Gwen Bailey - The Natural Dog: A New Approach to Achieving a Happy, Healthy Hound

The concept of wellness actively making choices and being aware of the consequences of those choices in order to work towards optimal health and wellbeing is new and powerful. It is a process only recently focused on by modern humans, although its roots can be traced back to ancient civilizations. The Natural Doglooks at how you can achieve this for your dog. It will help you give your dog the best quality of life and the longest life possible.

Wellness is not a passive state but, instead, more of an active pursuit where intentions, choices and actions work towards an optimal state of health and wellbeing. As a result of small changes, your dog can gradually become naturally calmer, healthier and happier.

To truly embrace the wellness culture, you need to consider fitness and fulfillment, both of the mind and body. This book will look at optimum nutrition for your canine friend, as well as how to provide all the physical and mental exercise needed to live well. Thorny subjects such as preventative medicine and the pros and cons of neutering are tackled with a focus on your dogs wellbeing.

It will show you how to develop an incredible relationship where your dog trusts you unreservedly, leading to confidence, fun and a reduction of stress levels, which, in turn, leads to better behaviour, lower vet fees and a happier and longer life. The information presented here is what dogs would want you to know if they could talk.

The Natural Dogcontains a distillation of all the information I have acquired over a lifetime of helping people in a professional capacity with their problem dogs, from great teachers and fellow professionals via all the hours of continuing professional development Ive attended over the years, as well as the knowledge gained from owning dogs all my life and being intensely interested in all aspects of their care. There is now so much to learn about dogs from books and courses and I have put the most important information together for you and included all those bits of knowledge that so many owners get into trouble from not knowing. The content is designed to fill gaps that exist for many owners.

This book could not have been written without the expert help and knowledge of the wonderful holistic veterinary surgeon Nick Thompson BSc (Vet Sci) Hons, BVM&S, VetMFHom, MRCVS. Nick is someone who puts the welfare of animals first and foremost and is not afraid to think outside the box to put new ideas and research into practice that make an immediate and immense difference to their lives. Nick gave me the confidence and the extra knowledge I needed to write the first part of this book which could, and should, have only been written in conjunction with a veterinary professional, and I am extremely grateful for all I have learned from him that I am now able to pass on to you.

Throughout this book I have used the term owner rather than guardian. While owner will eventually be an old-fashioned term, with all its connotations, and certainly does not do the relationship we have with our dogs justice, we are not there yet and the term guardian is still somewhat unknown. Hence I have used owner in this book to avoid any confusion to the reader.

My hope is that, as a result of reading The Natural Dog, you will be able to improve the quality of your dogs life in realistic and sustainable ways that will pay real dividends for their happiness and welfare. By taking a holistic view of your dogs wellbeing, you can improve life for your best friend, ensuring your dog lives in an optimal way that will bring the added bonus of a longer and happier time together.

My newly adopted Labrador/Weimaraner cross had been cooped up in kennels for nearly a year waiting for a home.

On his first walk, I let him and my other dogs off lead in safe fields next to a river and he ran flat out for 1 hours, stopping only to decide which new direction he should take. It was lovely to watch him relish that delicious feeling of freedom and he returned with us to the car with eyes glowing, tongue nearly to the floor and sides heaving. He wasnt fit, having spent most of the past year slowly padding around a small pen, but at 18 months he had enough energy and stamina to run for over an hour.