I went for my first deep dive to eighty feet here in Hawaii after my veterinary conference. I love to watch animal behavior as well as appreciate the beauty of tropical fish and other animals, We dove to a “cleaner station” where fish, turtles, manta rays, and even eels go to get detailed.
Cleaning fish have evolved a really cool behavior of eating dead skin, fungus, and other parasites on and in the gills, mouth,teeth, and skin. The cleaner fish get an easy meal and the recipient of the cleaning is healthier without the parasites or fungal growths. I watched animals lay motionless with their mouth and gills open to let the cleaner dart in and out of its body. Can you imagine laying on the bed, ans letting out “cleaner beetles” to clean our teeth, gums, and excess ear wax? Probably not. That’s why we bathe and brush. Dogs love to lick our wounds and scabs ,but that isn’t nutritionally driven, it is a social behavior.. They lick theirs and ours to clean it and promote healing.
One of the lectures was a bout coughing. Lynelle Johnson DVM PHD talked a bit about the causes in dogs and cats. Both develop coughs due to heart problems, infections, and allergic problems. However,if a dog is obese, it can stress the lungs to cause and exacerbate lung problems.. In fact she has found that weight loss alone decreases coughing in affected dogs. However she said that it is very hard for clients and the dogs to exist on a rigid weight loss diet to lose or keep their weight down.
The beauty of the Dog Dish Diet is that it helps owners choose lower calorie commercial foods and treats or to make healthy lower calorie crock pot foods that make weight loss effortless. Dogs have it easier than us, if we feed them healthier, less calorie dense foods they are happy. Owners that use the recommendations in the book see significant weight loss in their dogs in a few months. I gave Dr.Johnson a copy of Dog Dish Diet and asked for her professional feedback.
Dry, commercial dog food is like our fast food and some people, dogs,and cats just can’t deal with all the excess carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are fuel for our bodies and if not used are converted to fat and stored. Stored fat adds unneeded pounds and causes medical problems.
