In a few days time the celebrations for the fourth of July will be in full swing and many people celebrate with fireworks so please make arrangements for your dog if he is nervous of the noise. If your celebration meal includes turkey, did you know this will help calm your dog down. Turkey meat contains L-Tryptophan, which gives your dog the same relaxed feeling in your dogs that you get when you finish a big turkey dinner. Feed him some turkey and plenty of carbohydrates for the evening meal and he should be sleepy while the bangs are going off.

Mum left me at home today for just over three hours because she had to go out and it was quite a hit sunny day. It was really too hot for me to wait in the car, even if it was parked in the shade. So I stayed home and followed the trail of biscuits that Mum left for me to eat. I barked for a while, but then I curled up by the front door. When Mum cam home, all was peaceful. Mum was very pleased and I got more dog biscuits as a reward.

As you know we have been trying different food to relieve my allergy and my itchy skin. We tried Burns’ Lamb and Rice, which is highly rated for its purity. Trouble is, I just did not like the taste! mum had to add gravy to the food to persuade me to eat it, which is not the idea! We bought two 2-kilo bags and this time we are trying out the James Wellbeloved Duck and Rice Kibble. This variety is specifically designed to help skin irritation, and it tastes good so that is a good start.

I started eating Burns’ hypoallergenic dog food about seven weeks ago. I haven’t been eating it for every meal, and I still get nice human food (that’s food for humans, by the way - not made from humans). I was eating the Lamb and Rice version which is meant to be the best variety of Burns’ for helping relieve skin conditions. I have not taken to it very well, probably I am too used to those spicy leftovers.

There are a lot of myths about the best Dogs‘ diet. I found this story yesterday and I got Mum to read it as it recommends some of my favourite food:

“Milk and cheese are probably the only important sources of calcium and phosphorus among the foods that are not fed as much as they should to dogs, especially as sources of these minerals. Magnesium is found in nuts and beans, potassium in almost any natural ingredient. Most trace minerals in a natural diet are derived from natural ingredients.

Liver: Newborn puppies, dying from the ‘failing puppy syndrome’, have a tablespoonful of chopped liver added to their mother’s diet. Overnight, the pups snap out of it and start gaining again. Orphan puppies, stunted because their formula is inadequate, have a little liver puree added to that formula and those same puppies suddenly begin to grow and gain weight. A dog struck by an automobile fails to respond even though surgery has successfully corrected its injuries. About a week after the operation a tablespoonful of liver is prescribed three times weekly. By the end of the third week all of the dog’s lost weight has been regained and healing of the external wounds appears complete.

All of the dogs described above had one thing in common; liver was added to their diet. Perhaps liver should be called a ‘miracle’ food rather than a mystery food. But whatever you call it, the recoveries described were the results of liver, and whatever it is that enables liver to produce such ‘miracles’ remains a mystery.

For years veterinary nutritionists have referred to the ‘unidentified liver fractions’ and their seemingly miraculous effects. Whatever it is in liver, known or unknown, few canine nutritionists deny that liver does something special when it comes to a dog’s diet. If there is one single food that every dog should have in its diet, that food would have to be liver.”
Aboutdogs.info

I had to show you this great picture of my friend Loui. He lives quite close to me, and he recently visited one of the bigger pet shops in Enfield. Here he is, nosing the dog biscuits. This is something I can’t resist doing whenever I visit a shop or stall, I’m glad I’m not the only cheeky dog. If they don’t like us doing it, they should move the biscuits up higher.