When choosing a food for your dog, there are many factors to consider, including age, weight, lifestyle and any health problems. Always be alert to your dogs behavior; it’s the only way your dog can tell you if it has a problem.

Dog’s Best Diet

The best diet for your dog depends on its age, size, how active it is and if it has any health problems. When looking for a dog food, choose one that has meat or meat meal as the first or second ingredient. Choose a food rich in protein, carbohydrates, fiber and fat. The levels of each ingredient depend on the needs of your dog.

Food Allergies

Dogs may often develop allergic reactions to specific foods. The most common triggers of allergies are beef, dairy products, chicken, wheat, chicken eggs, corn, and soy. These foods are also the most common ingredients in dog food.

Sugar and Dog Food

Sugary foods should not be fed to dogs. Excess sugar can lead to obesity, diabetes and dental problems. A dog with low blood sugar will display low energy, weakness, listlessness and may have seizures. A diabetic dog will lose muscle mass and weight, have low energy, and may drink and urinate more than usual.

If your dog is showing signs of depression, be sure to see your vet. Lethargy, weakness and lack of interest are signs of depression, but can also be indicative of many other physical ailments.

Signs of Depression in Dogs

Signs of depression can include

• Lethargy
• Reduced appetite
• Reduced thirst
• Loss of initiative
• Weight loss
• Lack of interest in games it usually enjoys

Again, be sure to visit your vet to rule out any physical health problems before seeking help for depression.

Changing Your Dog’s Diet

If you decide to change your dog’s diet, be careful how you do so. Do not simply stop one food and start the other. The new food must be introduced slowly into the dogs diet, over the course of seven to ten days. Begin by mixing a bit of the new food in with the old. As the days go by introduce more and more of the new food to the dog’s diet. Eventually you can serve the dog only the new food.

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In dogs, separation anxiety is an exaggerated fear of isolation. Separation anxiety is most common in dogs and one of the main causes of behavioral problems. Canines who fear being left alone will generally engage in destructive behavior within the first 20 minutes of their owners’ departure. In some cases, dogs that experience this type of anxiety over a period of time can develop depression. Fortunately, there are ways to treat this behavior naturally without exposing your pet to harmful drugs.

Factors That Lead to Dog Anxiety and Depression

After a dog experiences any type of stress, separation anxiety or depression can develop. For reasons that are not entirely understood, some dogs retain their fear of being left alone from the time they were puppies. These dogs may have been removed from their mothers too soon, or been neglected by their mothers.

Some may have changed owners several times, or been moved from home to home, while others may have experienced abuse. Traumatic events such as these predispose some dogs to develop a very strong attachment to their owner. These pets will have a hard time accepting new homes, pets or people in their owners’ lives. If the dog is exposed to any of these things, or left alone for any amount of time, behavioral problems are sure to follow.

Behaviors Associated with Depression and Anxiety

Each dog will react somewhat differently. Some dogs will exhibit only one type of behavioral problem, while others will display several. Many dogs will sense when their owner is about to leave and will engage in excessive whining, barking, or howling. They may follow the owner from room to room, shake, whimper, or even become aggressive. After the owner has left, the dog may continue to whine for an extended period until they are left with a hoarse throat.

Some dogs will dig, scratch, chew or urinate on objects in the home. Other will become depressed and not eat or drink until their owners return. This can be extremely unhealthy is the owner is away for a considerable length. In rare cases, dogs will engage in self-destructive behaviors such as chewing on themselves, or licking excessively until they create ulcers. As researchers Voith and Borchelt discovered, the dog will be wild to greet the owner upon arrival and will remain clingy and anxious for a while.

Treating Your Dogs Anxiety

In some cases, all that is required is to place your dog in a small crate as Dog World magazine suggests. Enrolling your dog in an obedience class can be extremely helpful as well. These classes teach the dogs confidence and help them develop a better sense of security. You may also use the technique of graduated exposure. This means you leave the dog alone for a short period, and gradually increase the lengths of those periods.

Using natural products will also be a productive tool in training the dog to become accustomed to being left along. Products like this increase the neurological communication, which significantly help with behavioral problems. Avoid using harmful drugs or pet medications, as this can intensify the animals stress level. Over time, with the use of these techniques, your dog should exhibit normal, healthy behavior.

Pets can have depression just like us humans do. Sometimes it may be harder to detect depression in our pets. They may stop eating, drink less water, stop wanting to play, lose weight, get insomnia, or be less energetic.

So what can cause depression in pets? Well many things can relate to the depression in pets, grief, change of environment, separation anxiety, climate, health issues, dental issues, etc. One of the biggest reasons for pet depression may be losing a playmate or friend. Perhaps a child in the home has grown and moved out, the pets owner has changed or passed away, or another pet in the home is no longer there for whatever reason.

