Feeding Fido: What Goes In Must Come Out

In This Chapter

• Linking feeding and housetraining
• Selecting the right food for your dog
• Making the treat decision
• Giving your dog a drink

You can’t discuss the art of housetraining a dog — much less practice that art successfully — without also discussing what you’re going to feed that dog.

The reason is simple: What comes out of your dog in the form of pee or poop is directly related to what you put into him. Consequently, if you control what you feed your four-legged friend, you also exert some control over his bathroom behavior. In this chapter, I explain how that relationship works — and how to take advantage of that relationship as you teach your canine companion proper potty deportment.

Knowing How Feeding and Watering Affect Housetraining

That what-goes-in-eventually-comes-out principle of housetraining manifests itself in countless ways. Here are just a few examples:

• What you feed: This affects the size and consistency of your dog’s poop, as well as how often he may need to do the doo. For example, if your dog eats a lot of vegetables, he’ll probably need to poop more often than the pooch who prefers more basic canine fare. Vegetables contain relatively high amounts of fiber, and fiber acts as a laxative.

Also, food that’s high in salt is likely to make your dog thirsty. Ingesting goodies that have a lot of salt in them, such as many table scraps, may send your pooch to his water dish more often. And the more times your dog tanks up, the more often he’s going to need to empty his tank (his bladder).

Even different types of dog food affect your dog’s bathroom output. A dog who eats a raw food diet tends to have firmer, more compact stools than a pooch whose diet consists of other fare.

•  When you feed: Timing directly affects when your dog needs to potty. A canine housetrainee who eats his dinner at 5 p.m. needs a post-dinner pit stop earlier in the evening than the dog who sups at 7 p.m.

Technical Stuff

Experts explain that the very act of eating can activate a dog’s gastrocolic reflex: In layman’s terms, that means the act of chowing down triggers your dog’s urge to go.

• How you feed: A pooch who has to gulp his food amid a chaotic atmosphere may suffer from an upset stomach — which in turn can result in more frequent, looser, and tougher-to-clean-up bowel movements.

Understanding Nutrients: What Dogs Need to Eat

Just like you, dogs need certain basic nutrients to survive, much less thrive. Those nutrients include proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals. This section explains why they’re necessary and how your dog can obtain them.

Much more info about dog food and nutrition is in Dog Health and Nutrition by M. Christine Zink (Wiley). For up-to-date information, consider subscribing to the Whole Dog Journal (www.whole-dog-journal.com), which ranks commercial foods every year and accepts no advertising.

Proteins

Proteins enable the body to convert food into energy. They also promote healthy growth and cell repair and affect both metabolism and nervous system function. Commercial dog foods contain several types of protein:

• Meat protein: From animal organs or muscles
• Animal protein: From any other part of the animal that contains protein, such as hooves and hair
• Grain protein: From exactly where the name says it’s from Not all proteins are created equal. A dog can digest meat or animal proteins more easily than she can digest grain proteins. The more digestible the protein, the better it is for the dog.

Tip

One clear indicator of dog food’s digestibility is the size of the dog’s stools. Small stools mean more food has been digested, and larger stools (from the same size of dog) indicate that less food has been digested. Consequently, a dog who eats food that’s high in meat-based protein will probably have smaller, more compact poop than the dog of the same size whose food is composed of more grain.

Proteins are made up of amino acids, ten of which a dog has to get through diet. If proteins don’t contain all ten essential amino acids, those proteins are considered incomplete.

Tip

Meat protein sources are more likely to be complete, so at the very least, you should choose high-quality foods that are lower in grain-based proteins and higher in meat-based proteins. The list of ingredients on a dog food package label shows which ingredients predominate and the percentage of each ingredient in the food.

The amount of protein a dog needs varies throughout a dog’s life. For example, puppies need more protein than adult dogs do, because puppies are still growing and need extra energy. Protein requirements also vary between dogs with different activity levels. A Border Collie who spends her days herding livestock needs more protein in her diet than a Bulldog whose fastest pace is likely to be a leisurely amble.

Fats

Fats are essential to maintaining healthy hair and skin. They also help keep a dog’s body temperature stable and promote healthy digestion. And because they contain more calories than protein, fats are sources of energy. Of course, too much fat in a diet — particularly when coupled with a lack of exercise — leads to extra poundage on both pooches and people. Fats are in many foods and in supplements such as fatty acid capsules.

