Calm your reactive dog with food | Ulrika Marwick - Expert on stressed and reactive dogs

Happy gut = Calm dog

Did you know that 90% of the calming hormone serotonin is produced in the digestive tract?

We want your dog’s body to have as much of this happy hormone as possible, in order to contradict the massive cortisol response they get every day from being reactive…and it all starts in the gut.

Microbiome health is SO important for this to happen and more and more studies are coming out that shows the bad effects dry dog food has on the gut. The high starch content combined with bad quality ingredients make a great combination for bad bacteria to grow in the gut.

How to help your dog’s gut?

1) Feed at least 20% raw food

What you want to do, in order to boost serotonin, is to feed fresh ingredients to your dog. Both fresh meat and vegetables have great fibers and bacteria for your dog’s gut which will improve gut health and produce serotonin.

Even if you can just feed 10% fresh, it’s better than nothing and will make your dog happier and healthier.

2) Add probiotic food or supplement

Probiotic foods like kefir, kombucha or fermented vegetables are excellent source of good bacteria for your dog. Many can be made at home for very little cost, just stay away from dairy based kefir in case your dog doesn’t process dairy very well.

You can of course also buy probiotics for your dog in powder form. You can choose a brand for dogs or humans, it doesn’t really matter because many of the bacteria strains you use for humans also will help dogs.

3) Decrease your dog’s daily stress

Lowering you dog’s daily stress levels will help stabilize your dog’s gut. In stress your dog’s gastro intestinal tract will ignore the slow and meticulous process to pull out all the good nutrients in the food and speed it up instead, which often leads to diarrhoea and in the long run your dog will lose out on a lot of good nutrition.

If you want a FREE resource on how to calm your dog, klick on this link or get in touch with me here below.

Obviously, this is just the start and if you think your dog might be suffering from an unhealthy gut you can test it via a microbiome test. There are many out there. You might also have to contact your vet and have blood and faecal test to get a diagnosis.

Good luck with building your dog’s gut health!

Ulrika x

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