Who is the Gourmet? You or Your Dog?Written by Renée Alexandrea
Thinking of cooking up a storm for your pooch? And that I assume you’re having difficulties in convincing your pooch eating his premium dog food.There are two issues here—Home-cooked meals verses commercial premium dog food. Whether or not one is better than other is a matter of preference—you not your dog. And whether or not your dog becomes a demanding “gourmet” is also depending on you; not your dog. In choosing varied “gourmet” diets for our dogs (diets which are quickly becoming expensive), we fall into an anthropomorphic fallacy—a tendency where human characteristics for animals. Dogs and all animals are creatures of habit. A pup raised on an ordinary feed (even he’s strictly on commercially packed food) will grow to like it, sometimes shunning rarer delicacies in favor of "the usual." Occasionally, your pooch may clamor for your steak while his own kibbles waits in his bowl, he’ll eventually go for his regular meal if other temptations don’t compete. Variety is not as crucial to him as it may seem to you. Dogs are not finicky eaters by nature. We inadvertently create this problem by substituting food for love. We think that every time our dog does something cute, we should give him a treat. After a while, our dog wants nothing but treats, especially if they come from our plate or refrigerator! If you feed your dog a variety of food in hopes that one will appeal to him, he will demand a greater and greater variety, and you will have created a finicky eater! Choose a high-quality food and stick to it. Do not feed table scraps or give in-between meal snacks to your dog. Some "gourmet" dog foods (and especially dog "treats") are designed to appeal more to human purchaser than animal consumer. Color-blind canines are indifferent to pastel hues that beckon buyer of dog candies. We pay extra for such gimmicks because we consciously or unconsciously equate human tastes and needs with those of our pooches. What matter most to them is taste, not shape, size or colour. Dogs don’t know a clue about calories that gamey treat can add to their waistline. So is up to us to be sensible one to give treats in moderation. If possible, limit it to training and party times.
| | With Understanding Comes SuccessWritten by Jeffrey Rolo
One of reasons I strongly encourage horse owners to train their own horses rather than ship them away to a professional trainer is familiarity. Quite simply, an unfamiliar party will not understand your horse nearly as well as you, and this understanding of a horse is backbone of any successful training plan. This is not to suggest that all horse trainers are clueless individuals that bumble along hoping to do something right, because most professional trainers will take time to understand a horse before ever thinking about saddling him and training him to ride. But all too often an impatient or inexperienced "trainer" will misread a horse's problem or intention and react incorrectly due to his lack of understanding. Too many of these incidents can prolong training process (thereby costing you money) and potentially mentally scar your horse for life. Far too many head-shy horses can be attributed to inexperienced or abusive past trainers and/or owners who lacked an understanding of horse they were working with. Once a horse has developed this mistrust or fear of people it can take a good while to reassure horse that another cuff is not waiting around corner. And who can blame horse? If every past exposure with a dog resulted in dog biting you, chances are you would be very wary, if not outright panicked, by future exposures to canines. To correct an improper action it is first important to understand motivation that lies behind it. For example, let's say that you are training a young filly to walk alongside you to your left. Suddenly without permission filly slams against your side, but being that she's still young it doesn't do much more than get your attention. What would you do? 1. Ignore behavior – no harm was done after all. 2. Jab your elbow into filly's shoulder and growl at her to remind her to respect your space. 3. Take a moment to detect reason why filly brushed against you. If you selected first option, you chose wrong. Although your heart is in right place in your willingness to "write off" a seemingly harmless action, eventually if you ignore these things they can compound to worse problems. Your filly won't always be so small and light!
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