Category: ownership

How good is your kibble?

And why it matters

Many dog parents advocate raw or fresh food. But it’s still a reality that for the majority, their dog’s main meals will be either entirely or partly dried foods. Kibble! That includes me. So this isn’t a comparison. I simply want to address the majority and take it as a given that you have already decided dried, processed foods offer you the best mix of convenience, cost and nutritional health for your dog.

Given that, I make it my mission to encourage everyone to feed the best they can afford. Because there really is good kibble and bad kibble. I won’t name and shame but want to point you in the right direction for what to look out for. So, how good is your kibble? Is it really the best you can afford, or as good as you think it is?

A few home truths

When I ask people ‘how good is your kibble’ a popular answer is a half-shrug but coupled with a mention that the vet recommended it or stocks it. The simple truth however is that vet practices these days are increasingly being centralised into larger companies, and some of those companies are incentivised to push certain brands of dog food. Three multinationals own the majority of popular UK dog food brands: Mars, Nestlé and Colgate. Each cover both lower and higher-end foods. I am not judging for you whether this is a good or bad thing, simply pointing it out. And to question that just because the vet stocks it, is it right for your dog?

My own story

When my dog was a puppy we continued to feed him the same kibble as the breeder to avoid upheaval. A lot of people do just that. And because in those days I looked at dog food less forensically than I do now. And because, you guessed it, the local vet pushed it too. But as he approached the time for a transition to adult food, I began to take a closer look at what the food actually was. It wasn’t the worst brand by a long way, but neither was it nutritionally the best we could afford. And I have been on a guilt trip ever since! So we changed up (twice so far in fact) to healthier brands.

What to look for

I confess to a geeky streak and I like to look at things in a lot of detail – any good dog trainer should be this way! When I started looking at how good is your kibble, there were so many questions. Such as where is it made (how far does it have to travel and be stored)? Is it extruded or cold-pressed? At what temperature is it baked? Even if the necessary additives are natural, what exactly are they? But don’t worry, I’ve done the heavy lifting for you.

Hypoallergenic and gluten-free

The big elephant in the room here is if your dog has a very delicate digestive system or sensitive skin and you need to feed your dog hypoallergenic food. This term literally means the ingredients are highly unlikely to cause allergic reactions. You have a much more restricted choice, and often meat, necessarily, will be entirely absent.   

Gluten and grain-free can be a minefield with labels, but this is less restrictive, it simply means the absence of wheat and certain other grains. Even if your dog is allergy-free from these sources, many people go with such a recipe on health grounds.

If you’ve found a brand, particularly hypoallergenic, that suits your dog, then I would be careful about rocking the boat and changing. But if your dog is not on a less restricted diet, it wouldn’t hurt to challenge yourself – how good is your kibble?

Labelling

Legally kibble manufacturers must list ingredients in order of composition. So what’s the first ingredient on your kibble? If your dog eats meat, is it meat, or a carbohydrate? This will give you the first clue. The second clue is whether it’s made from fresh meat, or dried, or that grey area described as ‘meal’? Or it can be a combination. Thirdly, is it free of artificial additives of any kind? Colourings, preservatives, anti-oxidants…. anything at all? Finally we want to consider the overall nutritional analysis: protein, carbohydrate, fat, fibre, minerals (‘ash’), water etc.

Research Tools

A few years ago in my kibble research travels I found comparing like-with-like difficult, mainly because of the presence of water. For example, how can a tin of wet food be 80% meat but only 20% protein? Answer: 70% of the meat is water. It’s also because what goes in by weight doesn’t reflect the composition of what comes out (what your dog is actually eating), due to the cooking process. There are useful, dedicated websites like https://www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk/ which use an algorithm to crunch a nutritional value of a brand. Great for geeks like me, but things like this shouldn’t be your only source. (I do find it heavily biased to very high protein and meat brands, so hypoallergenic brands unfairly lose out.)