What dogs may not need: Carbohydrates

In discussing dogs’ dietary needs, I don’t mention an element that’s common in doggie diets: carbohydrates. I have a reason for that: It’s not at all clear that dogs need them — and in fact, at least some dogs are better off without them. Carbs are just another source of energy. Plants use light to create carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water. Most carbs in dog foods come from grains such as corn and wheat. They may also come from legumes, particularly soybeans. But those grains can cause problems for some dogs in the form of food allergies and learning problems, and they may cause others to put on too much weight. For those reasons, bagging carbs completely in favor of diets based solely on meats, veggies, and fruits may be an option worth considering. For more information, talk to your vet.

Vitamins and minerals

Vitamins and minerals enable the body to properly process proteins and fats (as well as carbohydrates; see the nearby sidebar for more on this topic). They also help sustain a dog’s immune system, maintain coat quality, and prevent disorders ranging from bone problems to behavioral difficulties.

Vitamins and minerals may be incorporated into a commercial food or dispensed as a supplement in the form of pills or caplets. To be fully effective, vitamins and minerals must be balanced properly. For example, calcium supplements aren’t fully effective unless they’re combined with magnesium.

Determining the Diet That’s Best for Your Dog

Your dog food choices depend mainly on your dog: her preferences, her age, and her lifestyle. For example, you may go for a higher protein food if your canine companion is a growing puppy and/or is very active. Foods that are lower in protein content may be better for adult dogs, particularly if they spend most of their time being couch potatoes. And if your dog doesn’t like the brand you’re currently feeding her, trying another makes sense. No food, no matter how nutritious it is, will do your dog much good if she refuses to eat it.

Remember

The fact that your dog likes her food isn’t enough. It also needs to be good for her. Here are some questions to ask to help you evaluate whether the food your pooch likes is good for her, too:

• Is her poop firm and compact, or is it loose, bulky, and stinky? If the latter is the case, your four-legged friend may be having trouble digesting the food. Consider switching to a higher quality food: one that lists a meat protein as the first ingredient and has a lower grain content, if any.
• Is her skin dry and flaky? If so, her food may lack fatty acids. Consider switching to a food that has a higher fat content or consulting your vet about getting a fatty acid supplement.
• Is your home-alone dog acting jittery? Does she seem spazzed? The protein content in her food may be too high. Consider switching her to a lower-protein product.
• Is your pooch porking out? Look for a higher protein, lower fat food. Pudgy pups (and adult dogs) are at greater risk for developing health problems than their slimmer canine brethren are.

Warning!

Make sure that any switches from one dog food to another are very gradual. A dog who’s switched suddenly from one food to another is very likely to acquire an upset stomach. As you experiment to find a dog food that your canine companion likes, switch foods gradually. Prevent upsets by mixing progressively larger amounts of the new food with the old over a period of several days.

In the following subsections, I discuss some of your feeding choices, including commercial, home-cooked, and raw foods.

Considering commercial dog foods

Years ago, dogs ate whatever people didn’t feel like eating: table scraps, unwanted leftovers, and stuff otherwise destined for the garbage can. Many dogs also procured their own protein sources by killing animals such as barnyard rodents or rabbits who strayed into the fields where the dogs liked to roam. But just as life on the farm became a thing of the past for many people and their pooches, interest in breeding prize-winning dogs burgeoned. So at the same time that dogs could no longer scrounge up their own grub, their increasingly busy owners began demanding better fare than those table scraps, leftovers, and killed vermin for their canine companions.

Enter the livestock feed industry, which began to expand its market beyond cattle, hog, and poultry producers to also include dog owners. The industry developed different combinations grains and meat products into dog foods that were convenient to buy and easy to prepare. As time passed and nutritional knowledge accumulated, the quality of some manufactured foods improved. This section discusses dry and canned commercial foods as well as some special diets.

Forms of commercial dog food

Today’s dog owner has a huge variety of commercial foods from which to choose for her dog, but commercial dog foods are generally dry or canned. Table 4-1 shows how they compare.

Table 4-1	Comparing Dry and Canned Food
Category	Dry Food (Kibble)	Canned Food
Spoilage time	Can last for weeks if kept in an airtight container	After you open the can, you have to keep it in the fridge and use it up within 7 days
Dental effects	Can keep your dog’s teeth clean	May cling to teeth
Nutritional value	If properly formulated, can be a viable option; sometimes contains too many carbs and not nearly enough proteins from meat	More likely to have higher content from meat and less from grain
Cost	Relatively inexpensive	More expensive because of shipping costs
Dog enjoyment	Dogs don’t always enjoy total kibble diets and may find such regimens too dull	The moisture and aroma are generally more pleasing to pooch palates than dry food
Effects on poop	Poop is compact, dry, and easy to clean up	Poop is bigger and wetter than that of dogs who stick to kibble

Pet food manufacturers have also come up with all kinds of other options for feeding your four-legged friends, including freeze-dried foods; semi-moist foods that come in tubes (and make great treats); and base-type foods that, when mixed with meat, provide a complete meal.

