If you really love your dog, only feed them dog food

by Cherie
(NV)

My favorite dog has always been the Pug. I have two now, both females. Over the years, I have had five pug dogs and they have all lived to be at least thirteen years old.

Some have had serious health problems, even when they were young. But I have learned to keep them healthy by doing some simple things for their care.

One of the most important things a vet once told me was that a canine should not eat people food. I always remember this and never feed my animal anything but food made especially for a pet. Believe me, a dog doesn’t know if they are getting a treat made for people or for dogs.

Remember, before domestication, canines ate meat, just meat, no vegetables or rice and especially not candy. My two pugs love to eat and will do so until they explode if I let them. One is fourteen years old and has liver and kidney problems, so she has no idea that the “treat” she’s getting is actually just a bit of her canned KD (for kidney problems) food squashed into a little ball.

Two years ago, she had seizures and was diagnosed with the liver problems. But now with proper food for the liver and medication for seizures, she is like a new young dog. The other pug is of indeterminate age from the local pug rescue, and I adopted her despite the fact that she was blind.

The blindness was diagnosed as having come from “dry eye” that was left untreated by her former owners who also let her suffer from a variety of allergies. After proper medication in her eyes to treat the dryness due to her almost total lack of tears, which includes an over-the-counter artificial tear solution, she is still blind but in no apparent discomfort.

It took a long while for the allergy problem to be solved because I had no idea what it was caused by, environmental or ingested. I first tried bathing her in a medicated shampoo but that didn’t help. I began trying different foods but that didn’t help. Finally, after several different vet visits, one told me he felt the allergies were being caused on her skin by yeast and by the foods I was trying, most of which had some kind of grains mixed in it.

So I got a medicated ointment that I rubbed into her skin to kill the yeast, along with medicated pads for easy use on the worst spots. That worked well and soon the constant licking of her paws diminished and the hair began to grow back. All the while I was trying different dry foods, including prescription diet non-allergenic ones, but that didn’t help.

Finally, I found a canned food that had nothing but venison and sweet potato mixed, and the scratching finally began to ease up. Now she only scratches like a person does, just for the heck of it, and not very often!

So, dear dog lovers, if you really love your pet, my advice is that you should not feed them anything but dog food, and the plainer the better, meat and potatoes as they say. Your dog will love you and you’ll appreciate the decline in vet bills.