space to decrease the level of stimuli in the environment. If you still have no luck, consider starting this exercise in a seated position (you, not your dog).
TREAT DELIVERY WITH EYES FORWARDandCOUNTING FINGERS: MULTI TASKINGSKILLS
This step is an adaptation of a brilliant educational nugget I picked up from the fabulous Emma Parsons at Clicker Expo in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 2019. I call it an adaptation because the original exercise incorporates the use of a clicker, where a clicker is clicked immediately before a treat is delivered. I don’t require the use of one, and in fact I prefer that nothing whatsoever gives the dog a hint as to when a treat will be made available to eat.
This exercise involves the blind treat-delivery skill (described above), and it throws in an extra-special feature: Counting fingers while you continue to feed your dog.
The blind feeding and the counting tasks are not connected at all. There is no order or sequence between the two activities. The counting is just an extra activity for you to practice in order to develop and refine your ability to multi-task.
Before you take on this added level of difficulty, however, make sure your blind feeding skills are super solid, because the last thing you want to do is lose your dog’s attention. Here’s what the exercise will look like:
1 Set yourself up as you did in the previous exercise:You have your dog, on-leash, and a handful of treats in a low-distraction area.
2. Start blind feeding your dog, like you were doing above.Deliver the treats in a steady, calm manner.
3. Have someone stand several feet in front of you where you can clearly see them, and ask them to flash random fingers from one hand in a steady, rhythmic fashion. You will announce how many fingers they are holding up at the same time that you are busy feeding your dog the treats.
Multi-tasking: Practice “no-look” feeding your dog while simultaneously calling out the number of fingers a helper holds up. Can you feed and count at the same time?
In other words, it’s not a matter of calling out a number then feeding a treat, calling out the next number and feeding a treat, etc. They are completely separate events occurring randomly. What you’re aiming for is being able to feed your dog continuously and also once in a while calling out a number you see before you. There is no loop, no predictable sequence. You’re training yourself to multi-task.
Part of your brain should be busy feeding your dog without looking at him. The other part should be engaged with counting fingers and saying the numbers out loud. One activity could be proceeding at a faster speed than the other; they are two distinctly different things for you to focus on.
Why? Because in real life with your dog, you are focused on many different things at once. If your attention is super-focused on something other than your dog, like using the ATM machine or keeping an eye on those off-leash dogs heading your way, you need to be able to teach your dog to stay connected with you nonetheless (and maintain that behavior over time).
As a bonus, you’ll note that through these exercises, you are indirectly teaching a type of “stationing behavior” whereby your dog learns to stay close if you’re standing still. He also learns to be aware of your movements while on-leash. This type of attention is especially handy in a crowded area or under very exciting conditions like an activity where there are lots of other dogs.
As an additional and unexpected bonus, I can almost guarantee you will laugh and giggle through many of these practice sessions. It’s the dog-training equivalent of rubbing your tummy and tapping the top of your head at the same time. Enjoy the process, and reap the rewards when you finally have a dog who checks in with you even when your attention is elsewhere!
Not long ago, I got to take a weekend off in San Diego. On the first day, quite by accident, I ended up at a gorgeous little beach at sunset – and it turned out to be a legal off-leash dog beach. Dozens of social, friendly dogs romping in the waves, chasing each other through the super-soft sand, and making new human and canine friends – heaven! I made plans to go back early in the morning, before the day’s agenda had begun, just to take pictures. It was so lovely!
The next morning, I was smiling my head off as I made my way to the water and started taking pictures. I loved everything about the day (I’m on vacation with loved ones!), the place (gorgeous!), and all the dogs (big ones, little ones, fast dogs, fat dogs, purebreds, and who-knows-whats), all having fun on the beach, against a backdrop of incomparable blue skies and white waves. Wow, wow, wow.
And then it happened. With my lens, I had been following a few particularly charismatic dogs as they ran and dodged and wrestled, and one of my favorites was a young white Standard Poodle. She was one of the most playful and rambunctious dogs on the beach, involved in the fastest chase games and a little rough play. As my camera followed her group as they ran past, she made a little grab for the neck of one of her playmates, and the other dog whirled and snapped at her. “Grrroff!” he seemed to say, and she complied, still bouncing along the beach. And that was that; they all kept running along. But her owner, who also was watching her closely, didn’t like that interaction. He called her over – she went to him willingly, out of play! – and he loudly told her to SIT!, grabbed her by her chin hair, leaned into her face, and proceeded to sternly tell her BAD! and NO! and dog knows what else. I wanted to cry! Mood spoiled, I left not long afterward.
No, I didn’t intervene. I have never had much luck at talking to angry people. Also, it wasn’t abuse, it wasn’t cruel – it was just ignorant! What had she done wrong? It was a very normal dog-dog interaction, but he was mad about it. What I did do was continue taking pictures of him, and the woman who was with him noticed this and quickly clipped the dog’s leash on, and they left the beach.
The only things the dog could have learned from the man’s behavior: Maybe don’t go to Dad the next time he calls; he’s scary and unpredictable! There is no way she could possibly make a connection between her brief encounter with the other dog and this minute-long, intense interaction with her owner.
Now, it’s possible that the lovely Poodle has a tendency to get aggressive as she gets tired and overstimulated, and time-outs help her. But a show of physical strength and angry words don’t teach dogs anything but to avoid you next time they see signs that you are upset. That’s not training!
I can give you a recommendation for a treat or a toy via text or phone, but we're going to have to sit down and talk for a good long while if you really want to know what I think you should be feeding your dog. More importantly, you are going to have to be willing to start educating yourself about what you are already feeding him, and understand why.
Imagine this: You are a writer and editor for Parenting
Magazine, and you write about infant toys, vaccination schedules, and nutrition
for infants and toddlers. A friend texts you from the grocery store and asks,
“What should I be feeding my 8-month-old baby?” And she genuinely expects that
you can give her the name of a product that will supply all her baby’s
nutrition for years to come.