Specially formulated diets

Although the same types of ingredients appear in virtually every commercial dog food, the amounts of each vary. Many of these variances are deliberate. Pet food manufacturers combine these ingredients in different ways to create foods designed to address a wide range of conditions and life stages. These special diets include the following:

• Life cycle diets: These dog foods are based on the premise that a dog’s age affects what her nutritional requirements are. Life cycle diets often include food for young puppies, older puppies, adult dogs, and senior dogs. They’ve been a staple of the industry for many years.
• Activity diets: More recently, manufacturers have developed higher-protein pet foods designed for certain high-energy canine activities. The canine candidates for these specialized foods include dogs who are extremely active, dogs who are involved in performance activities such as showing and agility, and female dogs who are pregnant or nursing puppies.
• Condition diets: Several pet food companies have developed a wide range of dog foods designed to aid in the treatment of a dizzying array of conditions. For example, one company has developed a food that’s been proven to help extend the lives of dogs who have cancer, and other companies are finding that high-carbohydrate, lower-protein diets may be a potent weapon in combating these dreaded diseases.

Meanwhile, several companies have developed product lines that aim to help pooches with food allergies. Such diets frequently eliminate corn, soybeans, or wheat from their foods, because some dogs are allergic to these ingredients. These foods may substitute lamb or chicken or really exotic proteins (would you believe bison or kangaroo?) for beef and also include novel carbohydrates such as potatoes or yams.

Other diets aim to aid in the treatment of conditions that range from accident recovery to weight management.

Making home-prepped dog foods

Giving your dog home-prepped foods may take more work, but you have more control over what goes into your dog’s diet. In this section, I discuss cooking meals for your dog and following the BARF diet, which is the cornerstone of the raw-foods movement.

Fixing your dog home-cooked meals

Sooner or later, no matter how committed you are to giving your dog commercial food, you’re probably going to have to fix a doggie dinner yourself. A common reason to give your dog a homemade meal is that your four-legged friend has a bout of diarrhea (and diarrhea is pretty common among dogs, so this possibility is more than likely). Among the remedies your veterinarian probably will suggest is to put your dog on a bland diet. This regimen consists of gentle, easy-to-digest foods, such as ground beef and rice, that are guaranteed to soothe your pooch’s tender tummy and put him well along on the road to recovery.

Tip

Owners can go further than just creating bland diets when a dog feels unwell. You may want to give your pooch home-cooked fare for a larger portion of his total food intake. Start with these titles: The Natural Pet Food Cookbook: Healthful Recipes for Dogs and Cats, by Wendy Nan Rees and Kevin Schlanger (Wiley), and Holistic Guide for a Healthy Dog, by Wendy Volhard and Kerry Brown, DVM (Wiley).

Going raw with the BARF diet

If you decide to find out more about canine feeding options, you’ll probably come across the BARF diet. Rest assured that this food plan won’t induce bulimia in your dog or anyone else. BARF is an acronym for biologically appropriate raw food, and it’s just what it sounds like: a food plan in which you feed raw bones, raw meat, and fresh vegetables to your canine companion.

Dog owners who favor going raw contend the following:

• A doggie menu based entirely on uncooked meats, vegetables, and bones most closely approximates what wild animals eat. Such a diet may allow dogs to live longer, healthier lives.
• Dogs who eat raw food have cleaner teeth and glossier coats.
• The BARF diet can bring an end to food allergies and ear infections. (My own dog has enjoyed a near-total absence of ear infections since I began to BARF her four years ago.)
• Dogs who’ve gone raw produce stools that are smaller, firmer, and easier to pick up than is the case with dogs fed with conventional fare — a great benefit when you’re housetraining!

Many breeders, dog show enthusiasts, and owners of performance dogs enthusiastically endorse the BARF diet, as do many veterinarians who practice alternative veterinary medicine.

