Secret #1 – Understand what your pet is eating. Science proves that the average size cat has the potential to live 30 years and the average size dog has the potential to live 25 years. Proper nutrition is vital to your pet living a long and healthy life.

Unfortunately, more than 80% of all pet foods don't provide the quality nutrition that is needed for your pet to thrive. The good news is that 20% of pet foods do.

While there is a HUGE amount of information to consider in order to completely compare one pet food to another, the following highlights should provide you with a foundation in order to make healthier choices for your pet… 1. Please don't base your choice of pet foods on advertising! For a quality pet food, base your product decisions on the ingredients of the food. 2. Ingredients on a pet food/treat label are listed in pre-cooking order – heaviest ingredient to lightest ingredient. Concentrate on the first five ingredients which is the majority of the food. 3. Avoid any pet foods that list any of the following within the first five ingredients… • 'By-Products' which can consist of hooves, feet, feathers, and other discarded animal parts from the human food industry. • ‘Meat and Bone Meal' or ‘Meat Meal' or ‘Animal Digest' – these ingredients can contain rendered meat from incredible inferior sources including but not limited to euthanized dogs and cats (horrible, but true). • ‘BHA/BHT or Ethoxyquin' – these are chemical preservatives linked to tumors and cancer. • More than two grains of any variation within the first five ingredients (ex: Ground Corn, Whole Grain Wheat, Soy Oil, Brewers Rice, Corn Gluten, and on and on). If you find more than two grains listed within the first five ingredients, you can assume this food is providing your pet with grain proteins versus an optimal meat protein.

Don't feed strictly a canned/soft/moist diet. All canned/soft/moist pet foods are mostly water – anywhere from 70% to 85% water (check the Guaranteed Analysis on the can/pouch for moisture percentage). Feed a quality kibble or a combination of a quality kibble and a ‘good ingredient' filled canned. And it's best to feed your adult pet two meals per day.

Always check with your Veterinarian before changing foods!

Secret#2 – Know what is normal for your pet. It is ‘normal' for one of my dogs to miss a meal, actually even two meals in a row. However, for another one of my dogs – if he missed even a crumb of food I would be alerted something was wrong.

Take note of what is normal behavior for your pet. When you know what's normal, an unusual behavior could be the first signs of a health concern.

Secret #3 – Clean up. As un-popular as this secret might be, daily pick-up of your pets' waste is another important key to monitoring their health. Again, knowing what is normal in the elimination department can alert you to something more serious.

Secret #4 – Exercise your pet daily. Along with quality nutrition, daily exercise is vital to your pet's health. Exercise is not only good for them physically, but it stimulates the brain as well. If you think about it, all dogs were designed to work – while cats are natural hunters. Home life has removed the opportunity for our pets to perform the jobs that Mother Nature trained them in.

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