Healthy Pet, Happy Pet! How can cats and dog live their best life?
Here are a few of our top tips for taking care of our best furry friends, so they can keep living their best life! A healthy pet is usually a happy pet, so it's important that keep a careful eye on fitness, food and fun for our cats and dogs
Keeping Fit
Daily exercise is just as important for our furry friend as it is for us. Sadly, pet obesity is rising in the UK, it can cause our pets all kinds of health issues and, ultimately, shorten their life. For dogs, daily walks are a must and games like ‘fetch’ or ‘tug of war’ are a fun way to keep us and our dogs in shape. However, many Vets suggest avoiding throwing sticks for a dog as they can splinter in a dog's mouth, as well as cause choking.
When it comes to keeping fit, cats have the advantage of a higher metabolism, but they do still need some physical activity to keep them in shape, so try a cat tree or scratching post or have a bit of fun with a small ball on a string. Playing games is also a great way to bond with your pet. HiLife Monty cat loves a little catnip penguin he got many months ago and loves chasing it all over the house!
Healthy eating
A balanced and complete diet is vital to our pet’s health. They need fresh water, protein, fats, carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins. When you're feeding your cat or dog HiLife, you can be certain they are getting great tasting and nutritious food, made with high quality. Our HiLife it's only natural range of cat food and dog food is packed full of protein and features 100% natural ingredients. That means there's no nasty artificial colours, preservatives or additives. There are many delicious and nutritious recipes for you to choose from including with sauce, broth or jelly. All of the dishes are grain free and we have also included a selection of recipes made with only one single source of protein to aid digestion.
A winning smiles
Looking after our pets’ dental health can make cuddling more fun and save us time and money at the local vets. For dogs, ideally we should brush their teeth every day or every other day. And giving them treats made from rawhide such as our HiLife Special Care Daily Dental Chews will also help to clean their teeth.
We can also clean our cat’s teeth - although in order for our cat to let us, it's better to start early to get them into the habit. Making sure our cat has foods to crunch as well as wet food is a great way to keep their teeth healthy.
If we do notice a lot of tartar on our pets’ teeth or their mouths start to emit a nasty pong, it's wise to make an appointment with the Vet for a clean and scale to prevent more costly conditions developing.
Vaccinations
To prevent our pet from picking up diseases, we must keep up to date with their vaccinations. Puppies and kittens need regular vaccinations from an early age. Puppies are usually vaccinated at eight and 10 weeks and kittens at nine and 12 weeks, with an initial course of two injections. Our pets should then be given a booster 12 months after their first vaccination.
Microchipping
Microchipping our pets is their best chance of being identified and returned to us, if they wander off or they are stolen. We've seen the benefits of this ourselves when one of the HiLife team's cats (Gizmo) disappeared. Gizmo had travelled 10 miles away but was returned safely to two weeks later, after someone took him to the vet to see if he had a microchip. For us, microchipping was well worth every penny!
The process itself is quite easy. The vet inserts a tiny microchip under your pet's skin, which holds a unique code. When the microchip is scanned, the code can be matched to the owner’s contact details kept on a database, such as the national PetLog database. But we must be sure to keep our details up to date if we move house.
Show them love
Cats and dogs enrich our lives in many ways and showing them love is great for us and them. As pet owners we all know the joy of hearing a cat purring or seeing a dog wagging its tail. If we are feeling in need of a lift, we only need to give our dogs or cats a stroke and see what a difference it makes to them and us.
Pets can have such a positive effect on our lives. Which is why HiLife has supported the work of Pets as Therapy for many years, a charity which promotes the health benefits of interaction between pets and humans. Watch their video, to learn more about their work.
Do remember that lots more advice is available from specialist books, vets and online sources. When searching online, always check the information you find is up to date and reliable.