By Samantha - February, 11th 2014

Several factors come into play when healthy puppies and kittens turn into unhealthy dogs and cats. Misinformation, laziness, finances and and poor veterinary advice on holistic wellness.

Are you guilty of any of these common pet owners qualities mentioned above?

Here are some of the most important topics most vest wish their patients’ owners understood:

Care Taking Responsibilities and Financial Obligations Associated with Pet Ownership: Having a pet is a responsibility only to be undertaken by those who are willing and able to always make lifestyle choices on the basis of health. Incorporating a pet into one’s household compromises available time, space, and financial resources. Caring for a pet is akin to having a human child stuck in a permanent adolescent state. Pets are not autonomous beings; they require continuous feeding, social interaction, behavior training, grooming, and established facilities for waste elimination. Pet owners should not adopt a pet without thoroughly evaluating their ability to fiscally and emotionally provide care – both in sickness and in health (sounds like a commitment ceremony, yes?).
Obesity Prevention through Calorie Restriction and Exercise: Pet owners must better understand the potentially irreversible health consequences caused by obesity. Around 51 percent of dogs and cats (approximately 89 million pets) in the United States are overweight or obese according to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention (APOP). Arthritis and diseases affecting the cardiovascular (heart, blood vessels, etc.) and metabolic (diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, hypothyroidism, etc.) systems can be avoided or minimized when pets maintain a normal body condition score.

Daily Home Dental Care is an Essential Part of Pet Ownership: Pet owners must realize the serious health repercussions of periodontal disease. The mouth harbors millions of bacteria that are permitted to enter the bloodstream through inflamed gums (gingivitis), enabling the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, joints, and other body systems to be continually showered with a stream of toxic bacteria. Just like in humans, periodontal disease in pets is very preventable. Unfortunately, pet owners typically squirm at the idea of regularly cleaning their dog or cat’s teeth.

Pursue Anesthesia Based Teeth Cleaning Regardless of Age: Pet owners mustn’t let a numerical age deter them from pursuing an anesthetic procedure to resolve a health problem. Pets are never “too old” to undergo anesthesia, yet they can be “too unhealthy.” Not resolving your pet’s periodontal disease amounts to neglect. Periodontal disease has many negative implications, especially for vital organs like the heart (see Importance of Periodontal Health in Maintaining Your Pet’s Healthy Heart).

Your Pet May Survive, but Won’t Thrive on a Diet of Processed Foods: Why do dog and cat owners consider the most ideal food to be dry or canned pet food? Nature makes food, then humans highly process nature’s ingredients to create a “nutritionally complete and balanced” option conveniently available to pour out of a bag or can. Unfortunately for our animal companions, there are serious short- and long-term health consequences associated with eating grain and protein meals, by-products, artificial colors and flavors, preservatives, and the recognized toxins and carcinogens found in many commercially available pet foods and treats. Diseases of the gastrointestinal (stomach, small and large intestine), dermatologic (skin), and metabolic (kidneys, liver, pancreas, etc.) systems, and immune system abnormalities (including cancer), can be correlated to these unnecessary food ingredients.

When food substances are so radically altered from nature’s original format, energetic changes occur that reduce foods’ nutritive content. Human grade, whole food based, home prepared, or commercial diets having undergone minimal refinement should replace processed dry or canned pet foods.

Whole food based, human grade or homemade diets have not been changed enough to let in too many unhealthy food substances. So try incorporating these types of diets into your dogs daily food intake while slowly taking out the dry or canned dog foods that could be poisoning them.

Article Source: Paw Nation

Image Source: Carly Lesser & Art Drauglis’s phtostream on Flickr

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