This scenario is ridiculous – of course! – and for several
reasons, most notably:
No parent in their right mind would consider
feeding their infant or toddler the same food every day for months or years.
No parent in their right mind would save
important infant-nutrition decisions for the moment she or he was standing in
the store, about to buy food, with no clue as to where to start.
No knowledgeable writer/editor would think they
could advise someone by text about something as important as nutrition!
There’s No One-Size-Fits-All When It Comes to Nutrition
While parents may read informative articles about infant and
toddler nutrition in Parenting Magazine and others, one would hope they make
notes about any questions and discuss them with their pediatrician. Because, while
the writer/editor is knowledgeable about infant nutrition, she doesn’t know
anything about the specific baby’s health. She doesn’t know if her friend, the
baby’s mom, is knowledgeable enough to know how much food she should be feeding
her baby, or to recognize signs of a food allergy or intolerance. And sure, she
might be familiar with some great brands of infant formula and baby cereal, but
does she want an offhand text to be the basis of her friend’s child’s health?
She does not!
Obviously, I’m asking you to consider this scenario because
I get asked for dog food recommendations all
the time, and I really don’t see a difference between this request for
advice and the one described above. If anything, a food fed to a dog for a year
will impact a greater percentage of the dog’s life than an infant formula given
to a baby for the same length of time will impact hers; dogs’ lives are short!
Consider Your Dog’s Needs
Is your dog overweight or obese? If so, the BRAND of food you are feeding is not nearly as important as how much you are feeding him and what the food’s fat content is.
A suggestion for a dog’s toy or treat can be responsibly
conveyed in a short text or phone message. But a recommendation for a dog’s
sole diet should not be conveyed via
text – perhaps not even via a long email! There are many factors to consider,
not least of which is the dog owner’s ability to observe the dog’s response to
a diet and take appropriate steps if the dog has adverse reactions to the diet.
When I’m asked in a casual way for dog food recommendations,
I usually push back a little by asking the dog owner some questions. How old is
your dog? How active? How is his weight? How is his health? What are you
feeding now? Why did you arrive at this food? How long have you been feeding
him this food? Are there ingredients that you know you need to avoid feeding to
that specific dog?
And here are the clinchers: How much fat is in the food and
how much protein? What are the six top ingredients in the food?
Choose What’s Best for YOUR Dog
If they can’t answer those questions – all of them – then I can’t give them a recommendation for another
food or two to add to what I hope is their rotation of three or four products
from at least three or four different companies. Actually, the fact is, I’m not
going to give them a recommendation of a specific food anyway. What I will do
is try to educate them about the factors they need to understand about the
foods they have already chosen for their dog, and what they can do to improve
matters. As just one example, if the dog is overweight, they should know what
the fat content is in the food they give their dog, and look for foods with
less fat. That single factor is far
more important than what brand they buy, so don’t ask me about brands unless
you know all the other, more important factors behind your food-purchasing
dilemma!
To continue reading this article or issue you must be a paid subscriber. Sign in
If you are logged in but cannot access this content, a) your subscription may have expired; b) you may have duplicate accounts (emails) in our system. Please check your account status hereorcontact customer service.
Immediate access to this article and 20+ years of archives.
Recommendations for the best dog food for your dog.
Dry food, homemade diets and recipes, dehydrated and raw options, canned food and more.
Brands, formulations and ingredients all searchable in an easy-to-use, searchable database.
Plus, you’ll receive training and care guidance to keep your dog healthy and happy. You’ll feed with less stress…train with greater success…and know you are giving your dog the care he deserves.
Subscribenow and save 72%! Its like getting 8 issues free!
Not all of the foods shown here are ones we would buy. A few don’t meet our selection criteria. Some are prohibitively expensive to be fed as a sole diet (except, perhaps, for one very small, beloved dog). Which ones would you buy?
Canned dog foods represent only about 15% of the overall pet food market. Why don’t more people feed their dogs canned food? It has a lot going for it:
-Dogs love it! The high palatability of canned food is due to a number of factors, including a high inclusion of meat, high fat content (usually), high moisture content, and freshness (especially relative to dry food, which oxidizes over time). This makes it a great tool for stimulating the appetite of dogs who don’t want to eat, whether due to illness, the side effect of certain medications, anxiety, or any other reason. It can be a valuable tool to maintain the blood sugar level of sick puppies or senior dogs and to make bad-tasting medicines more palatable.
Our favorite use of canned food is for use in classic Kong toys and Toppl Treat toys (made by West Paw Design). We like to fill the toys with canned food and freeze them; we give them to our dogs when we want to distract them or keep them busy for a while, or just as a special treat. It can take a half-hour or more for them to lick and chew all the frozen food out of the toys.
-The high moisture content of canned food is closer to a dog’s “natural” diet than dry food. Canned foods generally contain from about 76% to about 82% moisture. Uncooked meat contains anywhere from about 66% (raw chicken) to 73% (raw beef roast) moisture. In comparison, dry foods contain only about 10% moisture – and as they soak up digestive juices in the dog’s stomach, the individual kibbles expand to twice or more their size in the dog’s stomach.
We’re not aware of any studies proving that the relative dryness of kibble causes health problems for dogs, but there are definitely cases where a high-moisture food is beneficial (for dogs with any sort of urinary tract disease or who are prone to urinary tract infections, as the best examples).
-Canned foods generally contain fewer synthetic chemicals than dry foods. Because they are cooked in their anaerobic containers, canned foods don’t require any preservatives. They don’t usually contain any artificial colors. While some concern has been raised over certain ingredients used to thicken canned foods – ingredients like agar agar, guar gum, xanthan gum, and carrageenan – only the latter has much compelling evidence to suggest it could cause deleterious health effects (and manufacturers have, accordingly, moved away from using carrageenan).
In general, dry dog foods are far more likely to include synthetic additives than canned.