Gut feeling

If you don’t have the time, it’s easy just to compare a few brands on-line by their ingredients and nutritional analysis. Then go with your gut feeling. Here’s a comparison of two non-hypoallergenic kibble brands from what it says on the bag. Brand A costs about £1 a day for a medium dog, Brand B about £1.70 a day.

Brand A nutritional analysis

Protein 21.1%, Fat 14.8%, Fibre 1.6%, Ash 4.7%, Moisture 8.0%, Sodium 0.27%, Calcium 0.70%, Phosphorus 0.63%, Magnesium 0.09%, Omega6 3.40%

Brand B nutritional analysis

Protein 24.0%, Fat 17.0%, Fibre 2.5%, Ash 7.0%, Moisture 8.0%, Calcium 0.95%, Phosphorus 0.75%, Omega3 1.75%, Omega6 1.50%.

Nothing here really jumps out. Protein for both is within the 20-30% which is within a normal recommendation. Brand B shades it for me on the basis of a little more protein, fibre and at least some Omega 3. But there’s not a huge amount to go on. What about the ingredients?

Brand A ingredients

Maize, Wheat, Chicken and Turkey Meal, Animal Fat, Digest, Maize Gluten Meal, Vegetable Oil, Minerals, Dried Beet Pulp, Flaxseed

Brand B ingredients

Fresh Salmon 40%, Potatoes, Peas, Pea Protein, Linseed, Fish Oil, Vegetable Gravy, Minerals, Mannan-Oligosaccharides, Fructo-Oligosaccharides, Beetroot 0.04%, Apple 0.04%, Mango 0.04%, Avocado 0.04%, Coconut 0.04%, Spinach 0.04%, Blackcurrant 0.04%, Marigold Blossoms, Nettle, Blackberry Leaves, Fennel, Caraway, Chamomile, Balm

Aside from the fact one is a little more transparent about numbers, what your gut feeling? For me, it’s Brand B, and instinct alone would tell me Brand A would be carbohydrate (=sugar) heavy. Finally:

Brand A nutritional additives

E103 [Iron] (84.7mg/kg), E202 [Iodine] (2.4mg/kg), E405 [Copper] (8.4mg/kg), E502 [Manganese] (8.8mg/kg), E603 [Zinc] (155mg/kg), E801 [Selenium] (0.1mg/kg)

Brand B nutritional additives

Vitamin a 20,000 IU, Vitamin D3 2,000 IU, Vitamin E 350 mg. Iron 75 mg; Iodine 3.5 mg; Copper 10 mg; Manganese 7.5 mg; Zinc 150 mg; Selenium 0.15 mg

I tend to glaze over with this one, but what’s your gut feeling with those E numbers?

Affordability

Taking account of the huge range of dog sizes and consumption, for a medium-sized dog, a supermarket kibble might cost 20p a day. The brand I now use costs about £1.80 a day. Cost is a huge consideration for many of us. I would love to drink barista coffee every day but at £3 or £4 a cup I don’t! I would rather spend my £1.80 knowing my dog has a healthy, complete diet. I still spend (a little!) more than that on my own lunch, let alone per day.

The nutritional difference of 70p a day in the two brands I compared is quite significant. And you can work this out just by reading between the lines for an extra minute. Like anything in life, there is always something better and more expensive. But IF there is one thing I have learned from this, just go for the best you can afford!

Why it matters

When we are talking about health and nutrition it’s obvious why it matters: we want our dogs to live as long and healthy lives as possible. But diet also has behaviour implications. Protein overload is a real thing, though often overstated and misunderstood. Too many carbohydrates (sugars) are more often the culprit for hyperactivity. When training a dog, I always ask about diet. A balanced, healthy diet goes hand-in-paw with training!

P.S. If you are interested in knowing more about your own kibble brand, I may have come across it in my research – message me!

P.P.S. I hope you continue to enjoy reading the Eastside Tails blog as much I enjoy writing it. But I need the time to dedicate to it and due to training commitments these days that time is in shorter supply. So, I will be changing to bi-monthly posts for the foreseeable future. 

