With the help of a healthy diet, exercise, care, and a lot of love, you can help your pet stay active in their old age, whether dogs or cats, joint pain is the natural enemy that restricts pet mobility and reduces activity. These pet diet tips will help you keep your furry friend or canine buddy staying active and healthy.
Pet mobility issues can be caused by an aging senior dog, injury, postoperative complications, or disease and dog arthritis that can cause mobility to be slowed. But with the help of a healthy diet, you may be able solve this issue or at least make your pet more comfortable.
Diet Tips to Keep Your Pets Active
1. Natural pet food
Omega-3 fatty acid in its natural form is the most miraculous thing for pets to get rid of joint pain in young or old age. Fish, like sardines (which is safe for pets) is the perfect source of Omega-3 fatty acids for both cats and dogs. Omega-3 fatty acids can support dogs with arthritis as they age as well as we wrote about in our article Three Tips for Managing Arthritis as Recommended by Vets.
You can provide occasional treats with added omega -3 fatty acids or add something daily to your pets diet. Check out this post from @wildthingdogmushing for some real ideas on omega-3 that they provide to their team.
2. Quality Pet Food
Quality pet foods will have pure ingredients whereas foods with additives like excessive grains, coloring or additives are inflammatory.
Just as with people, inflammation will lead to pain and lethargy. We need to be careful about the ingredients in our pet food. If your pet experiences excessive stiffness, itching, discomfort and smells bad it may be the impure ingredients in your pet food. If it can cause these effects it is also likely wreaking havoc on their inflammation markers which can decrease a pets desire for activity.
You can always make your own food to ensure that your pet receives the best (check out our article on Five Best Anti-Inflammatory Foods for Dogs!)
Bonus: Even with quality and clean foods you still need to feed your pet the correct amount of food, check out our dog feeding guide and stop guessing how much you need to feed your dog.
3.Supplements.
As my dog Zooey ages she needs support from certain supplements so that she remains active and mobile. Zooey is a remarkable 16 years old mixed breed rescue that shows a marked difference in mobility and desire of activity if she has a regular does of Relieve – Plus hemp spray.
She served as our first experiment and we were so excited at the beneficial effects for Zooey we soon developed our cat Relieve – Plus CBD hemp spray product as well.
After a good consistent dose of Relieve – Plus Zooey even attempts to follow us on hikes and when she gets to where she wants has a good roll!
Quality, consistency and dosing is important with any supplement you select. Relieve Plus hemp spray is unique in that the beneficial effects are seen very quickly but most supplements will require a consistent use before results are seen.
There are other very beneficial ingredients some that are contained in Relieve – Plus that are natural anti-inflammatories like MSM, Yucca for dogs, and Turmeric for pets.
It is possible to keep your pet active with these top tips.
Conclusion
If you want to increase your pet’s mobility at an older age, you can do it without making mammoth changes and investing a fortune. Instead, simply shift to the diet that provides your pets a chance to live with happiness at an older age. Follow these pet diet tips and provide happiness to your pets and your heart in the most meaningful ways.
Curious about how pet foods are created? Check out How to Be a Pet Food Taster for the inside scoop!
More Dog Diet FAQ for an Active Dog
Yes, just like a person any exercise that will keep your dog mobile and active will support weight loss goals.
Many people get concerned that a homemade dog diet may not have all of the nutrients your dog needs, however, many commercial pet foods do not either, especially senior dogs. The benefit of a homemade diet is that you know exactly what your pet is getting and it can be clean whole foods which will have the largest impact on meeting your pets weight goals and health. Learn more about commercial versus homemade food for your pet.
As pets age they may loose teeth and conventional hard foods will be difficult for them to chew and digest. Select soft and pure foods for dogs with fewer teeth to ensure they get nutrients to continue to be active.
Dogs have a different sensory way of tasting food which makes even less sense why sugar is being added to dog foods and diabetes in dogs is on the rise. Learn more about how dogs taste food and if they taste sugar.
