allergies/feed/rss2/Rawhide%20chews%20are%20potentially%20dangerous%20because%20they%20can%20be%20a%20choking%20hazard%20or%20cause%20gastrointestinal%20obstructions%20if%20your%20dog%20manages%20to%20chew%20off%20a%20piece%20that%20is%20small%20enough%20to%20swallow,%20but%20too%20large%20to%20pass%20unimpeded.%20In%20addition,%20some%20rawhide%20chews%20are%20hard%20enough%20to%20break%20or%20damage%20teeth. - search results

If you're currently feeding your dog a canned dog food diet or are thinking about starting, great! As always, the best thing for you to do is read the label. Skip over the pretty pictures of steaks and vegetables on the front of the can and pay close attention to the ingredients listed on the back.

Focus your attention to these two places on the label: the ingredients panel, and the guaranteed analysis. These sections are required by law, and reveal the most about the can.

While the price of the food should never be considered the sole indicator of its quality, many times a higher price does in fact mean higher quality ingredients have been used.

Several raw feeders contacted me after reading my homemade diet guidelines (“You Can Make It”) in July’s Whole Dog Journal issue. While their diets varied considerably, each had problems that are common with raw diets – but most are easily fixed. For example, many raw diets are high in bone, which provides calcium and phosphorus. Excess calcium can lead to serious orthopedic conditions in large-breed puppies, especially before puberty. High-calcium diets are not dangerous for adult dogs, but calcium binds other minerals, including zinc and iron, so a diet high in bone may lead to other nutritional deficiencies. Too much bone can also cause constipation.

Thank you so much for the recent article published about Addison’s disease in dogs. The day I read it my dog Hayleigh was showing almost every symptom, some she’s had on and off for years. The final clue was the frequent urination, which had started the day before. Because I read the article prior to taking her to the vet I knew to ask for the ACTH test in addition to the urine sample, which came back positive for primary Addison’s.

Our Corgi, Lucy, barks at the television. Not only does she bark at dogs, she may also bark at horses, giraffes, cartoon hippopotami, and any other animal or ersatz animal, as well as menacing human figures. It's at least a little annoying, if not irritating. Given her herding-dog Type-A control-freak personality she may always be somewhat prone to respond to television stimuli, but we've made a lot of progress using several of these tactics.

The more I've learned about the meat used in pet food, the more I've come to admire commercially produced frozen raw diets for dogs. The meat and poultry used in most of these diets are far fresher and more wholesome - far more like what most of us would think of as "meat" - than most animal protein ingredients in dry (or even canned) pet foods. The products tend to produce terrific results in the dogs who consume them. Whether this is due to the ingredient quality or the fact that this type of diet is more biologically appropriate for canines than dry foods is anyone's guess. My guess is that both factors contribute to the success of the products.

Many of us have dogs who bite down too hard when taking dog treats – this is a canine behavior sometimes known as “hard mouth.” Some dogs take treats forcefully all the time; others get hard mouths only when stressed or excited. One theory is that a hard mouth is a function of bite inhibition – or lack thereof. If a dog doesn’t learn to use his mouth softly during puppyhood, he’s likely to resort to using too much pressure with his mouth throughout his life. But some dogs with acceptably soft mouths take treats hard when stressed or excited. Here are five things you can do when facing a “hard mouth” challenge.

One of the more frustrating experiences for positive dog trainers is watching their clients being dragged by their dogs across the parking lot toward their cars, just moments after training class is dismissed. “Dang,” we sometimes think, “Will they ever teach their dogs to walk politely on-leash? What part of ‘Don’t reinforce your dog for pulling!’ didn’t they hear?” Of course, it’s equally frustrating for dog owners when their dogs drag them. And the training solution – stopping every time the dog pulls – gets tiresome.

Delta Society is one of the largest and best-known organizations that registers and insures “pet therapy” volunteers and their companion animals. Pet/handler teams – known as Pet Partners – brighten lives in hospitals, nursing homes, group homes, schools, pre-kindergarten programs, libraries, jails, women’s shelters, homeless shelters, senior centers, adult day programs, and a host of other facilities. But on May 19, Delta Society triggered a firestorm of controversy, complete with conspiracy theories, angry denunciations, frustration, and confusion, when it announced that effective June 30, “any dog or cat from a household where raw protein food is fed is not eligible to be a Delta Society Pet Partner.” Delta’s Raw Protein Diet Policy raises serious questions about the safety of feeding raw food regardless of an animal’s pet-therapy status.

My dog bites me. A lot. Scooter, the 10-pound Pomeranian we adopted from the shelter after he failed a behavior assessment (for serious resource-guarding), has bitten me more times than I can count. Most of the time I don't even feel his teeth. He has never broken skin, and the few times I have felt any pressure, it's been because I've persisted in what I was doing despite his clear request to stop. Scooter has excellent bite inhibition. In the dog training world, bite inhibition is defined as a dog's ability to control the pressure of his mouth when biting, to cause little or no damage to the subject of the bite. We know that all dogs have the potential to bite, given the wrong set of circumstances.

Bladder and kidney stones are serious problems in dogs as well as people. These conditions – which are also known as uroliths or urinary calculi – can be excruciatingly painful as well as potentially fatal. Fortunately, informed caregivers can do much to prevent the formation of stones and in some cases actually help treat stones that develop. Last month, we described struvite stones (see Canine Kidney Stone and Bladder Stone Prevention" Whole Dog Journal April 2010). Struvites contain magnesium

just slide a clean dish under your dog as she urinates! You need to catch only a few drops to test.üUrinary tract infections that cause struvite crystals to become uroliths can raise urinary pH to 8.0 or 8.5. Contact your vet if your dog's urinary pH jumps from acid to alkaline.üStruvite (magnesium ammonium phosphate or "triple phosphate") crystals in polarized light (total magnification 112x). Struvite crystals are common in dogs and don't cause problems until they unite to form stones that interfere with urination; generally

Long thought to be a sign of a bad dog