Dog Injuries

Tending to your dog without harming trust

It’s been a busy month here at Dog Citizen HQ, unfortunately not including a summer holiday yet! And in the midst of things my dog sustained an awkward injury that requires daily attention. It reminded me how important medical intervention is from a behaviour perspective. By “dog injuries” I mean anything that requires owner attention to apply medication or bandaging.

It’s a trip to the vet

If dog injuries do not appear obviously severe, but you are still questioning “Should we see a vet?”, the answer is always yes. Better safe than sorry. So I’m assuming you’ve done this and you have your medication or have been to the chemist to top up your first aid kit. Incidentally, it’s always a good idea to have a first aid kit for your dog. Dogs often require gentler disinfectants and sticky plasters for human skin do not mix well with dog fur! Message me and I can give you a list! Or go one better, attend a canine first aid course. They are so practical – saving or preserving life is a skill anyone can learn.

So a trip to the vet or a first aid course will help you patch up your dog. But they may not teach you how you’re nursing a dog can actually upset them and damage your relationship. The good news is it’s simple to follow a few steps to limit any trust damage in the longer run. As well as make it easier and to help things run more smoothly.

Be wary of a wounded or sick animal

Dogs with an underlying illness or a migraine that hasn’t yet been diagnosed can sometimes behave out of character. Even lash out at you. When we are dealing with what at first appears to be a behaviour issue, always ask yourself, can we rule out a medical reason? It’s a trip to the vet!

Dog injuries that have just happened have to be treated sympathetically. Of course we think our dog trusts us and knows we are trying to help. But try not to humanise this. They are animals. If they are in pain, and anything you do to help them that might increase that pain, could be disastrous for your relationship. Even pulling out a thorn in a paw. Do this carefully. Trust me, “He knows this is good for him” or “She realises I am making it better” doesn’t wash with a dog. They are animals, and they can react to pain in a way any animal can.

If you have a healthy relationship with your dog, they trust you implicitly. Having to nurse a painful wound, or go near their sore eye with a scary pointy tube can damage this trust. Why should they understand what you are doing is to help them? It can sow the seeds of a fearful reaction when you approach them in the future. Or at best that “trustometer” is left running at 75 instead of 100%. You need it to be 100 because of that Recall you will need when they are better. And because, well, why wouldn’t you want it?

Turbo Desensitisation

Trying to teach your dog to be okay with a grooming, or much harder, to accept their teeth being brushed, ideally requires a gentle desensitisation. This can be done over days, weeks or even months. Happy days. The problem we have with dog injuries is of course they occur without advance warning. So when you have carried them back from outside to the first aid kit, or just got back from the vets armed with Stuff, there is no time for easing them in. Treatment starts now. So we have to accelerate what is normally a gentler process and do our best under the circumstances.

Don’t try this at home

When you need to tend to your dog’s injury, it’s best to avoid doing any or all of these things:

• Don’t rush it. If your body language is jerky and fast (“Let’s get this over with!”), this is not helpful. Try to relax.
• Don’t reward your dog’s anxiety, such as praising them cheerfully with “There, there, good girl, it’s alright!” or randomly treating them to ‘cheer’ them up.
• Don’t be forceful, such as manhandling them roughly to remain in position. By all means use a treat specifically to lure them into position if you have to. Nor verbally forceful either: “Don’t be such a wus!” No-one said this is easy, but try to keep your own frustrations in check.
• Don’t let them go to a corner, or block them.

Building a more positive association

This is how we should train dogs anyway, so dealing with dog injuries shouldn’t be any different. Let’s build a positive association! It maybe you only need to tend to them a few times, but let’s get into the habit for next time!