Giving dogs dietary supplements

You may take a multivitamin every day. If such supplements help you, wouldn’t your dog benefit from the same? Well, maybe. The answer depends on your dog and how you choose to feed her. For example, if you fix your dog’s food yourself, you may need to add supplements such as extra vitamins or fatty acids to ensure that she gets the proper balance of nutrients. On the other hand, devotees of commercial food may not need to add anything to the food at all. However, even canine consumers of commercial food need some supplements if they’ve been dealing with certain health conditions. For example, your vet may prescribe fatty acid supplements if your dog’s coat and skin are excessively dry. The bottom line on the supplements question is that the answer depends on your individual dog. Consider her needs carefully — preferably with the help of your veterinarian.

Warning!

More-traditional vets, along with pet food manufacturers, don’t agree with BARF enthusiasts. They worry that raw bones can cause internal injuries or choking and note that any use of raw food ups the odds of contracting Salmonella or other bacterial poisoning — either by the dog or by the person handling the food. Others have found that some dogs who eat raw food develop chronic diarrhea or vomiting.

Tip

One formerly formidable argument against the BARF diet — that it’s time-consuming and inconvenient to prepare — has pretty much evaporated. That’s because several companies now prepare and sell raw food for dogs and cats. Among these companies are Aunt Jeni’s Home Made (www.auntjeni.com), Bravo! (www.bravorawdiet.com), and Oma’s Pride (www.omaspride.com). These products are hitting more and more pet food specialty stores, but if your local outlet doesn’t carry them, check the companies’ Web sites to find distributors; I purchase my Allie’s raw food through a cooperative that’s run by a local dog trainer who doubles as a distributor. Failing that, you may be able to get the products of your choice shipped directly to your door.

Feeding a raw diet is not for every dog or for every owner. If the idea of handling raw food makes your stomach queasy, bag the idea of BARFing and don’t feel guilty about it. And if your dog has a compromised immune system or a lot of chronic illnesses, a BARF diet probably is not a good choice.

Before you make your decision about BARFing your dog, consult some expert sources. A fine book to start with is The Holistic Dog Book: Canine Care for the 21st Century, by Denise Flaim (Howell Book House).

Doggie dining preferences

My late Sheltie, Cory, made it clear to my family that he didn’t like to eat by himself. He was a semi-social diner; he liked knowing that I was nearby while he ate his breakfast or dinner in the family kitchen. If I left any of the rooms that adjoin the kitchen, he’d stop eating and come look for me. To ease his apparent worries, I learned to stick around while Cory ate. By contrast, my current canine companion, Allie, doesn’t care whether I’m around or not, as long as the food is there. She comes looking for me after her meal so she can get her after-meal chewie. Cory also seemed to prefer that his dining experiences not be overly stimulating. Any household activity that diverted or excited him, such as taking the trash outside (he apparently believed it was his job to escort the trash-taker to the front door), would prompt him to stop eating — at least until the excitement abated. My husband, daughter, and I learned to cater to Cory’s dining whims. That seemed only fair. After all, we made it clear that we expected him to respect our dining preferences. For example, we taught him that it’s not nice to stare at human diners, no matter how much he may have wanted one of those diners to drop him a morsel or two.

Serving Your Dog

The way you serve your dog can affect his digestion (and thus, what he produces) almost as much as what you serve him does. This section covers the where, when, and how of feeding your dog, plus it includes some dishing about dishes.

Picking the place to feed your dog

Choosing where to feed your dog depends mostly on what works for you. The most convenient canine dining room is one that’s located close to where you prepare meals, if not actually in the same place. In most households, that place is the kitchen, which has a couple of advantages:

• For you, the big plus is that the kitchen is usually the room that’s easiest to clean: a big consideration if, like many dogs, your four-legged friend doesn’t eat all that neatly.
• For your dog, the big plus to kitchen dining is that the rest of the household usually congregates there. That means a lot to a social animal like your canine companion, who’s happiest when she’s hanging out with the other members of her pack.

Remember

Dogs don’t like eating anywhere near their bathrooms. If you’re training your dog to potty indoors, don’t feed her in the same place she does her business. Place her dishes at least a few feet away from the indoor potty.

You can also feed your dog in her crate — in fact, doing so can help your dog learn her basic bathroom manners more quickly. That’s because crate-based dining gives your four-legged friend another reason to like this makeshift doggie den. In addition, eating in the crate helps a pooch learn to refrain from pooping or peeing as soon she’s finished a meal. The reason, of course, is that she doesn’t want to soil her den. Many plastic crates include small dishes that you can attach to the inside doors.

