July 24th, 2009 by admin
When dogs were wild, or at least still hunted for their food, hunger may have been an occasional concern, but rarely were nutritional deficiencies or imbalances ever a problem. Dogs killed and ate almost all of their prey’s carcass including the entrails, skin, and even bones.
Domesticated and dependent upon their owners for food, today’s dogs are amply fed, right to the point of obesity, yet they often develop a number of deficiencies from their improperly balanced diets. The advent over the past decade of nutritionally “complete” or “balanced” commercial dog foods, and their increasing acceptance by dog owners and veterinarians alike, has drastically reduced the incidence of dietary deficiencies. Today such nutritional problems are seen mostly in dogs who are fed homemade diets or a diet of table scraps and leftovers.
Poor nutrition, whether from dietary deficiencies or excesses, has a significantly negative effect on your dog’s ability to remain in good health. Resistance to infection is lowered, as is the production of antibodies, allowing infectious agents to multiply rapidly and spread. The resulting fever, diarrhea, or other manifestations of illness, more than likely will make your dog less interested in eating, thus increasing the state of malnutrition.
July 12th, 2009 by admin
The muscles of most aged mammals lose much of their strength and actually decrease in size with each advancing year. This is a normal part of the aging process and is to be expected. However, there are two as yet poorly understood muscle disorders which at first may look like normal aging weakness.
In one the dog develops weakness in the leg muscles during periods of exercise or other physical stress, may fall down briefly, seem to recover, get up for a short time only to fall down again. This is often seen in polymyositis, a disease which causes inflammation of any or all muscles in the body.
Polymyositis occurs mostly in late middle age and early old age, the most common of its several possible causes appearing to be a defect in the dog’s immune mechanism. Treatment with corticosteroids is quite successful despite the often alarming appearance of the dog. Occasionally the muscles of the esophagus are affected, making swallowing difficult, but even these respond.
Muscular dystrophy, the second disorder, occurs mainly in older dogs, bears some similarity to muscular dystrophy in people, and has a cause as yet unknown. Affected dogs develop a stiff gait as the muscles become progressively weaker and smaller in size. There is nothing we know of which will stop the deterioration or cure the disease. Treatment is palliative, trying to keep the patient as comfortable as possible, and is based on your dog’s individual symptoms.
June 25th, 2009 by admin
It is not uncommon to find the older dog less adaptable to changes in diet, routine, or environment. For example, my dog always loved riding in the car, bouncing about with a sense of excitement. He never missed a thing that passed by; now that he is older he prefers to lie quietly on the seat snuggled up against me or else on the floor. He may even get an occasional upset stomach and throw up while riding. And he steps in and out of the car with considerably greater care!
In the past it never seemed to bother him if I occasionally got home late for his supper. He’d jovially greet me at the door with little more than a “Hey, what’s up?” and race you for the food dish. Now I find that he has thrown up small amounts of yellowish-green stomach fluid due to the increased acidity of a stomach which contains no food.
I have found that leaving a small amount of dry food when I go out may solve this upset. Speaking of stomach upset, whenever I had parties, he always joined in the fun and most of the time survived the party foods given him by my well-meaning guests. Now he shows less interest in the goings-on, preferring to be by himself in a quieter part of the house. If he does indulge in any party food, he almost always has some digestive disturbance.