Workers at the Lotus Pet Foods canning facility add several tubs of freshly shredded beef to the mixture that will imminently fill cans of Lotus Beef Stew. Most canned dog foods contain more meat than any other ingredients, but read the label! Some products contain grain, legumes, potatoes, and/or other carb sources.
-Canned foods last longer on the shelf than dry foods. One of the things we always recommend that owners do when buying dry food is to check the date-code on the label, to make sure that the bag is relatively fresh. The fats in dry food oxidize (become rancid) over time, and the vitamins degrade.
Again, as long as the can is sealed, the fats can’t oxidize. Low-acid canned foods (most meat-based products fall into this category) stay “fresh” for up to five years. No pet food company will put a “best by” date that distant from its date of manufacture – they want the product to be sold and consumed well before that – but they could, and neither we nor our dogs would likely be able to tell the difference.
-Canned dog foods are less-processed than dry dog foods. Most (though not all) dry dog foods contain rendered meat meals. Rendering is a highly complex process, in which the animal products are essentially boiled, the fat separated and skimmed off to varying extents, and the remainder is dried to about 10% moisture and ground up. Meat meals can contain varying amounts of bone, and this will affect their quality and “ash” content (non-nutritional mineral residue, mostly from bone).
Meat meals are not usually found in canned foods; instead, mostly fresh/frozen meats are used. The meats are uncooked when they go into the can; while the ingredients that go into the food might be mildly heated during the mixing process, they are “cooked” in the canning process. (It’s called “canning” whether the cook – the bacterial kill or sterilization step – happens in a steel can, a plastic tub, or plastic pouch.)
So, while canned food might seem “processed” to us, relative to dry dog food, the ingredients are much more lightly handled and processed.
-Most canned foods contain more meat. If your goal is to feed your dog a cooked commercial diet that contains mostly meat, but is also complete and balanced, canned food is your best bet. But you have to read the ingredients list and other facts on the product label; some canned foods include grains and other carbohydrate sources. In our opinion, dry foods are a better and more economical source of carbohydrates. We would probably feed a canned food that contained grain, potatoes, or legumes if the canned food was the dog’s only source of food, perhaps due to severe dietary restrictions due to multiple food allergies. Otherwise, we’d look for a product that contained mostly meat, and feed it as part of the dog’s diet, with a dry food providing the balance.
What’s the Catch?
Canned foods have a couple of strikes against them, too:
-High cost. I don’t care how much you love your dog, or how much money you make; the cost of canned foods tends to be prohibitive. This is, in part, due to the generally higher quality of the meats used in the foods, and partly due to the cost of shipping the heavy product. Unless you are feeding very tiny dogs, it’s hard to imagine being able to feed good-quality canned food as an exclusive diet.
-High fat levels. Canned foods tend to contain higher fat levels than dry foods – so much so, that many products may be downright dangerous to feed to dogs who have a tendency to develop pancreatitis.
This is another time when you really need to read the label: Look for the guaranteed analysis. Note the amount of fat and moisture. Now, convert the “as fed” fat content of the food (the amount that’s on the guaranteed analysis) to the amount of fat on a “dry matter” (DM) basis (see our sidebar for instructions on how to do this). This is important, because if you don’t understand how a canned food that contains 9% of fat as fed actually contains 40% fat on a dry matter basis, you could harm your fat-sensitive dog with just one meal.
Before you switch your dog from a dry food to a canned one, or begin to add a significant amount of canned food to his diet, you should also check the amount of fat in the dry food you are feeding your dog. Convert that amount to a DM percentage, too, so you are comparing apples to apples, so to speak.
Onboard and ready to go shopping for food? Let’s talk about how we’d go about the task.
Before you hop in the car or fire up your computer browser (if you’re planning to shop online), you should have a few parameters in mind, having to do with your dog’s individual needs.
-Appropriate calorically. Are you looking for a product that will be your dog’s main diet? If so, it’s critical that the food you choose is calorically appropriate for your dog’s age and activity level. If you choose an excessively high-fat (high-calorie) food, you risk making your dog gain too much weight – a very unhealthy proposition. (Fat dogs tend to have more health problems as they age, including mobility issues – and they don’t live as long as leaner dogs. If you really love your dog, don’t let him get fat!) Yes, it’s possible to just cut back the amount you feed him, but with a very high-fat food, in order to feed him an appropriate number of calories, you may have to reduce his portion size so much that he’s not actually getting enough of the vitamins and minerals he needs. Plus, he’s probably hungry all the time! If you plan to feed him the canned food as a sole diet, it would be wise to choose a food that has more moderate fat levels.
Because canned foods are so expensive, many of us use them, instead, to simply augment a diet that includes dry dog food and/or home-prepared fresh food.
Unless you have experience and guidance with home-prepared diets, we’d recommend that unbalanced additions of fresh foods make up no more than about 25% of what you feed daily. Few people who augment their dogs’ diets with fresh food are aware of a dog’s mineral needs, and end up feeding a diet that is far too low in calcium. While we have nothing against owners feeding “human foods” to their dogs, we encourage them to keep the additions as a quarter or less of the dog’s daily diet – unless they know that the foods they are adding are providing appropriate amounts of calcium.
In contrast, all “complete and balanced” canned foods can be added in whatever percentage one likes to a diet that otherwise consists of “complete and balanced” dry food, as long as the foods are calorically appropriate for the dog’s body condition and activity level.
You have to read the ingredients panel! Is your dog allergic to chicken? Then don’t buy this “Beef, Pea, & Carrot Stew,” because, in addition to the beef it contains, it also contains chicken and chicken liver. Also: What’s up with the pea protein in this food? We’ll answer our own question: It’s propping up the total protein in the food with a protein that is less expensive than beef or chicken – a protein that is less complete in terms of the amino acids that dogs need. Tsk, tsk.
