Why Do Dogs Eat Grass?

Dogs love to munch away on grass, and some even make it part of their daily routine. Fortunately, most experts believe it isn't something you should worry about. So why exactly do they gobble up that green stuff in your yard?

Scavengers 'R Us

Dogs, unlike their catty counterparts, are not carnivores. But they're not like your garden-variety omnivores, either. For tens of thousands of years, these opportunistic scavengers have devoured anything and everything, as long as it fulfilled their basic dietary requirements.

The modern dog, partly because of evolution and domestication, is no longer like its ancestors, which frequently ate their prey entirely, including the stomach contents of plant-eating animals. Instead, dogs today seek out plants as an alternative food source. Most commonly the plant is grass -- since that is what is closest at hand -- but wild canines are known to eat fruits, berries, and other vegetable matter, too.

Clearly, dogs can find their nutrients in a wide range of plant foods, but that doesn't explain why Fido usually throws up after eating grass.http://www.petmd.com/dog/conditions/digestive/c_multi_chocolate_toxicity

Water as a Weight Control Measure for cats

Obesity is one of the top health problems facing cats today. The Association for Pet Obesity Prevention estimates that 50 million cats are overweight or obese in the United States alone. All that extra body fat puts overweight cats at higher than average risk for diabetes mellitus, hepatic lipidosis (a potentially fatal liver disease), congestive heart failure, cancer, skin disorders, and musculoskeletal problems.

This probably isn’t news to you. Most educated owners know that their fat cats are not as healthy as they could be; but what they also know is that achieving meaningful weight loss is not easy. Recommendations from veterinarians typically center on feeding measured meals of a calorie-restricted diet. While this works for some pets, reaching and maintaining a target weight remains elusive for many others, which is why the results of a new study caught my attention.

The research was published in the Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition and showed that cats consuming a dry diet to which an extra 40 percent moisture was added (in the form of tap water) gained weight more slowly after dieting and had higher activity levels than cats that ate the same dry food containing only 10 percent moisture.

The study mimicked what often happens when a cat is put on a diet. Scientists fed 46 cats dry food, restricting their caloric intake by 20 percent. Once their "diet" was over, the cats were offered the same dry food free-choice, either as-is or with 40 percent extra water mixed in. The addition of water caused the diet to be significantly less energy dense and resulted in cats regaining weight more slowly than the cats eating the dry diet without added water. The finding of increased activity in cats fed a food with a lower caloric density is surprising and warrants more research.

Is feeding a moisture-rich diet the magic-bullet when it comes to feline weight loss? Probably not, but it is worth considering if you’ve tried to help your cat lose weight in the past without success. Keep in mind that this is a small study that doesn’t directly address the question of whether or not a moisture-rich diet helps cats lose weight; the subjects just gained their weight back slower in this investigation. Whether they turn out to be positive or negative, the long term health effects-of this type of dietary manipulation were not evaluated. I worry that essentially diluting a food in this manner for months or years on end could lead to an imbalanced diet and deficiencies in important amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids that may cause more health problems than the resulting weight loss solves.

Weight loss plans work best when they are individually tailored to the patient’s own needs. Talk to your veterinarian about what type of food, exercise, feeding strategy, and monitoring program offers the best chance of success for your cathttp://www.petmd.com/dog/conditions/digestive/c_multi_chocolate_toxicity

Chocolate Poisoning in Dogs

Chocolate Toxicity in Dogs

Dogs are known for eating things when they are not supposed to. This is especially true of puppies. Also, dogs have an excellent sense of smell, making it fairly easy to find any secret hiding spots for the chocolate. This can be a dangerous combination when there is chocolate around the house.

Chocolate is derived from the roasted seeds of Theobroma cacao, which contains certain properties that can be toxic to animals: caffeine and theobromine. If ingested, these two ingredients can also lead to various medical complications and may even prove fatal for your dog.

Symptoms and Types

• Vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Increased body temperature
• Increased reflex responses
• Muscle rigidity
• Rapid breathing
• Increased heart rate
• Low blood pressure
• Seizures
• Advanced signs (cardiac failure, weakness, and coma)

The amount and type of chocolate ingested is also important, as they are the determining factors for the severity of the toxicity. The three types of chocolate that you must be aware of are:

1. Milk Chocolate – Mild signs of toxicity can occur when 0.7 ounces per pound of body weight is ingested; severe toxicity occurs when two ounces per pound of body weight is ingested (or as little as one pound of milk chocolate for a 20-pound dog).
2. Semi-Sweet Chocolate – Mild signs of toxicity can occur when 0.3 ounce per pound of body weight is ingested; severe toxicity occurs when one ounce per pound of body weight is ingested (or as little as six ounces of semi-sweet chocolate for a 20-pound dog).
3. Baking Chocolate – This type of chocolate has the highest concentration of caffeine and theobromine. Therefore, as little as two small one-ounce squares of baking chocolate can be toxic to a 20-pound dog (or 0.1 ounce per pound of body weight).

Causes

In the right quantities chocolate can become toxic for any dog. So be wary of feeding your pet anything that might contain chocolate and always keep it out of reach.

Diagnosis

Your veterinarian will perform a complete physical exam, including a chemical blood profile, electrolyte panel and a urinalysis. These tests will help determine if there is a chocolate/caffeine overdose.

Blood can also be taken to test for theobromine concentrations, while an ECG is performed to help determine if the heart is showing any abnormalities in rhythm or conduction of heart beats.


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