Setting the canine dining ambience

What sort of dining atmosphere do you prefer? Do you like a noisy, hectic, Grand-Central-Station eating experience? Or do you prefer a quieter, more low-key dining environment? Do you like eating with a crowd? With one or two other people? Alone? Of course, those questions don’t have any one correct answer. Every response simply reflects the responder’s personal preference. And that’s exactly the point. You may have definite ideas about the ideal dining experience — and your dog may, too (see the nearby sidebar “Doggie dining preferences” for some examples).

Tip

Although dogs may have individual ideas about how they like to dine, a few canine dining concepts apply to all pooches. Here are some ideas on how to make mealtime a good time for any dog:

• Minimize stress. Dogs who are stressed out while eating are more likely to have upset stomachs than those whose meal-times are relatively tranquil. A pooch with a troubled tummy may get gassy or even vomit after his meal.
• Separate siblings. If yours is a multi-dog household, feed each canine pack member separately — in different locations and/or at different times. That way, neither dog will feel the need to scarf down his food in order to keep the other pooch from grabbing his grub.
• Let him linger — a little. Your dog deserves a chance to savor his breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Give him at least 15 minutes to finish his meal. However, giving your dog an unlimited amount of time to eat is not a good idea. Doing so can wreak havoc with potty routines and thus defeat the purpose of setting up a feeding schedule. If your dog hasn’t finished his meal in 30 minutes, toss it.
• Wash those dishes. No one, including your dog, likes to eat fresh food off dirty dishes. Be sure to wash your dog’s food dishes after every meal, either by hand or in the dishwasher. Water dishes need daily washing, too.

I truly believe that decoding a dog’s dining desires can make for better bathroom behavior. A dog who’s happy with his dining environment will eat more regularly — and a dog who eats more regularly will probably eliminate more regularly than a dog who’s too distracted to attend to what’s in her dish. Any way you look at it, what goes in eventually comes out — but what doesn’t go in ultimately goes nowhere except to the garbage disposal.

Selecting your dog’s dinnerware

No discussion of how to feed a dog is complete without a little dishing about dishes. They come in a wide range of sizes and shapes. Your best bet is to choose the one that best fits your dog’s size, age, and appetite:

• A short-faced breed, like a Pug, does well with a wide, shallow bowl.
• A long-eared dog, such as a Cocker Spaniel, fares better with a narrow, deep bowl.
• Puppies may find eating easier with a flying saucer–shaped bowl that has a raised center; such a bowl keeps food where they can reach it. That kind of bowl can also help dogs who otherwise tend to inhale their food to slow down and really enjoy it.

Next, consider the material. Experts give a unanimous thumbs-up to stainless steel dishes because they’re easy to clean and can’t be demolished by a teething puppy.

Ceramic dishes are easy to clean and impervious to chewing. They also have the added advantage of weight, which keeps them from being knocked over.

Warning!

Imported ceramic bowls — especially those that come from Central America — may contain lead, which can be toxic to dogs as well as to people. A prudent owner sticks with ceramic dishes manufactured in the United States.

Plastic dishes are convenient, cheap, and easy to clean but may cause some dogs to lose their nose pigment. In addition, plastic dishes aren’t as durable as stainless steel or ceramic.

Deciding when to feed your dog

By making Fido’s mealtimes predictable, you go a long way toward making his potty times equally predictable. You want your dog to do his bathroom business at regular, predictable intervals, which is why putting your canine housetrainee on a regular potty schedule — at least until Fido masters his bathroom basics — is a good idea. To be fully effective, that potty schedule needs to cover feeding times, because most pooches want to potty soon after they eat.

Why not free feed?

A generation ago, many people simply scooped a couple of piles of kibble into their dogs’ dishes and left those dishes out all day for Fido to feast on whenever his stomach growled. Some people still do that in a practice experts call free feeding.

Without a doubt, free feeding is a far more convenient way to give your dog his grub than remembering to feed Fido at the same times every day. However, free feeding carries three major disadvantages, at least two of which directly affect a dog’s bathroom behavior:

• Lack of predictability: If food is always available to your dog, you may have a tough time determining when he actually chows down. Without such knowledge, you can’t really anticipate when he’s likely to poop or pee. Consequently, the dog who eats whenever he wants may have more trouble learning his bathroom basics than the dog whose mealtimes are scheduled.
• Lack of regularity: Determining how much food a dog has eaten at any one time is tough if he has 24/7 access to that food. That means you won’t realize as quickly whether your dog is eating his usual fill. That lack of knowledge may keep you from spotting potential health problems.
• Too much autonomy: By letting your pooch have unfettered access to food, you’re foregoing important opportunities to reinforce your status as the leader. Every time your dog sees you prepare and serve him his food, he realizes that you are the Giver of All Good Things. That realization strengthens the bond you share and encourages his desire to please you, both of which help you teach him the lessons he needs to learn — including housetraining.