-Your dog’s tolerance. When shopping for a dog who has food allergies or is intolerant of certain food ingredients, you have to read the ingredient portion of the label to make sure the food doesn’t contain the ingredients that disagree with your dog. If your dog is allergic to or intolerant of chicken, for example, it’s not enough to look for a food with “beef” in the name; the food may well contain chicken, too. It’s common for pet food manufacturers to use several animal protein sources in a product whose name may include only one of those animals.
Also, not to belabor this point too much, but if you have a dog with a serious food allergy or who is seriously intolerant of certain ingredients, you should probably check the ingredients list every single time you buy a food that seems to work for her. Manufacturers do tinker with their formulas, and many a dog owner has been in despair at some point about their dog’s new outbreak, only to discover the maker has changed the formula of the food that had been proven to be safe for the dog in the past. Been there, done that!
-Your dog’s “life stage.” One last thing to check on the label that relates specifically to your dog: the nutritional adequacy statement, a.k.a. the “AAFCO statement.” AAFCO stands for the Association of American Feed Control Officials. This is the organization that developed the standards the industry uses to determine what constitutes “complete and balanced” nutrition for dogs (and cats). Every pet food label has a statement on it somewhere that references AAFCO, and whether the food is meant for “intermittent and supplemental feeding only” – meaning it’s not complete and balanced – or whether it provides complete and balanced nutrition for “adult maintenance” only, or whether it can be fed to dogs in “all life stages.”
“All life stages” includes puppies, pregnant or lactating mothers, adults, and seniors. If the AAFCO statement says the food is complete and balanced for “growth and reproduction,” it has met the same standard as “all life stages.”
If you are feeding a puppy, you do not want a food with a nutritional adequacy statement that says the food is for “adult maintenance” – and a surprising number of canned foods are labeled exactly that, so check the statement. (You might need a magnifying glass; we routinely use the zoom feature on our mobile phone camera for this task!) Foods that are formulated for puppies – this includes foods formulated for dogs of all life stages – contain higher levels of protein, fat, calcium, and phosphorus than foods formulated for adult maintenance only.
-Large-breed puppies. One last thing, important for owners of large breed puppies to note: The AAFCO statement might say the food is formulated for growth or dogs of all life stages “including growth of large-size dogs (70 pounds or more as an adult)” or “except for growth of large-size dogs (70 pounds or more as an adult).” You need to select a food that has the statement that’s appropriate for your puppy.
Got a large-breed pup? Then you want to see this AAFCO statement.
The ideal level of calcium for large- and giant-breed puppies is lower than the ideal level of calcium for smaller puppies. Too much calcium can cause the bones of large-breed puppies (defined by AAFCO as those who are likely to mature at more than 70 pounds) to grow too quickly. Improper calcium levels during the growth phase of their lives can predispose large-breed pups to arthritis, hip and elbow dysplasia, and other kinds of joint and bone problems as adults. So, again, if you have a large-breed puppy, it’s critically important that you find the AAFCO statement and make sure the food you are considering is appropriately formulated for your dog.
This is not a “complete and balanced” diet. Foods that do not contain all the required nutrients in appropriate levels must carry this statement.
WDJ’s Canned Food Selection Criteria
So far, we’ve mentioned only the things you need to check to make sure a prospective food is right for your budget and your individual dog. Let’s turn our attention to the things you need to scrutinize to make sure the food contains better-quality ingredients and doesn’t contain worrisome or low-quality ingredients: WDJ’s basic dog-food selection criteria.
The ingredients in your dog’s food, just like the ingredients in your own food, must be listed on the label in descending order by weight; in other words, by weight, there is more of the first ingredient on the label than anything else in the food. It may surprise you to see broth or “water sufficient for processing” first or second on the ingredients label of canned foods. In order to mix the food and pour it into cans, the manufacturers really do have to start with big vats of water; they aren’t trying to rip you off!
We’ve always told our readers to look for whole named meats at the top of an ingredients list, and this food meets that requirement. But you can’t stop reading there! If you are paying a premium price for a canned food, you want premium ingredients. We buy canned food in order to give our dogs a diet that’s mostly meat. If we wanted legumes and plant proteins, we could more economically buy them in the form of a dry dog food. (And that’s not even getting into the dried citrus pulp.)
The following are the things we consider as requirements for foods we feed our dogs – hallmarks of quality:
A whole, named animal protein in one of the first two positions on the ingredients list. “Whole” means no by-products. “Named” means a specific animal species – chicken, beef, pork, lamb – as opposed to “meat” or “poultry.”
Look for products with the highest possible inclusion of top-quality animal proteins (as far as one can tell by their presence close to the beginning of the ingredients list). We prefer animal-sourced proteins to plant proteins, especially in a canned food.
If a separate fat source is present, it must be named (“chicken fat” rather than “animal fat”). We prefer animal sources of fats to plant-sourced fats.
If vegetables, grains, or other carb sources are used, we prefer to see them whole, rather than by-products (for example, potatoes rather than potato starch).
Disqualifiers
We avoid canned dog foods that contain the following:
Unnamed animal protein or fat sources, such as “meat,” “poultry,” or “animal fat.”
Meat by-products or poultry by-products.
Animal plasma (blood) as a protein source.
Wheat gluten, which may be used as a cheap source of plant protein, a thickener, and/or a binder, holding together artificially formed “chunks” of ground meat.
Sugar, molasses, dextrose, or other sweeteners.
Artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives.
Your Challenge
Be aware that there is no food on the face of the planet that is “best” for all dogs. All dogs have different needs. All owners have different needs! We all own different numbers of variously sized dogs, and we have different family priorities, responsibilities, and budgets. The most important attribute of a food should be its ability to nourish your dog without causing illness or discomfort, at a price you can afford.
Can’t tell you how many times we’ve been told that you can’t go wrong with Hill’s Science Diet – they are the science people! They use feeding trials to ensure the nutritional adequacy of their foods! Well, that’s nice – but what’s up with those ingredients? Rice! Carrots! Starch! Peas! We don’t want this much of these kinds of ingredients in canned food. And if we wanted to give our dogs sugar, we’d… we’d… Well, we’d just give them a strawberry or piece of apple or something. A canned food should not need sugar (much less two types of sugar) to get dogs to like it.
