June 3rd, 2009 by admin

As your dog grows older, the muscles of the colon and rectum may lose some of their ability to propel and expel feces adequately during a bowel movement. Reduction in stomach and intestinal digestive secretions can produce a bulkier, firmer stool as can diets very high in dry food content if there is insufficient water intake. Your dog will squat and strain to force the fecal mass slowly out. She may cry from the discomfort.

Prostatic disease can mechanically cause constipation as the prostate gland enlarges and presses up against the floor of the rectum. Similarly, tumors in the rectum or on the anus can interfere with the passage of feces. Any dog may have an isolated difficult bowel movement on occasion. This should be no cause for alarm if he is otherwise in good health and there is no bleeding or excessive pain.

Repeated bouts of constipation can slowly stretch the rectal muscles, causing permanent dilatation and resulting in chronic constipation. Once this occurs, your dog will need frequent enemas as well as fecal softeners to help him eliminate. The increased time the stool remains in the colon and rectum will allow bacteria that normally live there to act on the stool, causing putrefaction and excessive gas production.

May 30th, 2009 by admin

Choice of a dog food is a simple and straight-forward procedure of comparing certain characteristics of one food with those of other types of foods that are available to feed your dog. Regardless of whatever procedure you learn and use in order to effectively check your dog’s needs should have enough built-in flexibility that innovative dog feeders can adapt it to best fit your own situation and further reduce their margin of error.

When making an choice, the four characteristics of a satisfactory dog food, discussed below, should be used as the minimum standards that any food must meet. These four basic standards are:

1) A food should contain sufficient energy for daily activity.

2) A food should contain adequate nutrients, in proper relationship to each other.

3) A food should contain ingredients that are usable by a dog.

4) A food should be acceptable in a sufficient quantity to fully supply items 1 and items 2 above.