What goes in must come out!
Our guest blogger, health, fitness and nutrition professional, photographer, writer and lover of dogs, Natalie Coleman (The life of Max & Purdey), talks to Wilsons Pet Food about the secrets hidden in our dogs poo!
Admit it, we have all done it - we've gone for a beautiful afternoon stroll with your dog, revelling in the sunshine and smiling as your canine friend(s) frolic in the woods when all of a sudden… ”EW” and “oh my word it STINKS”.
Yep... doggie doo deep in the tread of your shoe!
You try your hardest to deploy the stick tactic, carefully removing chunks of the unsavoury but you don’t quite manage to get it all out, the shoe tread is deep and that doo-doo is darn good at sneaking its way into the crevices.
Why have we painted this glorious picture?
Because really when your dog does his doo-doo there is no need for it to be of the unsavoury variety. There are many, many dogs out there (we can pride ourselves by saying that Max and Purdey are among them) who may drop a large sized number 2 but, they are firm, not sloppy and best of all, they don’t give off that nasty niff. Admittedly you still wouldn’t relish stepping in one of these but at least you wouldn’t be carrying that unsavoury niff around with you for the remainder of your glorious afternoon walk in the sunshine.
So why do some dog's doo's smell worse than others?
There are of course many contributing factors but fundamentally it is down to diet. The simple equation of whatever goes in, the body uses as best it can, stripping out the nutrients and feeding it to the various organs/muscles, and what it can’t use it sends out the other end. I mean, have you ever noticed if you eat ‘junk’ food, the effect it has on your body? You may feel more lethargic, your stomach may make stranger noises and be more ‘active’ than normal, resulting in things coming out the other end slightly different than usual.
Well this is exactly the same for our dogs too; they are essentially just the same as us in this respect. Our bodies can only use good nutrients, all the bad ingredients that have no benefits for the muscles/organs the body, will simply reject (out the other end) and generally those bad ingredients come out smelling, well, shall we say NOT like roses! If we eat healthily, we perform better - we look better and we feel better too, and this is just the same for our canine friends. An elite athlete wouldn’t eat ‘junk’ food everyday yet still expect to perform as well, so why do we expect our dogs to run about like athletes when they are being fed ‘junk’?
The long and short of this blog post is… YOU ARE what you eat… and YOUR DOG is what it eats too. Max and Purdey are always receiving comments about their healthy-looking condition and their wonderfully shiny coats and I always give the same response; “it’s because they eat very healthily. Actually, I think my dogs eat healthier than me!” So just stop and have a think; do you enjoy picking up a stinky dog poo or would you rather it be almost aroma free? If the answer to that question is that you would rather be almost aroma free, then maybe is it worth spending that little bit extra so that your dog’s food is of a higher quality.
Natalie, Max and Purdey @thelifeofmax_and_purdey
@thelifeofmax_and_purdey reviewed Wilsons Cold Pressed Dog Food last year;
"I eat RAW, but need easy ‘go-to’ dry food that compliments my diet. Our search has been thorough, but Wilsons Pet Food may have just gone and done it with these COLD PRESSED ones."