We’ve known purebred, champion show dogs who have been fed what we would consider low-quality foods for their entire lives with nary a sign of a problem. We’ve also known former street dogs who required the cleanest, highest-quality diet imaginable in order to keep from breaking out in hives or with diarrhea. Most dogs are somewhere in between; you have to try different foods to see what agrees with your dog and budget.
We will emphasize budget again, because, as we have said before, canned foods are expensive! It’s one thing to buy $4 cans of food when you are feeding one five-pound dog (who might eat one can for days), and another thing entirely if you, like us, are feeding two active 70-pound athletes (who would require at least two cans a day each, if that’s all they were fed).
But, unless you have a dog with super special needs, you don’t need to buy the most expensive food. Just look for products that agree with your dog (appropriate calorie level, no ingredients that bother him, correct “life stage” formulation/nutrient levels) and that suit your budget.
You may end up with a product that hits all those notes, but contains chicken by-products instead of a whole named meat – that’s fine.
But what if the product you would like to feed your dog contains no whole meats, only chicken by-products, “meat by-products,” and pea protein? Oy, that’s going a bit too far. A better-quality dry food would probably be a more economical and nutritious choice than a low-quality wet food for most dogs.
Here is a list of companies that make canned foods that meet our selection criteria. Keep in mind that any manufacturer may make a product or two that does not meet our selection criteria. If you compare the ingredients with our list of criteria, you will easily identify the few products that contain some wheat gluten or pork plasma. But if they meet the criteria above, they fit your budget, and suit your dog, they have our blessing.
The percentages of nutrients shown in the guaranteed analysis section on a pet food label (protein, fat, fiber, moisture) are expressed “as fed” – meaning, as the food is delivered in its package. Some percentage of the food is comprised of moisture (water), which of course contains no protein, fat, fiber, or any other nutrient. Kibble generally contains about 10% moisture; canned foods usually contain about 78% moisture.
So, when a canned food label says that a food contains (for example) 9% fat, in order to really understand how much fat you are thinking about feeding to your dog, you have to remove the moisture from the equation; you want to know how much fat (in this example) is in the food part of the food – the “dry matter.” Any serious discussion of nutrition, or comparison of dry and wet diets, requires the conversion of the nutrient values from “as fed” to “dry matter.”
To calculate the nutrient levels in a food as dry matter (DM) percentages, first determine the amount of dry matter in the product. You do this by subtracting the percentage of moisture from 100. Then, divide the “as fed” percentage of the nutrient you are curious about by the amount of dry matter; that will give you the dry matter percentage.
For example, if a canned food has 78% moisture and 9% fat as fed (as seen on the guaranteed analysis):
100 – 78 = 22% dry matter (DM)
9 ÷ 22 = .40 = 40% fat DM (on a dry matter basis)
To compare that product to a dry food, do the same calculation for the dry food you may have been feeding. We’ll use the numbers from a bag of food our dogs are currently eating; the guaranteed analysis says it contains 10% moisture and 13% fat.
100 – 10 = 90% DM
13 ÷ 90 = 14% fat DM
So the canned food contains a little more than three times the amount of fat than the dry food does, on a dry matter basis. Yowsa! We’d be careful if we were considering adding some of this food to our dog’s diet – we’d add only small amounts – and we certainly wouldn’t switch quickly from the dry food to this canned food. Doing so would just be asking for digestive upset, and could provoke a pancreatitis attack in susceptible dogs.
If you ever want to see us develop a twitch when asked a question, ask us something about the teeth-cleaning ability of kibble.
First, you need to be aware that a great number of dogs don’t even (or just barely) chew their kibble. And even for the dogs who do chew their chow, there just isn’t any significant tooth-scraping that happens from eating regular kibble. (Some companies make “prescription” diets that are clinically proven to help keep dogs’ teeth clean. We wouldn’t recommend feeding any of them to a dog long-term, however. The foods are very high in fiber and fat and very low in protein, among other issues.) Expecting kibble to clean a dog’s teeth is like expecting granola to clean yours; it doesn’t work!
Tartar on a dog’s teeth forms from an accumulation of plaque; plaque forms from an accumulation of bacteria on and between the tooth surfaces, above and especially below the gums. The bacteria actually benefit from carbohydrates – typically present in higher amounts in kibble than canned food.
Sustained chewing on toys, raw meaty bones, or any safe, chewable substance can help reduce the amount of plaque on a dog’s teeth, but only brushing removes plaque reliably. Sorry!
A dog’s diet can affect the rate of accumulation of dental plaque – but it doesn’t have anything to do with the physical action of crunching the food; it has more to do with the nutritional and chemical composition of the food. Low-carbohydrate diets are associated with lower gingival and periodontal inflammation (which should be a boost for canned diets, which are almost always low in carbs). A dog’s diet can affect the pH of his saliva (at least temporarily) and the pH of a dog’s saliva can affect the rate of plaque formation – but no one has yet formulated a diet that keeps the dog’s saliva at a level that has proven to reduce plaque and tartar formation. (Oral rinses that accomplish this, in contrast, have proven to be effective at helping combat these causes of dental disease.)
Bottom line: Regular dry foods don’t keep dogs’ teeth any cleaner (free of plaque and tartar) than canned foods.
Can you identify with confidence every ingredient listed on the back of your dog’s wet food can? We’d be surprised if you can. As a responsible pet food consumer, you want to focus more on whole, natural dog food ingredients rather than highly processed meats, grains and sugars. We have plenty of organic, raw, preservative-free options in stores for our own consumption, and thankfully we do see similar trends in the way dog food is made and marketed.
That being said, the pet food industry could always be more transparent to the public about their manufacturing policies. More importantly, commerical dog food could always be healthier for dogs to eat. We took an inside look into a small-batch canned dog food manufacturing facility, but that experience was perhaps an example of how things ought to be done, not as they always really are.