Setting a schedule for every dog

Frequent meals will help keep your dog in the best of health — especially if he’s a young puppy. A juvenile canine needs to eat more often than an adult dog does, but even an adult dog may need to dine more often than you may suspect. Here are some various feeding schedules:

• Puppies under 4 months: The little ones should get at least three meals a day: morning, midday, and early evening. Make water available at mealtimes, plus for a little while after dinner. Take up the water no later than two hours before bedtime, though, or your pup will need a middle-of-the-night potty break.
• Puppies from 4 months to 1 year: These puppies can cut back to two meals per day: one in the morning and one in the evening. And if they’ve mastered Housetraining 101, they can get start getting unlimited water.
• Adult dogs: Adults do best with two meals a day plus unlimited water. Although many grown-up pooches do get by with just one big dinner each day, a twice-daily meal plan can help forestall a boatload of problems. For example, dogs, like people, tend to get sleepy after they eat — which means that the dog who gets a good breakfast in the morning is more likely to nap than to trash the house if his human companion is gone all day. And a good dinner will help him sleep more comfortably through the night.

The morning-and-evening regimen can also help prevent physical problems. Some, such as flatulence, usually aren’t serious. But one deadly condition, bloat, can result if a dog scarfs down a very large meal. Large dogs are more likely to be stricken with bloat (also known as gastric tortion) than smaller breeds are. For more on bloat, see Chapter Understanding How an Oh-No Can Become a Problem-o.

Before or after the humans eat?

Some people find that feeding Fido before they eat works well. They find that a dog with a full tummy is less likely to try scoring table scraps from the human family members while they eat.

Still others favor simultaneous dining: Letting the dog eat at the same time that his people do. One undeniable advantage to this option is that the dog is too busy eating her own food to worry about eating yours, at least for the first few minutes of your meal. However, the logistics of preparing human and canine cuisine at the same time can prove to be a challenge to people like me, whose multitasking ability is somewhat limited!

And some people suggest feeding your dog after the people in the house have their meals. They believe that making a dog wait for her meals underscores the fact that people outrank the pooches in the family pack. They also point out that among wolves observed in captivity, the alpha wolf generally eats before the rest of the pack does. Consequently, feed-the-dog-last advocates believe that alpha people should follow suit when feeding their canine pack members.

I don’t advocate any one of these three dining options over the others. The right answer varies with each dog and each family. I generally feed my dog, Allie, before the rest of my family eats — not because she begs for table goodies (we don’t permit such behavior in our house) but because the humans in our house tend to dine late. For that reason, I give my Golden girl her grub around 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.

To Treat or Not to Treat

Dogs love to snack and eat treats just as much as people do — but the question of whether to give a pooch any treats in housetraining can be difficult to answer. Certainly, you can make a good case for using treats to train your dog. They’re a great learning incentive; I use them liberally when training my own dog and working with other people’s pooches. You can use a treat to actually lure a dog into sitting or lying down on command (see Figure 4-1). A treat makes a great reward for the dog who’s learning to come on command and can spark your dog’s learning process in countless other ways.

Technical Stuff

A whole segment of expert dog trainers uses treats as the foundation of their training philosophy, known in most circles as positive reinforcement. Proponents of positive reinforcement rely on treats and other rewards (such as a toy and/or lavish praise) to help a dog understand what a person wants the animal to do.

Tip

Many trainers and other experts — myself included — swear by treats as an unbeatable training tool. Treats are a gentle (not to mention tasty) way to jump-start a dog’s desire to learn. Just follow these guidelines to ensure that your dog’s other lessons don’t interfere with his lessons on proper potty protocol:

• Teach just before mealtimes. Give your dog his lessons in sitting, lying down, and other maneuvers just before he eats. A hungry dog has more incentive to learn than a dog whose tummy is full. And by giving him those treats just before mealtime, you probably won’t have to get him to his potty immediately after his lesson. You can just feed him and bring him to his bathroom after the meal.

Figure 4-1: Treats can be a great teaching tool.