Pets grieve like humans grieve however it sometimes can be very difficult to pull them out of it. If this happens you should work on it right away. Make your pets days more exciting by giving them more activity, make things more fun for your pet, buy them a new toy, take an extra walk with your pet, give them some extra attention, pet your pet, increasing your activity level will in turn increase your pets.

By petting your pet it will lower your blood pressure and heart rate as well as your pets, leading to a relaxed calm feeling. You benefit your pet as much as your pet benefits you.

You could also look into a pet park or pet daycare where you’re pet may play with some other pets. Schedule some play dates for your pet so that they may be in contact with a “friend”. You may want to ask your vet about anti-depressants if you’ve tried all you can but find your pet is still depressed. Depression can be life threatening to your pet if left un-dealt with for too long.

Prescription medications may help to perk your pet back up again however they do carry a lot of negative side effects so whenever possible try using an all natural supplement for your pets depression.

During the school year my pet gets depressed a lot because the kids are no longer home during the day to play with him so I did some research and found this all natural pet product to use. I don’t like the side effects of prescription medication so I chose to go the all natural route instead.

How can you tell if your pet has separation anxiety? Sometimes it maybe hard to tell the difference between misbehavior in your pet and separation anxiety. If you discipline your pet when it?s a separation anxiety issue you may make things worse instead of better and not solve any of the problems.

Knowing the difference can help drastically. Panic responses when you have left such as chewing, urination, etc. are not misbehavior but are in fact separation anxiety problems and the pet should not be disciplined for them.

If your pets’ misbehavior happens mostly when he?s left alone then chances are it?s an anxiety issue not a behavior issue. Other signs may be:

• Your pet following you from room to room
• When arriving home your pet maybe overly excited when greeting you
• Your pet may react with depression, anxiety, or excitement when you prepare to leave the house
• Chewing, digging or scratching at the doorway to try and be reunited with you
• They may bark, howl, or whine until you return
• Urinate even though the pet is house trained
• Clings to your side constantly
• Have attention seeking behavior.

Separation anxiety is common in the older pets and pets that have had a traumatic event happen, such is being lost or have been left in a new or different environment. If there has been a change in routine such as work schedule changing or the owner has gone on vacation. Even a family member leaving home or a new baby coming into the home can cause separation anxiety.

When our dog, Kierra was having anxiety problems we started using an all natural supplement to help her. By using all natural supplements there are no negative side effects that you would have with prescribed medications from a vet.

When we would leave it started out with just whimpering but as time grew on we?d come home to find our things chewed up and urination on the floor. We would discipline her for it but it still continued on.

After speaking with a friend who is a veterinarian we found that we were disciplining her when we shouldn?t have been because she had separation anxiety. We stopped disciplining her and started using the supplement our friend referred us to use and after about 2 weeks we could see a big difference.

Depression in dogs may take several distinct forms. In some cases, your dog may be extremely lethargic. Other times behavioral problems can develop. Veterinarians are increasingly offering prescription medications that can potentially pose a threat to your dogs? health. Relying on conventional drugs is not only more expensive than alternative treatments, but side effects are encountered far more commonly.

Treatments Offered

Anyone who owns a pet would agree that his or her dogs? health issues deserve the same attention as their own. Many owners turn to their veterinarians to give them the best advice and treatment for these pet ailments. More and more, these vets are prescribing harmful drugs. There are several reasons these drugs are harmful, and they often lead to more damage than good.

Prescription Meds: The Facts

Prescription medication intended for animal use is generally only tested on just a couple hundred animals. The drugs failings are less likely to show up until after the drug is already on the market and in use. There are more than 700 drugs approved to animals, many of them originally created for human use. As time passes, more people are starting to understand that what works for humans does not necessarily work for animals. Each animal responds differently to medications.

Even varying species and breeds can react to a drug differently. On top of this, animals have no ability to voice wether or not the drug makes them feel bad. Laurryn Simpson of Michigan who founded ?DogsAdverseReactions? noted that you can?t tell something is wrong with your pet until you see something physical. Once this has happened, it may be too late to reverse damage that has been done.

The fact is, the FDA does not spend an appropriate amount of time testing these drugs as they should. The vet who directs the FDA?s Center for Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Stephen Sundlof, has even made statements that if the agency required the same size studies used in approving human drugs, there would be very few drugs for pets available.

FDA records show that since 2000 animal drug side effects have increased 90%, 34,603 just last year. Many side effects are never even reported, so it is safe to assume the numbers are larger. Many vets barely even speak about side effects when recommending drugs to pet owners. As noted by science editor of Softpedia.com, animals may even become addicted to the medicines. This can be extremely dangerous and lead to even more problems than the initial one. Some pets may experience severe reactions when coming off these drugs, while others mental state can be altered indefinitely.

Alternative Treatment

Now days there are several products and treatments on the market that can help your pet naturally. Since these products do not contain harmful chemicals, you can confidently give these to your dog without having to worry about dangerous side effects.