So what is the best wet food for dogs? There is no answer to that. Whole Dog Journal could give you a list of what we think are the top 10 best canned dog foods, but that seems so limiting. Instead, each year we give you an exhaustive list of healthy, good canned dog foods, and enough knowledge to make a quality choice for your dog based on your individual needs.
The 5 Traits of a Top-Quality Canned Dog Food
1. A specified meat source listed as the first ingredient. This means the product contains more of that ingredient than any other listed. 2. Specified sources of any animal protein or fat. These will be highly processed substances, but good luck avoiding them entirely. Look for named species when it comes to muscle tissue and organs. Body parts are good as long as they are identified. 3. Whole grains and vegetables. 4. Very limited inclusion of grain, meat, or vegetable byproducts, if any at all. 5. The “complete and balanced” label, awarded by AAFCO.
The following information and all of Whole Dog Journal‘s dog food evaluations are meant to prepare you with the tools to make educated choices when selecting a new food for your dog. We use a rigid selection criteria to examine hundreds of foods every year. Use our lists of quality dog foods for reference in choosing a food that’s acceptable for your dog. Our 2020 review is available now! (Scroll down to see lists from previous years.)
So, you’re at the supermarket or pet store. Rover is all out of kibble, and you know from reading WDJ that it’s good to switch up his dog food from time to time in order to provide a more balanced array of nutrients. You usually feed standard kibble, but this time you feel like trying a wet food. Perhaps Rover is elderly or underweight and you’d like to spark his appetite a bit. Perhaps you think he would benefit from having less processed meat and more moisture in his diet than dry dog food provides (he would!).
As you gaze down the colorful aisle, with maybe 30 different kinds of wet dog food cans, you might feel overwhelmed. You might jump to a conclusion that all canned dog food must be more or less of equal quality, and grab the one that’s cheapest or has the nicest label. If only those assumptions were true! Despite the dubious manufacturing practices of many wet dog foods, there are plenty of benefits of canned food as well. Once you find a canned dog food of top quality, your dog can look forward to minimally processed proteins, MORE protein per meal, and no preservatives.
Since 1998, the Whole Dog Journal has worked to help owners take back control when it comes to choosing a pet food that’s right for their dogs. You can find commercial dog foods that are great quality! All you need to do is know what to look for.
Whole Dog Journal contacts the companies on each year’s list to ask questions explicitly about nutritional facts, ingredient sourcing and manufacturing policies. And every year, we are astounded by the opacity with which companies shroud their information. For instance, a few companies stated they only release full nutrient analyses to veterinarians, for whatever reason. This is suspicious. Many companies will not disclose full nutritional details of their pet food to anyone. Thus the need arose for WDJ to dig a bit further into what’s really going onto the pet food aisle, and into our puppies’ bellies.
And so, beginning in 2016, Whole Dog Journal‘s dog food evaluations now demand that pet food manufacturers prove their foods meet the AAFCO “complete and balanced” standard. Not only must a dog food wear the “complete and balanced” label, but it must also provide WDJ with documented evidence of its meeting AAFCO guidelines. For more on the definition of “complete and balanced”, as well as AAFCO’s guidelines, follow this link or scroll down to “Must Have Ingredients of Canned Dog Food” below.
Year by Year: Subscribers to Whole Dog Journal can access all of our annual canned dog food reviews online. We’d like to note that the brands included in our reviews are by no means the only acceptable wet dog food brands out there. A food that works perfectly for your dog may not be covered in our lists, and there may even be foods we approve that you could never feed your dog. For this reason, we encourage our readers to share their most successful commercial dog foods in the comment section below! Here are links to our four past years of approved canned dog food:
Whole Dog Journal rates wet dog food and publishes its findings annually in the “Approved” dog food lists according to the following criteria (click here for a separation criteria page):
→ Must-Have Ingredients in Canned Dog Food
Be sure your dog’s canned food contains the following elements to ensure you’re buying a quality product. No can of commercial dog food is going to be perfect for every dog, but to ensure your dog receives a proper balance of nutrients, the one you feed should meet the WDJ criteria. Your goal in selecting a food is to find the one with the most whole food ingredients, and the least artificial additives.
PROTEIN: The protein source should be #1 on the ingredient list, and it should always name a specific animal, such as chicken, lamb, beef, etc.
GRAINS: Repeat after us: whole, and unprocessed. Although grains and starches are not necessary in canned dog food, you will almost always encounter them in some form. Go for brown rice or wild rice. Avoid wheat gluten, which is used as a binder and often one of the first ingredients in wet dog food, as well as corn starch. Avoid white rice if you can.
VEGGIES: Potato and sweet potato are common thickeners in canned dog food. These are acceptable so long as they are listed as the sixth or seventh ingredient, versus the third or fourth. The same rule goes for other vegetable products, such as tomato paste and potato starch. If you happen to find a dog food with whole non-starch veggies like carrots, alfalfa, or apples, bravo! This is an excellent indication of a good pet food.
COMPLETE AND BALANCED: A “complete and balanced” dog food has either passed an AAFCO feeding trial, met its Nutrient Profiles criteria, or belongs to a line of products that has previously gained its AAFCO approval. As stated above, it is not enough to just sport the “complete and balanced” label to earn WDJ approval. Dog food companies must prove to WDJ that their products have been conclusively tested. For a full profile of the “complete and balanced” label, see “Complete and Balanced Dog Food“.
→ Avoid Canned Dog Food with These Ingredients
BYPRODUCTS: As pet owners, we have a frustratingly little amount of control over the byproducts that are in our dogs’ food. They come in every kind of food group – meat, grains, vegetables, and on top of that there are all those preservatives and god-knows-what unpronouncable chemicals, which we cover below. Lower-quality foods will flat out list “meat by-product” as one of the main ingredients of their foods, but these highly processed, low nutrient foodstuffs appear under many names. Beware of things like “modified beef”.