• Keep treats teensy. A housetrainee needs just a taste of his favorite treat to know when he’s doing the right thing. The smaller the treat, the less chance that he’ll pork out or get a digestive upset.
• Adjust the main course. Many treats — especially the commercial variety — are incredibly fattening. If you’re giving your housetrainee commercial goodies during his housetraining and other lessons, you need to reduce the portions you put in his dish at mealtimes. Otherwise, your pooch will pork out quickly.
• Easy does it. If you’re using treats for training, limit giving your dog extra goodies at other times — no matter how much he may beg for them.

In this section, I name some treats that may be appropriate for your dog, including some low-calorie options.

Buying commercial treats

People who decide to add treats to a dog’s diet find an incredible assortment of goodies to choose from. Regular supermarket aisles, pet boutique floor space, print catalog pages, and online pet store bandwidth are clogged with culinary offerings designed to please the most discriminating canine palate. Here are some of the more common types of commercial treats:

• Biscuits and cookies: From the been-around-forever offerings of Del Monte’s Milk-Bones to the gourmet fare of Three Dog Bakery, biscuits and cookies jump-start the appetites of countless canines. The fact that most dogs love scarfing down biscuits and cookies gives these products a big advantage. Another is that their small sizes make them easy for dogs to chew and digest. In addition, their crunchy textures provide good chewing exercise for dogs and can even help clean a canine’s canines (as well as her other teeth).

The downside? Many biscuits and cookies are loaded with calories. In addition, some treats can upset the nutritional balance that commercial dog foods offers.

Tip

If you’re worried about upsetting the nutritional balance offered by your dog’s commercial food, try a treat that carries the same product name as the main food product. Science Diet (by Hills) and California Natural (by Innova) are just two product lines that include treats designed to dovetail with their regular dog foods.

• Chew treats: Most dogs adore chomping on chew treats made of rawhide, pigs’ ears, cows’ hooves, and other animal parts.

Warning!

Some dogs may adore chew treats a little too much. These chewing maniacs may gnaw off and swallow big chunks of such treats, and those chunks can cause internal injuries. For that reason, don’t feed chew treats unless you can directly supervise your dog. If she has a sensitive stomach, don’t offer them at all.

Tip

Hot dog! A quick and easy treat

Want to make a fast, can’t-miss treat for your dog? Get some hot dogs, slice them up thin, and cook them in your microwave until they’re as crisp as bacon. Afterward, drain the slices on some paper towels. Feed these to even the pickiest pooch, and he’ll worship the ground you walk on — plus learn his doggie lessons faster than you dreamed possible. A treat this tasty can give your dog the incentive to pick up just about anything more quickly, including proper potty protocol. Do feed these nuked goodies sparingly, though — although hot dogs are delicious, they’re not the most nutritious foods for humans or canines.

Preparing homemade treats

If you enjoy making treats for yourself and the other people in your household, you may also enjoy making treats for your canine family member. Homemade treats offer several advantages over commercial fare, the biggest being that you have much more control. When you make treats yourself, you know which ingredients (and how much of each) go into the treat — an important consideration if, for example, your canine companion suffers from food allergies. You can also control the size of the treat so that it’s just right for your particular dog.

Tip

Like the idea of giving your dog homemade goodies but don’t know where to begin? Type “dog treat recipes” into an Internet search engine and dig out thousands of sites that contain recipes to try on your four-legged friend. One caution, though: Most of these sites don’t include any nutritional analysis — so feed sparingly, no matter how much your dog loves the results of your efforts. If you’re not computer inclined, your public library undoubtedly has plenty of books on dog treats for you to peruse. Or if you want a treat recipe book of your very own, check out Liz Palika’s excellent tome, The Ultimate Dog Treat Cookbook (Wiley).

Warning!

Never give your dog anything that contains chocolate. Although most dogs like it (at least the smell!), chocolate contains an ingredient that’s toxic to them. Even a small amount can put your dog in dire distress and even kill him.

Choosing low-calorie treat options

Yes, you can give your dog treats without necessarily causing him to put on excess poundage. Here are some possibilities:

• Fruits and vegetables: Many dogs adore raw or frozen fruits and vegetables, and because they’re so low in calories, they make a terrific treat for the plumper pooch. Good veggies to try are carrots, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and green beans. For fruits, consider apples.

Tip

Make sure that you offer small pieces of veggies and fruits so your four-legged friend can digest those greens and yellows easily. And be aware that vegetables contain fiber, which acts as a laxative. If you give your pooch too many veggies, he’ll need to poop a lot more often.

