Saturday 28 May 2011

Nutrition, Health & Behaviour: The Connection

Today I had the pleasure of attending the UK Registry of Canine Behaviourists' (UKRCB's) seminar 'Nutrition, Health & Behaviour: The Connection', the guest speaker at which was Wendy Volhard who is the author of the book The Holistic Guide For a Healthy Dog. I was the guest of Brigitte Barton who is herself a Canine Behaviourist and recently discovered the benefits of feeding a raw diet.
As the title suggests, the talk was about the relationship between nutrition, health and behaviour in the dog and highlighted how important a good (raw) diet combined with plenty of socialisation, exercise, breed specific pursuits and a stress-free environment are on the health and mental stability of our dogs. Common sense you may think? Not to some lazy dog owners who are content to feed a poor diet and allow their dogs to be couch-potatoes with little or no exercise or mental stimulation and then wonder why they have sickly dogs with behavioural problems.
I am a committed 'raw feeder' but still consider that I have a lot to learn on the subject and therefore welcome the opportunity to attend seminars like the one today, especially when the speaker is someone as knowledgible and dedicated as Wendy.

Sunday 8 May 2011

National Dog Show 2011

Today was the National Dog Show which is held at the Staffordshire County Showground. Our judge was Pam Blay and she had a very respectable entry of 42 dogs and bitches. It was a bright but very cool and windy day which threatened rain.
Gary and I popped along with Winnie and Lottie. We were absolutely thrilled with Winnie's third place in Post Graduate Bitch since she has not attended either a dog show or ringcraft class since this time last year but behaved like an 'old hand' and didn't put a foot out of place.
Lottie on the other hand - who got VHC in Open Bitch - was a little madam! From the word go this morning and long before we left for the show, she decided that today she couldn't possibly concentrate on the job in hand and would rather bounce around and play.
Still, it was lovely to catch up with our show friends and well done to everyone who was 'in the cards'.