NON-SPECIFIC OR UNNAMED ANIMAL SOURCES: If a food lists unspecified organs as a primary meat source, we would not feed it. Common examples are “liver,” “heart” and “tripe”, with no indication of what animal those parts came from. The same goes for unidentified “poultry”.
FOOD BINDERS: We mentioned these above. In foods that contain highly processed meat sources, binders are needed to hold the meat-stuff together so that it more closely resembles natural “chunks”. Wheat gluten and various gums that you find in human foods (like guar and carrageenan) should be at the bottom of the ingredient list, if there at all.
SUGAR/SWEETENERS: There should be no artificial sweeteners in dog food, but lower quality foods will add them for the simple reason that it makes the food taste better. Sugar and molasses are common. Never buy a food with corn syrup in it.
ARTIFICIAL COLORING/EXCESS PRESERVATIVES: For the full scoop on preservatives, see “Problems With Artificial Preservatives in Dog Food“. Luckily, preservatives are not common in wet dog foods because the canning process prevents rancidity.
Keep in mind that even the most highly regarded dog food on earth could never be right for every dog. Your dog’s body is unique; it comes with quirks and sensitivities just like humans’ bodies do. Whole Dog Journal seeks to provide you with the strongest foundation possible for finding the best wet dog food, but you know your dog best. Some factors to consider are:
– A dog who might be prone to urinary tract infections would be better off with a food lower in pH (less acidic).
– If your dog is lean and active, you might look for a higher-fat, higher-protein brand.
– If your dog is older and less active, you might want food with a higher percentage of lean protein.
You must also be realistic about availability. Online shopping eliminates this problem for the most part. Just don’t rely on any old commercial pet store to carry artisan, independent pet food lines.
Equally important are the price points for higher quality dog food. Buy the best dog food you can find, but choose one within your comfortable means. Wet dog food is more expensive than dry food, and if you happen to be shopping for, say, two Mastiffs and a Pit Bull, top quality canned food could be downright unaffordable. Decide what is an appropriate amount to spend on pet food each month, and prioritize the aspects of your dogs’ food that is most important.
Minnie and Woody calmly waiting for an elevator at the hotel. Good dogs!
I’m just back from a six-day trip that included two days of driving and a four-day educational seminar with world-renowned animal behavior experts: prominent British trainer Kay Laurence and psychology professor emeritus Susan Friedman, who has pioneered the application of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) to captive and companion animals. My traveling companions included my 4-year-old dog Woody; my friend and favorite dog trainer/model for WDJ, Sarah Richardson; and Sarah’s miniature Australian Shepherd, Minnie. Despite the fact that we got home at a relatively decent hour yesterday, I found that I was exhausted today! Both from the learning and the driving – over 10 hours in the car each way.
Woody and his friend Minnie behaved beautifully
Sarah and Minnie practicing a technique we just learned from Kay Laurence in the parking area of the seminar, which was held at a horse show facility in Farmington Utah.
But it was a great trip. I thought my highly
active dog Woody and 18-month-old Minnie would both be bananas after a full
day’s drive, especially at the hotel when we arrived in the middle of the
night. Neither dog had been on such a long drive, in an elevator, or in a
hotel, where strangers can come around the corner at any moment and, in fact,
walk past the door of your room all night and all day long. Wow! But once they
discovered the fun of sleeping on the beds with their respective owners (Woody
doesn’t get to do this at home, though I don’t know about Minnie), and Sarah
and I figured out how to manage the room’s climate control so as to keep the
fan running all night (to provide some white noise as cover for footsteps going
down the hall), the dogs settled right down and continued to impress us with
their good manners in public.
In the 22 years I have been editing
WDJ, I have attended dozens of
seminars on training and behavior, including annual conferences of the
Association of Professional Dog Trainers (APDT), International Association of
Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC), and Pet Professionals Guild (PPG). But
I’ve brought a dog only once (a tiny long-haired Chihuahua, Mokie, who had no
other place to go at the time) – and this was in the late 1990s or perhaps
early 2000s, I can’t remember. At any rate, he was along for the ride only
because he could fit in a carry-on crate and I had no one to dog-sit – I wasn’t
bringing him along in order to participate in a hands-on workshop. I have, in
fact, never participated in a hands-on workshop with a visiting dog training
expert. I have taken many classes
with my dogs, where I was just one of the participants, not necessarily better
or worse than any of the other students. But I had never dreamed of bringing a
dog to a seminar of professional dog trainers and participating with my own
dog.
Woody and I volunteered, and learned a thing or two
My friend Sarah took video of me working with Woody in front of the group and under the guidance of trainer Kay Laurence. I look forward to watching the five minutes or so of video, because I was so nervous, I couldn’t tell you exactly what we did!
So it took me three days before I felt
brave enough to raise my hand and volunteer to be one of the dog-and-handler
teams who would stand before the group of 75 or so trainers and ask for
guidance from the famed Kay Laurence with some aspect of dog behavior. I asked
for help with Woody’s “back” behavior, which can get sticky sometimes. I mostly
ask for him to back up when we are playing fetch, both so he can better see
where the ball is going and also as a way to make sure he’s listening and being
polite about the game, not just demanding THROW! THROW! THROW! If he gets so
excited that he can’t be polite, the game ends. But Kay, who has been in the
finals of the musical freestyle competition of the famed annual Crufts dog show
(in Britain) a number of times, had some other tips on how to keep Woody’s
“back up” behavior sharp, calm, and happy. This wasn’t the most significant
thing I learned during the four-day seminar, but it took the most bravery, so
it’s likely the moment I will remember the most!
