Anna's Blog

This week Anna is joined by Rebecca Walters who is chatting about the amended and updated DEFRA guidance notes that accompany The Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018.

And her course 

The new guidelines were announced on February 1st 2022. As a breeder of Sproodles, Rebecca prides herself on the highest health and welfare standards and ethical breeding of her dogs.

To kick off the New Year Anna is joined by Trainer & Behaviourist, Victoria Stilwell, all the way from Atlanta. With Victoria’s second series of It’s Me Or The Dog being aired, we chat about this and the landmark first series that aired in the UK in 2005.

Victoria explains that the doggy problems are the same as they were in the first series, but more intense as our lives have changed, not least because of the pandemic. If trained dogs are happy dogs, they make for happier pet parents! Victoria champions the term ‘teaching’ over ‘training, and about empowering pet parents with the skills to get the best out of your dog.

Surely ‘walking the dog’ is synonymous with bringing a dog into your life. It’s one of a dog’s many selling points that’s being drawn to our attention by National Walk Your Dog Month. Apart from being a free chance to get outdoors, enjoy fresh air and nature, walking the dog is an aerobic exercise that reaps mental and physical health benefits naturally: that’s not just for yourself, but your pooch too!

This week Anna is joined by Dr Jenny McKay who is a Vet and a Vicar. That’s to say Jenny is a Curate and Minister in Secular Employment. Jenny is also an  Environmentalist, Activist and Self Confessed Cat Junkie! 

We discuss whether she believes that dogs go to heaven, and why since man was born there’s so much evidence of an afterlife, and the hope that we will be reunited with our beloved dogs who have crossed the rainbow bridge.

This week Anna talks to the team from Paleo Ridge about the growth in the raw food market for pet parents, highlighting the health and behaviour benefits of feeding a natural species appropriate diet.

CEO Tyler Daly  explains how the firm began , inspired by their own Rhodesian Ridgeback, diagnosed with cancer, and a severe prognosis. When his diet switched from processed to raw, the dog made a full recovery, and died of old age.

We discuss with Will Green sales & Marketing Director the growth of the raw food market as an expanding slice out the £3billion pet food market in the UK.

This week Anna is joined by Blue Cross Veterinary Surgeon, Roisin Bolger, who is talking about the Charity’s #EndTheTrend petition. It calls for the UK's leading brands to commit by the end of 2022 to phasing out the use of any brachycephalic pets in their future advertisements.

It's 'food for thought', why feeding for optimum health and behaviour will impact positively on your dog's health and behaviour!

Just as highly processed ‘simple’ ‘high-glycemic’ refined sugary foods like biscuits can create sugar spikes in people, similar hyperactivity and an inability to focus occurs in dogs fed highly processed simple carbohydrate foods like ‘kibble’. Sugar highs are followed in people and dogs by sugar lows like lethargy, moodiness, and being irritable. But some pet parents mistake these behaviours as being ill-mannered or uncooperative, rather than attributing them to their dog’s food.

Simple carbohydrates digest and absorb quicker, leaving dogs feeling hungry again quicker. Triggering undesirable begging behaviours, or munching on inappropriate ‘foods’ like your designer Chelsea boots. 

As rescues see the aftermath of the ‘pandemic puppy boom’, re-sales of young dogs are soaring online. Could making a choice to feed a healthy raw balanced and complete diet like Paleoridge reduce dogs being abandoned for ‘bad’ behaviour problems?