Photo credit: Can Do Canines.

In the latest episode of Raising Your Paws podcast number 35, my guest, Alan Peters, the executive director  of the organization Can Do Canines, talked about how they train assist dogs to do highly specialized jobs in order to live with and improve the quality of life for people with disabilities. Wait until you hear about the skills these dogs know how to do. Wave a magnet over the neck of a woman so that her seizures stop? Cross the legs of a small boy who can’t move them himself? Yep, and there’s much more they can do. It puts my training of Rosy to jump up and stay on a platform to shame. And I still don’t even get a consistent “drop” from her – I’ve got to get serious after learning what dogs are really capable of doing.  Listen to the episode below. For hearing the segment about the assist dogs go directly to timestamp:  09:07

Anyway, the majority of how the “Can Do Canine” dogs  are trained to do such things like going to get the phone and bringing it to their person so that they can call for help when they fall or alerting their person with hearing loss that there is some important sound they need to know about, is accomplished through positive reinforcement training and using food treats as the reward.

Photo credit: Can Do Canines.

At NutriSource pet foods, they have been busy making a greater variety of  delicious and highly nutritional treats for both dogs and cats that are perfect for training your pet. Yes, you can train a cat.

Ok, not saying we’re going to train your kitty to do this.

Let me know in the comment section of this blog, if you’d like me to do a podcast segment about that topic- cat training.

One of the latest new treat products they are making is the tasty,  freeze dried treats for both cats and dogs that come in a wide selection of different meats.

Its always helpful to know exactly what ingredients are in a food and what the source of the good nutrition happens to be. Since there are a number of nutritional benefits to these treats besides being a really handy size and texture for training your dog to fetch the TV remote, let’s get to it.

Firstly, these treats are made with a single source protein. Only the one meat that is clearly indicated on the package. This is good because if there are some proteins your pet cannot eat or does not like, it’s isolated for you and you can choose another one. If Barney the beagle is so allergic to chicken he breaks out when just seeing a picture of one, no problem – there is venison or duck or turkey or beef or wild boar or Alaskan salmon as options. Is Caterina the cat, finicky about anything with beef in it? Perfect, try the minnow, ahi tuna, Alaskan salmon duck liver or turkey. 

Having a single meat, not a mixture of proteins also offers your pet a variety of distinct tastes. Its boring tasting the same thing over and over and over again, don’t you think?  It’s more fun and a pleasurable experience for your dog to savor a salmon treat one time and then your cat devour a duck tidbit the next. Hey, pets have a good amount of taste buds too!  Rosy, my dog has eaten the duck and the venison treats so far, and both were winners. We’ll try all the rest of the flavors soon.

A treat that combines a yummy taste and high quality meat is fabulous but lets not skip nutrition. These treats are made using a process  – they are flash frozen, and slowly freeze dried ( that was a mouthful) that preserves the ingredients nutritional integrity and thereby delivers optimal bio-availability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, whats that?  Bioavailability is the ease and effectiveness with which any nutrient makes its way from the food you or your pet eats into your or your pet’s body.  It’s a journey  every nutrient takes that involves first, being digested or broken apart so that the nutrient can be freed from the food that contained it.  Once the nutrient is released then the second part of its journey involves the absorption of the nutrient from the digestive tract into the rest of the body so that is it able to have an active effect.

When a nutrient is highly bioavailable, it can be digested and absorbed a high percentage of the time and in a dependable way.  Poor bioavailability means the digestion, absorption or both can be difficult and much less predictable. The ability of the body to effectively absorb and use all the possible nutrients from a food  is the corner stone of optimal nutritional bio-availability. And it follows to reason that foods with good bioavailability are the most desirable and these treats are!  A big yum to health!

Ask your local pet supply store for NutriSource/Pure Vita Freeze Dried treats.

And, learn more about them at our website: Click here for the dog treats. Click here for the cat treats.

Look at the ingredients in the treats. You will see they contain only the meat listed on the package and then in some of the treats, you will see the ingredient, mixed tocopherols. No mystery here. This is essentially a form of vitamin E and being mixed provides a combination of the different kinds of necessary tocopherols which are simply anti-oxidants that stabilize cell membranes. increase immunity, and reduce disease.

Happy and healthy training or snacking.

 Show Notes for Raising Your Paws podcast episode 35.

Title: How to Help Dogs Terrified by Thunder & Stories of Canines Whose Specialized Job Skills Save People’s Lives & the Best Way To Play With Your Cat.  

 Have you ever wondered why many dogs are afraid of thunderstorms? I explain what your dog hears compared to you, reveal the most important role you play during storms and then offer a few things you can do to help calm a petrified dog.    

Then, we’ll hear more stories from Alan Peters, the executive director of Can Do Canines, an organization in Minnesota that trains dogs to perform customized, one-of- a-kind skills that make all the difference in the lives of people with certain disabilities. In part two of our conversation (part one is in episode 34) you’ll hear about the astonishing things dogs do, such as helping a wheel bound boy move his legs, and saving a woman from the constant need to call an ambulance to stay alive.  

Did you know that how you play with your cat can have a big influence on its happiness and in preventing or remedying behavior issues? The secret is having a particular type of toy and then knowing the best way to move it so that it engages your cat’s natural hunting skills. I’ll explain how to activate this most important “prey sequence” so that you both reap the benefits

If you enjoy the podcast, please tell your friends about it. They can subscribe for free and the easiest way to do this is to go to the podcast website, raisingyourpaws.com.

 Resources for the Episode.

 Check out the website for more information on The Tellington TTouch – a method for calming your pets.

Can do Canines website.

Guest, Alan Peters, with his dog Sam.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source for the story on thunderstorms: The Secret Lives of Dogs by Jana Murphy and editors of Pets: Part of the family.

Source for the story on a cat’s prey sequence:  The Cat Whisperer by Mieshelle Nagelschneider.

 

English