About a year ago, a friend of mine was moving across the country and asked me to babysit his best friend “Buddy”, a two year old boxer with a very sweet disposition. Buddy would stay with me for up to 3 months. My loved this dog, almost loved him buddy to death. Because Buddy was literally his best friend, my friend was constantly smothering this dog with affection, giving Buddy no exercise, rules, or limits. This resulted in Buddy becoming an extremely neurotic and insecure dog with acute separation anxiety and self-destructive chewing habits.
He foamed and refused to eat when left alone and seemed to live in a constant state of worry and fear. Since my friend’s work schedule had become more irregular recently, Buddy’s vet had prescribed sedatives to control his anxiety and his neurotic behavior. The pills worked to a degree, but left Buddy listless and in a constant stupor without much of a personality. To make matters worse, my friend tended to overcompensate for Buddy’s anxiety by feeding him hearty servings of commercial canned dog food topped off with some kind of “animal by-product” treat at every meal.
So between his diet, lack of exercise, medications, and anxieties, Buddy suffered from constant diarrhea and weight loss no matter how much he ate. He was not a happy dog, but my friend just tried to handle problems, not solve them. I had cared for Buddy for shorter periods before and could manage his behavior if I programmed my whole life around him. However, he wouldn’t be able to do that this time.
A couple of days after Buddy arrived, I decided that if I had to help the dog, it was because of a little tough love. I immediately put Buddy on a regular routine of obedience lessons (to establish discipline and structure in his life), behavioral conditioning (to help him overcome some of his anxieties and neurotic behaviors), exercise, and a high-quality diet (for his general health and wellness). to help you gain weight and improve digestion of it).
We have had our dogs on a holistic food for years and have always found it to be affordable, great for our dogs overall health, energy levels and weight maintenance. Since we knew our preferred food was nutritionally complete and contained none of the questionable fillers, preservatives and by-products found in most commercial dog foods, and since the food was guaranteed fresh, we’d be sure that Buddy would at least have a solid foundation for his rehabilitation. What we didn’t realize was how quickly we would see improvements in his health.
After just 3 days of putting Buddy on this new food, his digestion had completely improved, no more diarrhea. His energy levels were up and he was gaining much needed weight. After only 2 weeks we started to wean him off the medication and at that point we noticed something remarkable. Although his energy level and physical fitness were increasing due to his diet and exercise, he was simultaneously becoming calmer and less anxious. He was now fit enough to chase balls all day, but he stopped chewing on his box and was more focused during his obedience training sessions.
After a month, Buddy no longer foamed at the mouth when left alone, and his other anxieties had decreased significantly. Because he was calmer and less anxious, his obedience training progressed more quickly. When Buddy got back to my friend, he wasn’t taking any medication and almost a year later, Buddy is doing great. He now maintains his proper weight, attends doggie daycare a few times a week and most importantly he is a happy, well adjusted and lovable dog who no longer gets anxious when dropped off. only.