Warning!

Don’t feed your dog grapes, raisins, or onions. They contain compounds that are toxic to dogs in sufficient quantities. Besides, who wants a dog with onion breath?

• Rice cakes: They may seem utterly devoid of taste to you, me, and other human gourmands — but believe me, I have seen otherwise discriminating dogs go nuts over the prospect of getting a piece of rice cake. One Dachshund of my acquaintance started barking madly for hers as soon as she saw one of her people getting the package out from the kitchen cabinet.
• Low-cal commercial treats. Some pet food manufacturers offer low-calorie versions of their usual dog treats. Try giving some to your dog if he doesn’t go for the veggies or rice cakes.

The truth about table scraps

You see the warnings in just about every dog care book on the shelves. “Do not feed your dog table scraps!” they screech. Their reasons are virtuous and worthy: Rich, spicy food from the table gives your dog indigestion — and everyone knows what the results of that will be! If you give your dog scraps from the table, you’ll be encouraging him to adopt the obnoxious habit of begging. And no matter how you present those scraps, you’ll upset the nutritional balance of his carefully formulated dog food. Good reasons, all. There’s just one problem: Almost everyone I know gives their canine companion food from the table at one time or another. Holidays are one example. Even a pooch who’s never eaten anything but dry food for dinner will turn those big-guilt-inducing eyes on her people when they sit down to an elaborate feast. Instead of sticking with the no-table-scraps prohibition that everyone ignores, here are a few guidelines for giving your dog an occasional people-food treat: Don’t feed from the table. The experts are right on this one; feeding anything from the table encourages your dog to beg. I don’t like being stared at while I eat, and you probably don’t, either. Don’t let the habit start in the first place. Instead, put the goodies directly into your dog’s dish. Don’t give real garbage. You wouldn’t feed yourself the germ-ridden food thrown into the garbage, would you? Well, your dog shouldn’t get that food, either. Nix fats and spices. Foods laden with fats and spices upset your dog’s stomach. Few events put more of a damper on a holiday dinner than having to clean up the results of that tummy upset, especially if that upset occurs near the dinner table. Even worse, fatty foods can induce inflammation of the pancreas — in vetspeak, pancreatitis — which can be a life-threatening disease. Excess salt can encourage drinking and extra potty breaks. So which table scraps are okay? If you’re sharing Thanksgiving dinner with your dog, you can safely give him a little bit of the turkey white meat (the dark meat is too fatty). Veggies please many canine palates, too; just go easy on them, or your dog will poop more than usual.

Working with Your Dog’s Drinking Habits

Dogs need water for the same reasons that people do: to regulate their body temperature, to shuttle nutrients via the bloodstream from the digestive system to anywhere else the body needs them, and to transport waste products in the form of urine outside the body via urination. But although all dogs need water for the same reasons, the amount of water they need varies from pooch to pooch. Dogs who are very active and/or eat a lot of food — especially dry food — need to drink more water than more sedentary canines, those who eat less, and/or those whose diets include some canned or moist fare.

Healthy, housetrained dogs can regulate their water intake all by themselves. They drink when they’re thirsty and don’t drink when they’re not. Meeting the water needs of these dogs is simple: Keep water available at all times.

Remember

Keeping water available does not mean just topping the water off throughout the day or week. A dog needs totally fresh water in a dish that you wash at least once a day. Change the water itself at least once a day or anytime you see stuff — for example, little bits of food residue — floating in the water.

That said, 24/7 access to water can pose a problem for the canine housetrainee. To anticipate when your dog may need to let some water out — in other words, to pee — you need to have some idea of when he took that water in. The best way to acquire that knowledge is to control his access to the water bowl. Make no mistake: The dog who’s just learning basic bathroom manners needs frequent opportunities to drink. But you need to know when he takes advantage of those opportunities — and the best way to gain that knowledge is to give him a full dish of clean water several times a day — at the very least, at the same time as every meal — at the same times each and every day.

Warning!

If your dog suddenly starts drinking more water than usual — and consequently starts peeing more often than usual — he may well be sick. Chapter Understanding How an Oh-No Can Become a Problem-o outlines some of the maladies that increased water intake may signify and what you can do about them.

Tip

Just as distilled or filtered water can improve a human being’s health, so can it do good things for the health of a dog. A prime potential benefit: preventing the formation of certain types of bladder stones, which can be life-threatening if left untreated. Distilled or filtered water doesn’t contain any of the minerals that cause stones to form.

by Susan McCullough