Meeting other trainers was a pleasure
It was also a pleasure to meet dozens of other trainers from
around the country who were present to learn more about learning theory from
Susan Friedman and specific training methods from Kay. The type of training
that is taught today is the norm for many of these young trainers; they’ve
never known anything different. Having grown up in the days where dog-training
professionals all used choke chains
and physical “corrections” were not only the norm, but also a mark of whether
the trainer was serious or just an amateur, I am envious of these passionate
and competent young trainers, who get to start their professional education at
least 20 years into the so-called “positive training” revolution. Sarah and I also
attended a couple of social gatherings in the evenings, and had a blast talking
about dogs and dog training with a table full of knowledgeable, committed
trainers over great food and wine.
Each afternoon, we enjoyed mind-bending lecture/slide/video presentations by Dr. Susan Friedman about animal behavior and learning theory.
Our dogs enjoyed wrestling with each other and jumping from
bed to bed in the hotel, sleeping on those beds with us, and their evening
off-leash wild romps across a local sports field with other dogs who attended
the event with their trainer/owners.
Now we’re all home, and it’s time to dig into work on the
January 2020 issue of WDJ – the 23rd year of its publication. Wow! I
wonder what training and living with dogs will look like in another 23 years,
as applied behavior analysis and force-free training continues to develop in
the hands of educated professionals like those I met.
Ack! My brain is jumping around. This is going to be a
short-attention span blog post!
A Great Chance to Learn From the Experts
I finished writing a long article for the December issue
(all about canned dog food! Exciting! lol) and shipped the December issue to
the printer just yesterday. And this morning, I have to write something for
this space before I can leave for a very exciting “vacation”: a four-day
workshop with two animal behavior/training experts, Dr. Susan Friedman and Kay Laurence.
I’ve attended umpteen dog behavior and training conferences
in the past. Have never signed up for a “working” spot, where I bring a dog and
stand up in front of everyone with my dog and try to do the things the
instructor asks. Until now! I’m bringing goofus doofus Woody to the workshop!
Also, I’m going with my good friend and frequent WDJ model, trainer Sarah
Richardson, who is bringing her quirky mini Aussie, Minnie. I’m impossibly excited. Although, there is a 10-hour drive to do between writing
this and our hotel tonight. And I haven’t started to pack my clothes and things yet. (Woody’s soft-sided crate, long-line,
harness, food, treats, balls, bowls, leashes, etc. are all packed and ready by
the door, waiting for Sarah and her van to get here).
I’m not even sure what the focus of this workshop is. Sarah
and I signed up for this in March, when it was first announced. The idea of
four days of getting to learn from Dr. Friedman, whose articles I’ve read and
who I’ve seen interviewed many times on the topic of animal intelligence and
learning theory, was irresistible. But this whole summer has been so busy, has
gone by so fast, I’ve hardly had time to think about it. And now it’s here! I
promise to take pictures and post. Likely on the WDJ Instagram page
from over the weekend, and then in this space again next week!
Getting Ready for the Trip
I took a long off-leash walk with my two dogs and a friend
and her dog last night; I wanted my senior dog, Otto, to have a nice walk with
me before I left for five days, especially after having to cool his heels with
NO walks for the past week while I was on deadline. A week without walks is not
as bad as it sounds; this summer, we built an office (the county building
department calls it an accessory building, which makes me want to fill it with
accessories of various kinds) on our property, so I can work at home now, no
more driving to town to work. We have two fenced acres for the dogs to roam,
and now they can do so all day; until it gets cold, my office door is now open
all day for the dogs to wander in and out. But that’s not the same as a walk!
At a still healthy but slowing 12 years old, Otto is so
lovely on walks. Watch him if you
want to spot wildlife; he sees everything – birds, deer, a distant fox or
coyote – and will freeze, and then glance my way as if to say, “Do you see
that?” He leads every recall back to my side, and serves as a wonderful sort of
retired general, keeping order in the doofus-dog ranks. (My walking friend’s
dog is only one year old, and deep in the derp phase of his adolescence. Otto
goes after him for crimes of basic rudeness in a retired-general way at least
once on every walk, and we praise the sputtering old guy every time. “Thank
you, Otto. He is rude, you’re
right!”)
We had a lovely walk, though we mismanaged the time a bit
(stupid daylight savings!) and did the last half a mile or so in the pitch
dark. And Otto is a little stiff and sore this morning, so I regret that. Time
to schedule another senior vet visit, and maybe talk about some
anti-inflammatories for post-hike days. Goodness knows, I need some Advil after
certain workouts.
Talking Dogs?
Hey! Last thing: Another thing I’m impossibly excited about,
and can’t wait to investigate: I saw a post
last night about the dog whose owner trained her dog to use those talking
“buttons” to presumably communicate her wishes and thoughts. WDJ’s training
editor, Pat Miller, has an article in the December issue that mentions training
dogs to use these buttons, and gives a source for buying them. But I’m certain
that Pat hadn’t yet seen anything about the woman whose dog seems to have learned
ways of making sentences out of the words the buttons say. I am betting that
Dr. Friedman will have things to say about this. I just can’t wait to find out!
Have a good week. Take a walk with your dogs! Leave earlier
than you think you should! I have to go pack!
Workers at the Lotus Pet Foods canning facility add several tubs of freshly shredded beef to the mixture that will imminently fill cans of Lotus Beef Stew. Most canned dog foods contain more meat than any other ingredients, but read the label! Some products contain grain, legumes, potatoes, and/or other carb sources.
Products appear alphabetically by best-known name. In some cases, this is the name of the company that makes the food; in others, it’s the name of the food line.
Trying to print this page? Here are some hints: When printing this page, if the chart is cut off on the right side, try printing in landscape mode. Computers, printers, operating systems and web browsers can have different settings and print pages differently. Printing from a PDF can be more reliable. You can access these charts in the December 2019 issue on pages 12 and 13.
I recently fostered a dog who first greeted me at the shelter that I sprung her from by jumping up on me. I spent the first two days with her almost exclusively working on preventing her from jumping. When I introduced her to a friend, my friend immediately held her arms out and greeted the dog’s enthusiastic jump up with a big hug, petting, and cooing
