Dogs

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Benefits of Feeding Turmeric to Our Dogs and What to Take Note of

Benefits of Turmeric for Dogs

While some ingredients are purported to be beneficial to dogs based on its effects on humans, turmeric has been proven to be beneficial to dogs and also cats based on actual studies done on them.

The magical active ingredient in turmeric is actually curcumin. Curcumin is anti-inflammatory and an anti-oxidant. Because of its qualities, it can help our dogs with a variety of health conditions such as osteoarthritis, stomach irritations, skin allergy, and even cancer.

Reducing the inflammation in osteoarthritis is especially important because the inflammation makes the joints swell, causing more pain for our dogs.

Not All Turmeric Treats are Created Equal

Hang on! Don’t rush out to get just any turmeric treats yet. Do you know, there are special considerations to ensure your dog reaps all the benefits of turmeric?

Ensure Absorption of Turmeric

The active ingredient of turmeric, Curcumin, is difficult for our pets to absorb. Curcumin is insoluble in water. If simply consumed, it will just pass out from your pet’s body without any benefits at all!

There are two ways for curcumin to be better absorbed – we can either mix the turmeric with black pepper or with oils (curcumin is fat-soluble).

We chose the option of adding turmeric to slightly fattier cuts of meat to help our pets absorb the curcumin. Black pepper can cause stomach upset in our pets and is better reserved for humans in our curry.

We are also sure your pet very much prefer yummy meats than spicy black pepper!

Recommended Feeding of Turmeric

Due to the potency of turmeric, too much of it is counter-effective to the health of our pets. Turmeric is a blood thinner and can cause bleeding issues in our dogs if fed excessively. Also, it can cause constipation in our pets.

Too little of turmeric however, means that there would be insufficient curcumin in our pets’ body to be effective.

We have made it easy for pet owners to feed turmeric to their pets – just feed them the turmeric treats. We should spread the treats throughout the day, because curcumin, when absorbed, is metabolised quickly in the body.

If your pet is taking any medications, please consult your vet before feeding your pet turmeric because of possible drug metabolism inhibition.

Our Turmeric Treats are Simply Better

We put our hearts into creating healthy yummy treats that are are based on science and nutrition, because we too are pet owners. We want our pets to be healthy, happy, and strong.

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How to Prepare Your Human to Go Back to Work Again

Miss my dog so much at work

Dear Fellow PawFrens,

The time has now come for our humans to gradually return to work (to earn more treats for us) with Phase 2 beginning this Friday. Our humans will have a lot of separation anxiety being away from us at work, while we are just a little overjoyed at having the whole house (to run free!) again. But don’t let our humans know this. We doggos need to appear as loyal companions so that we continue to get treats.

To help your humans adapt being away from us, here are what we doggos need to do:

Help your human set his phone wallpaper to your face

We all know how needy the humans are. They’ll miss us and need to see our cute faces everywhere! If your human’s phone wallpaper is not already set to your picture (silly human!), we should help them to set it before they go back to work. Trust me, they are gonna be much more motivated to work when they are reminded of why they are working so hard for.

Request for a home camera so that the humans can stay connected with us

Humans are always wondering what we doggos are doing at home, and if we are upset they are away? Well, we need a home camera now to show them we are (kinda) moping their absence the whole day! We need to make the humans feel a little guilty about leaving us behind. Y’know, it’s all about the treats.

Request for some big yummy chews to occupy our time

We have too much fun tearing the house down or chewing our human’s favourite slippers when we are alone. Heehee! But this will drive our humans crazy if they are watching the home camera, and they won’t be able to concentrate at work to earn treats for us! Be the smart doggy and convince your human to get you some nice chews instead. Have yummy chew = good boy/girl!

Related read: Why my human feeds me pork skin chews

Show our humans all the love when they are back

Humans have such a tough time working long hours outside to bring home the bacon (treats) for us. They need to fight all the baddies (other bad humans) and they still have to cope with being away from us! Poor humans!

To make our humans feel appreciated, this is what we need to do: When we smell our humans near the door, make sure to sit by the door so that our humans sees us the moment they open the door. Then, wag our tails vigorously and bark “Finally you are back, human!”. Next, jump up to paw paw at them. This should be immediately followed by generous licks on their faces.

Don’t say I didn’t warn ya, your human will melt into a puddle and top up your dinner bowl immediately, bring you for a walk, and maybe feed you some delicious treats too 😉

Your pawfren fureva,

Nikko

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Anise Seed Treats – Perfect for Nose Work

Have you ever seen those viral videos of cats getting high on catnips? If you have not, here’s one just for laughs:

kitty high on catnip

Do you know that there is an “equivalent” of a catnip for dogs.. and it’s a common spice in our household?

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that dogs are excited by the scent of anise seed or aniseed. Part of the reason for our doggo’s obsession with anise seed is its unique sweet liquorice aroma.

And that is why anise seed has long been used as smell lures for hunting and racing dogs to trace and chase. While our cute doggos are no hunting or racing dogs, they will love games that tap on their strength of smell!

Dogs love, no, THRIVE in nose work

In fact, dogs who engage in nose work are happier dogs according to research. But we already know that, don’t we? When we bring our dogs on their daily walks, they really love smelling the neighbourhood and “reading” the secret messages left by their friends. The reason dogs enjoy smelling so much (much more than we do), is that while we have about six million olfactory receptors, dogs have about 300 million. We sniff once per second-and-a-half, and dogs, five to 10 times a second.

Just imagine, every sniff to a dog is like a beautiful sunset awashed in the most mesmerizing colours, in high-definition no less. Why, we would love sniffing as much too!

Using Anise Seed Treats for Nose Work

Because of aniseed’s distinct scent, and how much dogs love it, I use it in nose work with my dog.

One of the games we play require my dog to find the aniseed chicken jerky at easy-to-find places initially, and she gets to eat the chicken jerky as a treat. After she understood the concept of the game, I increase the difficulty of the game by hiding the chicken jerky at more obscure places and letting her sniff them out. She might take a longer time, but she always finds it!

Just don’t let your cute doggo trick you into playing the game forever. A few treats is fine, but too much aniseed treats could cause diarrhea and discomfort to dogs – much like how we have the runs when we have too much spicy food.