• If your dog is mobile, (and scarpers at the sight of the bandage) don’t be afraid to put on a lead and sit with them for a minute first, but no longer.
• Try to be in a place that already has a nice association for them. Where practical, that includes your lap!
• Have high value food to hand. Not training treats. What they really can’t resist – if medically okay to provide, of course. You know,  chicken, sausage etc.….we want to accelerate a stimulus response so when you have to bring out the tube etc., this means good food. So from the moment you produce the tube, feed them with this, before, during (if you can) and immediately after. Obviously easier with two people: one is messier but it can be done!
• Keep your voice calm, soft and matter-of-fact. This is not praise. If it helps, just talk aloud to them what’s going on.
• Apart from actual medications, show them your paraphernalia – let them briefly sniff, making sure they can munch on a tasty morsel.
• Try to be efficient, not dallying, but remember don’t rush it.
• Afterwards, lots of praise. They will be feeling relief. Work with this and make them feel even better. And another tasty morsel.

Think holistically

Apart from feeling pain or ill, remember your dog might be feeling a little down anyway: walkies may be shorter, on-lead when they are used to off, or may have stopped entirely. Food routines may have changed. All potentially upsetting anyway. Nothing better here than some extra affection.

So nursing dog injuries is rarely perfect or an elegant sight, but just being sensitive to how they perceive what is going on is a big step in the right direction. My dog still hates the bandage redressing, probably always will. But he now tolerates it rather than cowers. And after only three days he wags his tail when the first aid box comes out. Hamburger time! And the trust is still there.

Summer break!

and popular dog breeds

It’s a summer recess here at the Dog Citizen blog. I’ll just leave you with the answer to a question I get asked a lot. Here are the most popular dog breeds or types I have trained:

• 1. Labrador
• 2. Cockapoo
• 3. Cocker Spaniel
• 4. Border Collie
• 5. English Bulldog

I have worked with most breeds and crosses, some pretty exotic! None of this is a reflection of a dog’s temperament or intelligence, but maybe an indication of the most popular breeds in our region!

Normal service resumes next month, catch you back here!

Is your Dog a Roller?

Why do some dogs love to roll in stinky stuff, and can training help?

If your dog could talk…

Ask yourself this, if your dog could talk, what would be the first thing you would ask them? Think of all those burning questions in those challenging or beautifully emotive moments together! Even better, tell me in the comments box below this post, I would be really interested to know! My first question would be Why do you like to roll in stinky stuff? How about you? Is your dog a roller?

Some of you who know me might know about my recent adventure into the sea – don’t worry only shin-deep – to clean off my four-legged companion. You see, my dog rolled in a decaying seal carcass on the beach. Really rolled. The smell was indescribable. And he looked so pleased with himself. Look at me! Wanna sniff? Of course it was comedy, but I did need to remember our “calming anchors” before I took a deep breath and decided what we had to do. Lead on, we cheerfully walked into the sea together…

For Roller owners, mysterious forests, sand dunes or just a patch of grass can hide something to be rolled in.

A Dog Roller: amateur or professional?

Let’s first of all discount what I would call the amateur rollers. Dogs going down and rubbing themselves along some silky grass because it feels, well, presumably silky and nice, is at the bottom of the scale. It might just be playful, or a precursor to rolling on their back in the sun. Rolling in a little mud because they like it or to clean themselves off or even attempt to rid themselves of parasites is a step up. Likewise having a roll in a puddle to have a clean or to cool off. All perfectly ordinary.

Now, for the professional roller, such things are merely rehearsals for the real thing! Not for them some benign mud or water. A dedicated roller will either seek out or significantly divert their path to find something organically marked (poo) or deceased. Fox poo is a common one in these parts.

Scent hounds, of course, are by their nature beguiled by odours. A bloodhound’s long, floppy ears even help to catch and waft the tiny odour particles into their face to help maintain the tracking. Breeding and evolution are powerful things… But your dog doesn’t have to be a scent hound to be really attracted to the stinky stuff. So why is this?

