Last Updated on December 16, 2023 by Kimberly Crawford
A healthy dog can equate to a happy and active doggy. This is no secret: optimum health among pets helps prevent illnesses and other health risks. Aside from providing them with attention, affection, and discipline, ensuring health should also be your priority as a dog owner.
Signs of good health among dogs are greatly reflected in their skin, coat, ear, eye, mouth, teeth, and many other parts of their body, be it internal or external. Of course, this is achievable by following various effective ways and paying close attention to certain factors. To help you get started, here are some helpful tips to keep your dog healthy.
1. Get Them Vaccinated
Ensuring your dog’s health should come with adequate and varying lines of protection. One way to provide one for your dog is by getting them regular and up-to-date vaccines. In their daily active lives, pet illnesses can unexpectedly affect your dog at any day and time. Vaccinations play a vital role in ensuring your dog gets the necessary protection against life-threatening illnesses and diseases, including other health risks like viruses.
Therefore, you must start them young with regular core vaccinations to attain boost protection until adulthood. The pose of threats to the dogs’ overall health and well-being enabled varying institutions and governing bodies worldwide to promote mandatory dog vaccination programs to prevent the spread of common viral diseases like rabies.
Particularly in the United States, numerous vaccination hubs and veterinary clinics catering to animal needs, like vaccinations and preventive care, have grown by about 3.6% each year. Now, having 30,000 or more veterinary practices present in almost all locations around the country. Similarly, in Australia, there are more than 4,000 veterinary services and 60 accredited veterinary hospitals throughout the country. This shows a 6% annual revenue growth in the recent year.
These indicated a growing demand for veterinary clinics and similar services around Australia, providing pets with great care and medical help. Moreover, this allows pet owners to have a great understanding of proper pet care. To know more about how you can start them young with puppy vaccination, visit https://blackhawkpetcare.com/au/tips-and-guides/articles/puppy-vaccination-schedule for more helpful tips and guidelines.
2. Meet Nutritional Needs
Nutrition can have a significant impact on a dog’s overall health. A dog’s nutrition can be reflected in how your pet dogs eat and how much food they consume every day. A healthy and balanced diet can help ensure a strong and physically equipped dog. To achieve this, creating a feeding plan can help you provide a balanced meal for your dog daily. Some simple feeding plans may include a proportion of meat, vegetables, and dry food for chews.
In every meal, your dog can have a bigger portion of meat and a smaller portion of minced vegetables. You can then provide them with a piece of meaty bones or alternatives like dried fish or chicken to enjoy a chew. The ingredients used can vary for each meal to provide variations, or try on a mixture of cooked and dried meats.
To further ensure your dog gets proper nutrition, you can visit your local vet nutritionists to acquire an adequate and appropriate feeding plan specially made according to your dog’s particular needs.
3. Maintain a Healthy Weight and Regular Exercise
Aside from giving them nutritious foods, it is also essential you help them maintain a healthy weight. In most cases, obesity among dogs can lead to serious health conditions like diabetes and heart diseases, commonly caused by overfeeding and lack of exercise. A dog is considered obese if it is 10% more than its ideal weight. Aside from a proper feeding plan, accompanying regular exercise can also help.
In terms of exercise, the frequency of how much time your dog needs to achieve regular exercise may depend on puppies and dogs. As puppies can be more energetic than adult dogs, you can have more but short game sessions with them. On the other hand, adult dogs may also differ depending on the breed, as there are high and energetic dog breeds.
Some exercise opportunities for your dogs may include bringing them with you on outdoor adventures like hiking, cycling, swimming, and even in simple exercises like fetching. If you spend more time indoors, you can also do activities like running on the stairs, tug games, or more exciting ones like hide and seek. Regular exercise will help your dog achieve healthy bones and muscle build-up.
Conclusion
Keeping your dog healthy may require enough time, knowledge, and effort to explore various effective ways. This is necessary as the process can help you know what can work best for your furry friend.
But it is vital to ask for professional help by allowing your pet to undergo regular wellness checkups and exams to help ease the process. This will also enable you to effectively acquire proper knowledge and guidance on how you can better help your dogs achieve a healthy mind and body in the long run.
