Our dog's love treats. We love giving them treats. Win-Win, right? Sometimes no. This episode is all about how to increase our dog's health AND still treat them to our hearts content.
Topics in this episode:
0:13 What you will get from this episode
1:18 Pet Obesity
2:27 Why we overfeed dogs
3:24 Cultural shifts about "healthy" weight
4:39 Happy Brain Chemicals
4:59 When Food = Love
5:26 Keeping them entertained
6:31 Strategy 1: Everything counts
8:05 Strategy 2: Using their normal diet as treats (maybe with some bling)
8:56 Strategy 3: More treats for the price of one
9:53 Strategy 4: Increase the quality of the treats
Helpful Links and Resources:
Ideal dog weight and calorie counter
Silicone Treat Pouch
Want to connect?
Email me, I would love to hear from you:-): Melissa@happywithdogs.com
a Happy With Dogs podcast
You're listening to Pack Life, and this is your host Meli. If you're interested in a bigger, better, more fulfilling life for you and your companion animals, then you're in the right place.
Let's go.
What's up everybody today on Pack Life, we are talking about ways to increase your pet's nutrition, to decrease their weight and to do it without sacrificing joy for you or your dog.
You may have a dog that is struggling with obesity or just having a few extra pounds. Or you may be someone who loves training and loves having an active dog. And in the process, if you have a food motivated dog, usually we're using lots and lots of treats. So today's episode, we're going to cover this one small segment of your pets, nutrition, which is the treats that you're giving throughout the day Just for joy. Or the things you are using to train your dog on the day to day. And you will walk out with tips, tricks, and some new strategies that you can implement immediately.
If you dig this nutrition content and you're interested in more, please reach out to me. I include my email in the show notes. We can get into. Raw versus cooked versus kibble, different definitions, pros and cons, but that's not today. Today we're just getting into treats.
This is a subject I'm really passionate about because it contributes to your ability to live a long, happy, healthy life with your dog.
According to the association of pet obesity. Prevention's 2022 report. 59% of dogs and 61% of cats were classified as overweight or obese. And this is a number that has been steadily on the rise.
And for dogs having even just a few extra pounds is a big problem because one pound on a dog is much more significant than a pound on a full grown human. And especially if you have a smaller dog. Each of those pounds is going to carry bigger consequences. Some of the things that are impacted by having excess weight, especially when we move toward obesity are things like skin problems, respiratory problems, metabolic and endocrine disorders, kidney dysfunction. Orthopedic diseases problems with the joints problem with arthritis and the saddest and heaviest one for me is all of these things contribute to decreased life expectancy. And we definitely see that correlation increased weight, especially obesity in our dogs leads to decreased life expectancy.
For all of these reasons, thinking about what we are putting into our dog's systems is really important to me. With numbers like 59% of dogs being overweight or obese, even if this doesn't apply directly to your personal dog. I'm sure you know someone or have friends that could benefit from this information.
And if that's the case, please pass along this podcast or take some notes so that you can give them some quick strategies that may benefit them. A lot of times, people feel a little hopeless in what to do besides just like cut dog's meals into really tiny portions and that impacts their joy and the dog's joy and so people struggle with figuring out how to tackle this problem in a way that still feels supportive of their overall relationship and dynamic.
And also if your dog is not overweight, we're still going to cover things that are going to increase their overall health and therefore immunity, performance, and all the things that go with it. Just like for humans, when we start putting better stuff into our bodies.
The first question that comes to mind. When I look at the statistics about pets being overweight and obesity is "why?." Why do we do this? Why do we overfeed our dogs? And I am guilty of this. So I understand it. I love feeding my dog. I love giving him treats. I love seeing the joy that he gets when I give him the treat.
And so I want to break this down. I think one of the first things that's going on is culturally for all of us, we are starting to broaden the amount of weight to dog can have. Where we still think they look healthy. What would have been considered an overweight dog 10 years ago now we're like, oh, that dog's in the healthy range.
I see our eyes starting to get trained that what is actually healthy is not accurate. Sometimes we'll have dogs in our program that are, let's say sports dogs, and someone else might say to me, that dog is way too skinny. That dog has really lean. When actually that dog is at the ideal weight for their breed and they look fantastic and very healthy. And the dog that everyone says is looking healthy is probably a few pounds overweight.
So in the show notes, I will include a guide that will give you some visual indicators of how to know when a dog is ideal weight, too lean, or a little too heavy.
The next reason is I think we just love to see our dogs happy. When we feed our dogs and they get all wiggly and excited about the food that's coming, they get a dopamine hit.
And we get a dopamine hit. So there's all of these chemicals going on. These feel good chemicals in both of our brains and it can become a little bit addicting.
Another reason is that some of us grew up in families or in cultures where food equals love. What I mean by that is putting time and energy into creating something that's going to physically nourish another being. Is the ultimate expression of care, of nurturing, and of love. If that is your background and that is your context, it's really difficult to then separate that from your dog.
And finally, I think sometimes we feed our dogs because we might be giving them something to keep them busy so we can have a moment of peace. And an example, even if my dog has already had his full meal and I'm trying to do something on the computer and he needs more attention and I don't have time or energy.
I may give him a bone to chew or something that is going to occupy him like a food puzzle. Even though he didn't need the extra calories to buy myself a little bit of peace and quiet.
