Heart Disease In Your Dog - Prevent And Treat It Naturally (Part 2 of 2)
When it comes to keeping your dog's heart healthy, love is not enough.
Protect your best friend's heart with these inexpensive foods and easy to find nutrients.
There's particular vitamins and other micronutrients that are your allies in treating your dogs heart problems.
Of all the vitamins your dog needs to be heart healthy, the Vitamin B group is worth a special mention.
If you're feeding your dog a natural diet you'll most probably be covering all his needs.
There are 3 of the B complex family that dogs with heart problems need.
Vitamin B1 Also known as thiamine is an essential vitamin for any dog with heart problems.
If you've been giving your dog a lot of raw fish, I'd recommend you either cut it out completely or cut way back.
Raw fish prevents your dog digesting and absorbing any thiamine she's getting in her diet.
Vitamin B6 Goes by the name of pyridoxine and it boosts your dog's overall immunity and levels of red blood cells.
Vitamin B12 Cyanocobalamin is its other name.
It plays an important part in more than making your dog's heart healthy.
It works with Vitamin B1 (folate) to build healthy cells, keeps the nervous system humming along happily, and keeps your pooch's energy levels up - often a problem with heart disease.
Giant Schnauzers and Border Collies are breeds that tend to a deficiency in Vitamin B12 If you want to supplement your dog's diet with Vitamin B you don't have to buy each of these individually.
You'll find all sorts of combinations of Vitamin B complex, which can be an easier and cheaper way of getting these supplements into your dog's diet.
My preference is to add whole, fresh foods rich in these vitamins like offal, poultry, lean meat, eggs, yoghurt, nut or seed meal (especially flax seed meal), veggies.
Magnesium protects your dog's heart in a variety of ways.
It helps keep the heart rhythm steady as well as keeping the blood vessels open so the blood pumps freely through the heart without blockages.
You can buy magnesium as a powder, but my preference is to use a more bioavailable form of magnesium - tissue salts.
The problem with magnesium is that if your dog isn't digesting well, it goes straight through and out the other end as diarrhea.
The tissue salt that provides magnesium is called Mag Phos.
You'll find it in any health food store.
Vitamin C and Biflavonoid containing compounds are made in the liver of a healthy dog, but for one with an ailing ticker, you might want to boost this nutrient by adding FRESH fruits and veg.
If you want to boost supplies further, calcium ascorbate is an inexpensive, effective supplement.
Be careful though, too much will cause diarrhea.
The simple guidelines to keeping your dog's heart healthy and the both of you happy are
If he's not up to walks, groom him, watch TV with him.
It will help not only his heart, but yours too :-)
Protect your best friend's heart with these inexpensive foods and easy to find nutrients.
There's particular vitamins and other micronutrients that are your allies in treating your dogs heart problems.
Of all the vitamins your dog needs to be heart healthy, the Vitamin B group is worth a special mention.
If you're feeding your dog a natural diet you'll most probably be covering all his needs.
There are 3 of the B complex family that dogs with heart problems need.
Vitamin B1 Also known as thiamine is an essential vitamin for any dog with heart problems.
If you've been giving your dog a lot of raw fish, I'd recommend you either cut it out completely or cut way back.
Raw fish prevents your dog digesting and absorbing any thiamine she's getting in her diet.
Vitamin B6 Goes by the name of pyridoxine and it boosts your dog's overall immunity and levels of red blood cells.
Vitamin B12 Cyanocobalamin is its other name.
It plays an important part in more than making your dog's heart healthy.
It works with Vitamin B1 (folate) to build healthy cells, keeps the nervous system humming along happily, and keeps your pooch's energy levels up - often a problem with heart disease.
Giant Schnauzers and Border Collies are breeds that tend to a deficiency in Vitamin B12 If you want to supplement your dog's diet with Vitamin B you don't have to buy each of these individually.
You'll find all sorts of combinations of Vitamin B complex, which can be an easier and cheaper way of getting these supplements into your dog's diet.
My preference is to add whole, fresh foods rich in these vitamins like offal, poultry, lean meat, eggs, yoghurt, nut or seed meal (especially flax seed meal), veggies.
Magnesium protects your dog's heart in a variety of ways.
It helps keep the heart rhythm steady as well as keeping the blood vessels open so the blood pumps freely through the heart without blockages.
You can buy magnesium as a powder, but my preference is to use a more bioavailable form of magnesium - tissue salts.
The problem with magnesium is that if your dog isn't digesting well, it goes straight through and out the other end as diarrhea.
The tissue salt that provides magnesium is called Mag Phos.
You'll find it in any health food store.
Vitamin C and Biflavonoid containing compounds are made in the liver of a healthy dog, but for one with an ailing ticker, you might want to boost this nutrient by adding FRESH fruits and veg.
If you want to boost supplies further, calcium ascorbate is an inexpensive, effective supplement.
Be careful though, too much will cause diarrhea.
The simple guidelines to keeping your dog's heart healthy and the both of you happy are
- feed fresh, natural food, organic where you can find it
- vary the foods you feed you dog, use seasonal fruit and veg
- serve the food a room temperature or slightly warmed because some nutrients are destroyed by heating.
- avoid feeding your dog dry food or kibble
- supplement where you need to
- if you're giving your dog veterinary medication, make sure the vetknows what supplements you're using
If he's not up to walks, groom him, watch TV with him.
It will help not only his heart, but yours too :-)