Scent as Information

We all know dogs live by smell, their nasal receptors amplifying the messaging to their brain to a degree us humans cannot remotely fathom. Odour carries a lot of information. This can be information about where the smell has been, where it has come from, literally what it is, or even who it is. A dog can be thoughtful, fearful or excited by a smell and the information it contains. Most of the time they simply process the information and move on (or leave their own scent before doing so). But some smells are so intense that it seems to awaken a more primal urge in a dog, and it is this we want to understand when we talk about the Roller. We don’t know exactly why of course because our dogs can’t talk (see question at the beginning!), but there are some good theories…

Motive

We always need to establish motive at the scene of the crime. Because we are talking about primal motives, let’s look at our domestic dog’s ancestors: wild canids and wolves. These theories can be complimentary, in other words, a wolf might roll in something stinky for more than one reason.

To Mask Their Own Scent. This idea is that when hunting prey, a wolf would disguise itself by rolling in something else that smells strong and not like a wolf. This doesn’t account for the prey still becoming alarmed by something stinky approaching, but still, there’s some logic to this idea.

To Leave Their Own Scent. Another theory is that a wolf becomes excited by the strong smell and therefore wishes to “join in” and leave their own scent on the dead thing. This would be to “claim” it as theirs’, perhaps ideally to return to it again and ward off other competitors. This too is logical, especially for carcasses. Probably less so for organic “inanimate” targets more commonly found today like fox poo. But marking that anyway might be satisfying.

To Convey Information. Wolves are pack animals and feed together. If one came across a carcass, rolling in the scent conveys the information back to the pack: “Hey, look what I found!” Or perhaps simply just to convey the information for its own sake: “Guess what I found!”

All these motives would potentially leave genetic markers in our modern pooches, no question. But there is also another possible reason:

They Like It. They just really enjoy or are excited about the smell. Do you need another reason? Let’s be honest, dogs are animals. They do a lot of things that humans find unpalatable, so why not?

Opportunity

How your dog behaves after the crime has been committed might give you some clues about the motive, but we still need the opportunity in the first place. Now we put our training hat on, because this is all about access to a resource, much like any other thing your dog may find desirable. We can train Recall, Wait, Leave and have an arsenal of diversionary techniques. We should do all these things anyway. But the most effective thing is managing the opportunity. You can’t see fox poo at a distance, fair enough, but when you do come across it, there is likely to be more in the vicinity. And it could remain ‘fresh’ for a few days. So next time, avoid that patch of grass!

Or if you’re on the beach like me, you might be able to spot the suspicious humps shallow-buried in the sand or recognise the suspicious profile. If you do see it before your dog smells it – that’s when you want to do a recall or a diversion. For me I didn’t clock it in time, but I have done before. So, let’s at least give ourselves a chance by being aware of our surroundings. (And keeping shampoo in the car.)

Be kind: we like different things

The most important thing is not to punish your dog or make them feel somehow ashamed. Yes, we might find it absolutely not funny at the time (maybe funny later). But your dog will only understand that you are angry and not associate this with the primal thing they are programmed to do. At the other end of the scale, but less likely, is to reward them for doing this by somehow adding to the excitement. Remember your dog will be in a very aroused state with that smell now on their coat. So having bitten my lip, I remained calm when I put the lead on and led my dog for a bath in the sea. Oh, look at you! Okay, let’s play a different game now and have a wash.

Incidentally, why do you like doing that?

So back to our question, what would be the first thing you ask them?

Let’s talk about Separation

What do you do when you come back?

A friend of mine went away for a week on urgent business at short notice. She is normally the one in her household who is with her dog during the day. The dog has no history of separation anxiety – she can go out for a few hours without any issues. On this occasion however, she did have to go away in a pretty much drop-everything-and-just-go fashion. She said good-bye to her dog – let’s call him Buddy – in her usual low key way, and off she went!

Arrangements were made for Buddy to remain at home with her partner being there for him most of the time. During her absence, Buddy apparently was clearly missing his mum as it became more apparent that she was not going to come back after a few hours. He coped well enough but was not quite his usual happy-go-lucky self. After all, this was unusual and different from his normal routines. Dogs hate routines being disrupted.