Now that I've laid some of the context, my goal for the rest of this podcast is to give you strategies. That answer the question "how do we get the win-win?" How do we help support our dogs? Make sure they're having healthy things going into their system and still get our dopamine hits and still keep the fun relationship and still be able to fully train with lots of treats.
And these are the strategies that I've used to be able to continue to feed my dog, whether it's training or just for fun, or letting my parents feed without guilt and kept him staying lean and healthy throughout his life.
My first strategy will involve looking at your dog's total intake of food or calories per day. If you need any assistance with how many calories should your dog be eating, I'll tell you what's on the back of the
Bag or a box. Your feeding is often high. They are going to want you to purchase more of that product than maybe your dog needs. So usually when we're feeding, I'm going to look at my dog's weight as a guide. If he's looking a little heavy, I'm going to cut back on the amount. When he looks lean, I'm going to add a little bit.
It's a good jumping off place to start with whatever's on the bag. Then once your dog adjusts to that, you look at their body for, "is this working or is it not?". Okay. So let's assume you've dialed in on an amount of food that makes sense for your dog and for their body. Now let's pretend that's two cups a day.
And, you know, you're also going to be feeding table scraps. You're also going to be feeding treats throughout the day. What I would do is take a small portion of that two cups. Let's say an eighth of a cup or a quarter cup. And we're going to replace those calories with treat calories. Now we don't want to take a large percentage of their food.
And use it in this way because their food is going to be balanced with lots of vitamins and minerals to make sure they're getting everything that they need. And the treats may or may not have similar nutrients. So we want to use smaller amounts if we're going to do this, but let's pretend we took a quarter cup of that two cups and we're going to replace it with treats. The idea there is their overall calorie count isn't changing, even though you're able to get the treats in throughout the day. So the first way to do this would be to try to use that exact kibble as treats. Then you're not affecting the nutrients at all, and you're not changing their meal amount.
You're just going to take that one quarter cup and throughout the day, when you would typically use treats, you're going to use their kibble.
Now some dogs. We'll turn their nose up at you and be like, what is that garbage? I want the good stuff, especially if they're used to getting higher value treats. So you could try using kibble with a little bit of something higher value mixed in and chopped up tiny and mixed in, or like a powder coating it. That may still work.
But your dog may also just pick out the good stuff and leave the kibble. So this is definitely a good strategy to try and anytime I'm giving you something, if it's not working, send me an email. I have my email always in the show notes. And I'm happy to brainstorm with you and process something different that might work.
My next tip is to decrease the size of those treats. Sometimes I've been shocked when I hear someone say like, "oh, I'm gonna give my dog a treat." And then I look and they give them like a huge bar of something. Now my training team, will make fun of me because I'm pretty stingy. I will cut even a small treat into multiple smaller pieces if I can get away with it. But there's a reason for it. The first is just like for humans often for dogs the anticipation that something good is about to happen. That they're about to get some food. That anticipation is a more powerful moment for them then the food itself. And so if I have lots of little treats, I get to play with that moment of anticipation more times. I will get more opportunities to try a behavior if I'm training.
And it makes the calorie count a whole lot lower for the same amount of either training. Or treating.
Another tip is to increase the quality of the treats you're giving. For me, higher quality would mean less processed, closer to a dog's natural diet, any kind of fresh food. That's going to be more supportive for your dog's nutrition than taking in highly processed things with lots of chemicals that are taxing to your dog system.
Also a lot of heavily processed treats or things like hotdogs, cheese, deli meat. They are very high in sodium, which can wreak havoc for our dog's health. So be really careful when you have a lot of sodium in the food that you're giving your dog, especially if you're giving them table scraps, just make sure they have access to tons of water. And I think it would be better to find treats with lower sodium content.
An example, I can give something I actually do is I will cook a pound of ground beef or ground chicken in a pan with absolutely no seasoning. I'll freeze, some of it. And then I'll save some to portion out in the fridge as treats for my dog while we're training. Now what this does is it means that he's getting much more natural food, higher quality food, no fillers, no strange chemicals. If you're using something ground and you chop it up a small, you can get, very small portions. You can make it whatever size you want while you're training. The downside is you have to work around the yuckiness if you're going to do this. I usually get a silicone treat pouch that I can put the meat in so that I can wash it. It means I have to wash my hands more often when we're done training, because I have actual meat that I'm feeding as treats.
In general, if you're going to make something like this home cooked. I am a fan of higher protein and lower carb to no carb and fat is okay for dogs, but you need to check with your vet because every dog's stomach is a little bit different.
If your dog has a unique condition, they may struggle with that higher protein content. And again, it wouldn't be protein of their entire diet. It's just of the treats you're giving, but still some dogs don't do as well with high protein. Some dogs don't do as well with high fat. Most dogs don't need or do well with a lot of carbs but then again, if they're having some issue, sometimes the diet will be a large percentage carb because that is what they can digest the easiest.
If you're not planning on going to the vet, because you're already feeding things that you're not going to the vet about, and you feel comfortable with that. I would suggest starting with something that is higher protein content than fat or carb, for sure. And limiting the carbs.
Those are my quick tips on how you can start paying more attention to what you're using for treats with your dog. If you like the show, please subscribe. Please give it a rating that helps so much for a newer podcast. And if you have any questions or just want to reach out, my email is in the show notes, and I'd love to hear from you. I hope you have a great day.