Man Skills: How to add years to your best friends life (METFLEX for pooches)

All beasts on this planet are lesser compared to the dog.

Man’s friendship with dogs likely extends back farther than any other animal. Early humans had dogs to help them find food, help them defend against other predators, and kick it with them on Sundays while they sat around and did nothing all day.

This fine tradition has continued through the years; dog serves man, man tries to save dog.

Many people like myself enjoy the company of dogs far more than they like other people. It’s a sad reality our four legged friends can’t walk long with us in this life.

I own a pair of English Bulldogs. When I got them I was told their life expectancy is between 4-8 years. That’s pretty shitty. I think there is more room for improvement there too. I started asking some questions to my peers, I did some research. I learned some things. Then I took action.

Problems affecting out dogs health

I think most of you would agree with this- our dogs are suffering the exact same problems we are

- Obesity
- Poor diet
- Too little movement
- Poor breeding

We can tackle 3 out of 4. I believe we can influence 75% of the problem and likely can extend the lives of our pets and more importantly the quality of their life by taking action on our pets diet and exercise.

Doggie Obesity: yes it hurts your pet to be too fat if you didn’t know. An over weight dog is more likely to have joint problems, low energy, heat tolerance issues, and a number of health problems down the road. Cancers, circulation and heart problems, various internal problems.

Do you know if your dog is overweight? Check out this article here

Back to the problems with English Bulldogs, a number of them are tied to obesity. A lot of people think a big fat bulldog is cool. They are cool, but it’s probably killing them faster. My vet told me the number one health problem with Bulldogs was heart failure. I can’t verify if this true, but if that was true I would imagine most of those bullies were too fat. Since I am not interested in waiting to see why my dogs die, I started with the premise “too fat is bad”.

The next problem was the ingredients in the dog food, which I will cover in this article.

The final issue was my dogs were lazy, because I allowed them to be lazy.

They are pretty awesome

On a side note, Frankie noted Juli is “retarded and inbred” which I really can’t do anything about. I think she’s cool. It’s probably true, the Japanese dog breeders are ruthless. Inbreeding brings out the prime traits in a given type of dog. In a sick middle finger to evolution these people fuck with the dogs blood lines to make their coloring a certain way, or make their noses a certain way.  It also brings in more and more problems with the breed.

Lesson here- breed a mutt, they are healthier.

So ok, my dog is too fat…what do I do?

The good news is the same thing that works for us to lose weight safely and keep it off will work for your pooch.

Here is a great starting point, dogs are carnivores.

Carnivores eat meat. Remember 5th grade biology? Pretty useful information.

What do you feed your dog? Look at the primary ingredients in their food. Are the first few ingredients processed corns, rices, and grains? Are corns and rice and grains meats?

Of course not.

What is wrong with a diet high in corn, rice, and grains? Depends on who you ask.

Ask the federal government and they say eat more. Ask a competent dietitian or fat loss specialist and you will get a very different answer.

Here is a useful association to understand: Populations who eat diets heavy in processed corn, rices, and grains seem to have higher body fat, and more health problems.

Many of them, not all, but many.

Also- in terms of quality, what kind of corn meal do you think is used?

If you answered “the shit part they are afraid to feed to humans” you are likely to be correct.

A great change of pace

I switched my bullies to a dog food which is free of processed shit as listed above. It’s an all meat based food. Dellanave goes a step further and feeds his dog ground up meat. I would switch mine to that but they are too old for that kind of switch. It’s seems to be a lot better to start a dog on a full meat diet when they are pups than it is later on in life. Ignore this at  your own peril, the shitting will be epic if you do.

I believe the first step is improving the quality of your dogs food. Upgrade where ever you can. If you can get away from Purina or Iams it’s a big step forward (most of the time).

From there…

After you have found better food for the dog, try experimenting with changing the varieties of the food.

The brand I feed my dogs for example comes in Salmon, Duck, Chicken, Lamb, and Beef. I change bags every two weeks. I would change more often but they do not seem to like that. For now every two weeks will do.

The second piece of variety is every 4-7 days I will feed them canned dog food.

And from there….

I rotate the dogs on an feasting/fasting eating schedule. Some days I will give them 1/3 to 1/2 less food than normal, other days I given them 1/2 to 1 full serving more than usual. Once a week I fast them for 24 hours.

This is literally the exact same process I use to get people started with fat loss. And it seems to work every time. Sustainable fat loss built on a model of improvements, not reductions.

Better food, more variety, change in frequency and quantity.

Exercise and movement

The dogs are walked daily now, sometimes more than once a day. Many days they play all day if they are in the gym with me. When I first started walking them, Juli was nearly falling over from a one block walk. Now she can hang for several at a fast pace. Much like how I would train a person, we do fast interval paces rather than boring, slow, steady state cardio. Left to their own devices they are really slow anyways, so it makes sense to make them haul ass for a while.

Results so far?

Over the last 9 months Juli has lost a total of 8 lbs, moves FAR better, has more energy, snores less, and seems to have better digestive/elimination health. Her coat is shinier and softer.

Brutis has lost 3 lbs, is also leaner and seems to have added a bit more muscle mass. His coat is also better, his energy is much higher, and his general disposition is improved. Plainly said, he seems to be happier.

He likes to do this, seems to make him happy

Naturally I will not know how far this can take them or extend out their lives until the end, but I predict they will live longer. If not, they seem to be having a better quality of life with these simple modifications.

In my opinion, owning a pet is agreeing to accept a lot of additional responsibilities.  I’m asking you to accept one more, to become experimental. Question the information you have, seek more through experimentation. Do for your dog the same as you would do for yourself, help them get better.