Picture this. You’re sitting in your family room having a great conversation with family, friends, or any guest—the latter might be a bit more embarrassing—and all of the sudden, you get a whiff of a not-so-pleasant odor. You look down beside you, and there lies your beloved companion who has just shared a bit too much. Really, it brings tears to your eyes, and you hope that no one else experiences the polluted air quality. In your head, you’re thinking, “My gosh, what died in there?” . . . It’s sad, but true that we have all been in this position one time or another, and yes, I’m talking about our dogs here.
The dog fart1 is not pleasant for anyone but the dog, which makes you wonder what kind of turmoil goes inside of him to produce such a ghastly smell. To understand the why your dog smells like yesterday’s garbage, you must first understand why flatulence happens. Since the smell comes from the rear end of the digestive tract, we’re going to begin at the front end.
Because we love our dogs, we feed our dogs. Some dogs eat leisurely while others scarf down the food. If they wolf down their food, they might be inhaling a lot of air2, which can undoubtedly cause some issues; it has to come out somewhere. Otherwise, when the food enters into the stomach, our companion’s body tries to break down the food. During the process of breaking down the food, the dog’s body tries to absorb all of the nutrients and vitamins from the food. When a dog has trouble breaking down the food or if the food is not of good nutritional quality, your dog has the potential to run you out of the room—bad gas. Even more importantly, every dog owner needs to know that no matter how expensive or good your dog food claims to be, your dog still needs help digesting and absorbing all the “goodness” from the food.
You see, every dog food goes through a cooking process. During this cooking/manufacturing process, the food goes through irradiation3. The heat and ionized radiation can destroy and damage certain enzymes and nutrients that canines need to maintain healthy immune systems and overall good health in general. The enzymes4 prove very important in helping the dog’s digestive system actually break down the food. If the dog cannot break down the food, his or her body will not receive the nutritional benefits from the food, which, in turn, can result in deficiencies and digestive difficulties….leading to our bad gas issues.
How can we help ease the distress on our noses and the pollutants in our air? And help our four-legged friend feel better? Well, first, you do need to choose a good meat-based food—If you haven’t already, you need to come to terms with the fact that dogs are natural meat eaters. We can talk about this another day and time—Dog Aware5 and The Dog Food Project6 both offer insight into the pet food industry and provide tons of information to help you compare dog foods and choose the right diet suited for you and your companions needs. Second, you need to choose a good all-around supplement for your dog that offers active digestive enzymes. With a good supplement, you won’t need but one supplement. I recommend finding an all-natural supplement due to the way the digestive system works as it absorbs nutrients. Once you think you’ve found a winner, do not be afraid to call their customer support and ask questions. A good, reputable company will have good, friendly support, have a good working knowledge of their products, be able to answer your questions or find the answer, and help you choose the right supplement. Third, be patient. All good things take time, and you must be willing to wait for improvements to happen. Changing the digestive system will not happen overnight. The stench your dog emits will not go away instantaneously. If it did, I think we would try these methods on more than dogs. For now, you must keep the air freshener on hand and your spirits light.
1 www.dogflatulence.com
2 www.sniksnak.com
3 www.petplace.com
4 ezinearticles.com
5 www.dogaware.com
6 www.dogfoodproject.com
