“Keep Your Dog (and Your Budget) Healthy With Smart Pet Care Choices”
As a pet owner, keeping your dog healthy is always one of your greatest concerns. Priding yourself on providing your best friend with good nutrition, a safe place to live and regular appointments with a veterinarian for check-ups, treatments and preventative care. But in tight economic times, cutting down on your veterinary expenses may be a necessary step in tightening the budget. Thankfully, there are ways that you can cut down on your vet expenses, while still keeping Fido in great health.
A Strong Immune System
Because the immune system is perhaps the most vital part of your dog’s overall health, careful attention to this component of your dogs body can help to avoid many illnesses throughout his or her life. By simply taking a proactive approach to protecting and strengthening your dog’s immune system.
Vaccinations
Take into the consideration to possibility cut back on vaccinations. Especially for elderly and sick dogs. for a more in depth look at why you may want to choose to cut back on vaccinations, I encourage you to read my article, Canine Vaccination – Prevention or Problem?
You are What You Eat- and So Is Your Dog
While vaccines may be the most common veterinary approach to keeping your dog healthy, once or twice a day you have access to the most direct route to your dog’s overall health and well being- through his diet.
Only through a balanced, natural diet and careful supplementation can you provide your dog with the tools his body needs to stay healthy and avoid expensive health problems. Diet is responsible for everything from the condition of your dog’s joints to the quality of his eyesight and almost everything in between. It is the foundation to a healthy immune system, the cornerstone to keeping him healthy now and in the future. Studies have shown that as much as 80% of immune system health comes directly from the digestive system.
What’s In a Bag of Dog Food?
A strong immune system equipped to fight disease can only come from feeding your dog as nature intended. A diet made fresh that is rich in high quality proteins, a variety of carbohydrates, grains and vegetables, as well as vitamin and mineral supplementation will ensure that the digestive system is working properly, and that your dog is getting the full nutritional benefit from his food.
Before you pick up that next big bag of inexpensive dog food from the supermarket, consider for a moment your favorite breakfast cereal. A little bran, some fiber, a few grains and a couple of dried fruits and nuts- a healthy way to start your day. But how healthy do you think you would be after 15 years of eating only that cereal for every meal of every day.
Dogs who are limited to eating commercial dog foods are eating their own version of that cereal, day in and day out, for their entire lifetimes. This diet of empty calories, carbohydrate fillers and meat byproducts (meat unfit for human consumption) is sorely lacking in its ability to provide the basis for a strong immune system in your dog. In fact, commercial diets have been linked to a variety of health problems in dogs such as allergies and dental disease, both of which have roots in weak immune system.
Best Way to Treat a Problem is to Prevent It.
If an “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” imagine what that could add up to in dollars and cents. While accidents and emergencies will always happen, there are many illnesses and injuries common to dogs that can easily be prevented by good care, and common sense.
Leave A Comment