When she did return after a week, she told me that Buddy’s behaviour was strange. Rather than zoomies of excitement, after a tail wag or two and a polite greeting, Buddy went back to his bed. And he seemed uncertain, maybe aloof, for another five days. After that, all was forgiven it seems.

“He had the right hump with me” she said.

The coming back

I found her story fascinating. There were obvious reasons for her sudden and unusually long absence to potentially trigger all kinds of behaviours in Buddy. But when she returned to him…?

“How did you greet him when you came back”, I asked?

“The same way I always do: low key, no big deal etc.”

It got me thinking about the coming back. There is a lot of advice around about separation anxiety or lesser problems related to separation from your dog. And even the better training programmes around these focus on the leaving. What happens before. And this is right, because it is your behaviour before you leave that triggers a certain emotional response in your dog. And we have to get this part right, because from this, everything else flows. But we should not ignore the what-happens-after. It should not be an after-thought. Act like it’s no big deal when you return, is the standard advice. And this is generally sound, because:

1. We maintain the link in the emotional chain that the whole event of your absence is calm, a low emotional temperature.
2. We don’t want to reinforce the idea of your absence being traumatic and over-emotional by overdoing the return greeting. “Wow, this is a big deal, thank goodness you’ve come home then” thinks your dog.

But do we need to be more clever about this? The leaving part is universal. The during part – the absence – is variable. In my friend’s case, it was a completely novel and extreme experience for Buddy. Normally a few hours became a week. So the coming back part: should it really be one-size-fits all?

Can dogs hold grudges?

Let’s break it down for Buddy. When it became apparent the separation was not the routine, he became a little anxious. After a few days, much more so. Getting on for a week later, perhaps we are in abandonment or even grieving territory. Seriously. Because this had never, ever happened before. Dad was behaving normally during this time, all the other routines are still in place, so maybe it’s not so bad. But still. Is she ever going to come back?  

Well, she did! A dog is a highly sensitive, emotional being. His mum’s return would have included everything you are imagining: surprise, relief, and pure joy. But what was mum’s reaction? Meh. No big deal, let’s everyone keep calm. We don’t want to start a separation problem here. All good intentions, and by the book too. So did Buddy then have the hump and resent his mum for doing this? Was it the prolonged separation itself, or her (managed) emotional reaction to him when she returned after an exceptional separation?

Separation, trust and confused emotions

Some behaviourists maintain dogs do not hold grudges. Many dog owners might say differently, although it would be short-lived. Dogs are naturally forgiving creatures after all. But I think it’s more complicated than this. I think what happened with Buddy was confusion and perhaps a small and temporary breakdown in trust. Buddy may not be able to articulate this to himself as having the hump. Rather, he needed some space (literally) and time to work through some emotional confusion.

The trust was momentarily eroded when mum went away for longer than The Contract states. The routine was dramatically broken. After days passed, Buddy was trying to emotionally adjust to his mum not being there. Life goes on, but she always comes back (after a few hours) and this time she didn’t. The confusion arose when she suddenly did come back: he was not actually emotionally prepared for this. He was surprised. And he certainly wasn’t prepared for her well-intentioned but slightly subdued greeting not matching the intensity of his feelings. So I think it’s a bit of both: it was a longer absence, but what came after compounded Buddy’s own reaction.

I’m back!

When separation is routine and for shorter periods, keeping the greeting calm when you return is good practice. And by the way, calm does not mean ignoring your dog. You can still have a nice interaction and let your dog know you are pleased to see them without building in excitement. But where a much longer absence is an exceptional event, maybe the emotional straight jacket can come off.

So when you do come back after a long holiday, build in a couple of the routine shorter separation events quite promptly after your return. This is reinforcing the normal, calmer routine (The Contract) for your dog. And if your dog wants to give you the welcome of a lifetime after an exceptional and long absence, open your arms and heart to them! Be true to your emotions. Taken together, trust is reinforced: you always come back!