How do you support your pets in their health?

⏱ 15 min read

For many of us, pets are much more than just an animal. After just a short time - a dog's eyes later, for example - they have taken their place in our hearts and in our family. From then on, it's hard to imagine life without them.

That's why we naturally do everything in our power to ensure that our pets are doing well. Whether it's enough exercise, visits to the vet or a good diet - optimal care for our pets is our top priority!

Even if we provide our pet with the best possible care, it may still need additional help. This is because factors such as over-breeding, age, diet, obesity or inappropriate stress can cause them a lot of trouble and lead to problems.

The joints are most frequently affected

Pets often suffer from joint problems caused by arthritis and arthrosis. Symptoms are usually lameness, visible pain and impaired movement.

At least every 5th adult dog and 9 out of 10 cats over the age of 12 now suffer from osteoarthritis!

Osteoarthritis and arthritis lead to signs of wear and tear in the joints, damage to the joint cartilage, poor synovial fluid and other degenerative changes that cause suffering. 

➤ Every 5th dog suffers from osteoarthritis!

How do you recognize that your pet has joint pain?

Even if you train your pet a lot and it is the smartest thing in the world, it still can't talk to you. That's why it's all the more important that you take a close look to notice if it's missing something.

Symptoms of joint pain:

• It only moves involuntarily and plays less
• No longer wants to climb stairs/steps
• It no longer jumps around as happily as it used to
• After a longer period of rest, it is stiff and immobile
• It shows sudden aggressiveness or anxiety

➤ 9 out of 10 cats over the age of twelve show signs of osteoarthritis on X-rays!

How can you help your pet with joint problems?

As with humans, conventional pain therapy for animals is purely symptomatic. However, painkillers only mask the problem! Instead, it is better to work on the cause of the pain so that your pet remains pain-free in the long term.

 ✔ Green-lipped mussel extract

Animals with arthritis and arthrosis are now very often given green-lipped mussel extract. The extract is used to combat the causes and prevent joint problems. The green-lipped mussel improves joint lubrication, reduces cartilage degradation and bone abrasion and promotes the formation of new cartilage mass. Green-lipped mussel also provides the animal with additional relief as a natural painkiller.

➤ Studies show that acute arthritis in dogs is reduced with the help of green-lipped mussels!

✔ MSM powder

MSM powder fights inflammation where it arises and supports the joints against wear and tear. It also reduces the impairment of movement and strengthens the immune system. MSM is used in many pets (especially cats, dogs and horses) for a wide variety of ailments. MSM provides good and lasting relief, especially for severe joint pain.

As early as 1983, the vet John Metcalf reported on the powerful effect of MSM in the treatment of horses with arthritis, laminitis or digestive problems.

✔  Collagen hydrolyzate

With the help of collagen, the cartilage cells are stimulated to produce more collagen. However, collagen not only protects joint cartilage, but also tendons and ligaments from wear and tear. With increasing age, the ability of dogs and horses to produce collagen themselves decreases. This makes them more susceptible to injuries and painful bone and joint complaints. Collagen hydrolyzate helps to strengthen your pet's musculoskeletal system.

Large dog breeds such as Golden Retrievers and German Shepherds are particularly at risk of arthritis and arthrosis.

Do something good for your pets and prevent age-related illnesses and general ailments in good time. Your dog will enjoy going for a walk again and your cat will look forward to its next adventure. 

Joint supplements for dogs: what the studies show

Green-lipped mussel has been tested in dogs in several controlled studies. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, 81 dogs with mild to moderate degenerative joint disease were given either green-lipped mussel extract or a placebo every day. After 56 days, a higher proportion of dogs in the mussel group showed improved clinical signs, and no signs of toxicity were apparent (Pollard et al., 2006). The dogs that had started on the placebo were then switched to the extract as well: 91% of them had improved after a further 56 days, compared with 41% before.

A second double-blind study mixed green-lipped mussel powder into the dry food of 31 dogs with arthritis. After six weeks, the total arthritis score had improved significantly compared with the control group, and so had the scores for joint pain and swelling (Bui & Bierer, 2001).

Turmeric and collagen have been tested in dogs too. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, 42 dogs with osteoarthritis were fed a diet with or without a mixture of curcuminoids from turmeric, hydrolyzed collagen and green tea extract for three months. Pain at manipulation fell significantly in the supplemented group, but not in the control group, and the dogs found it significantly easier to rise to standing from lying down (Comblain et al., 2017).

What these studies have in common is time: the nutrients were fed every day for six weeks to three months. So give your pet's joints this time as well and stick with the daily routine.

The three joint nutrients from this guide, MSM, green-lipped mussel and collagen, are also available together in one pack:

View the Joint Complete Pack for Pets  ➜

✓ MSM + green-lipped mussel + collagen

Itching in pets

Is your pet itching? Does it no longer stop scratching?

Unfortunately, itching in animals is not uncommon and manifests itself in severe scratching, biting and licking, visible redness, small wounds, dull fur and changes in behavior.

There are many causes of itching in pets:

• Parasites: Ticks, fleas, mites and worms in particular are a regular occurrence in our four-legged friends. Flea bites, for example, can cause severe itching. If your pet scratches its ear, this may indicate mites. Most parasites are almost invisible to the naked eye. It is therefore important to check our pets regularly for these annoying parasites and to rid them of them.
• Allergies: If your pet scratches itself very often, it may well be suffering from an allergy. Allergies are triggered, for example, by environmental factors such as pollen or a diet high in cereals and sugar. Pesticides or soap can also irritate your pet's skin.
• Dry skin: Factors such as dry air in the house or frequent bathing dry out the animal's skin and damage the skin's natural oil layer. This in turn leads to itching.
• Boredom or anxiety: People bite their fingernails when they are nervous. Your pet can also start to adopt behaviors such as excessive scratching, licking or chewing out of nervousness or boredom. This can go so far as to cause sores to open up.

How can you help your pet if it suffers from itching?

First identify the cause of the itching. Your vet can help you with this in an emergency.

✔ Get rid of parasites

MSM powder not only ensures a generally healthy coat, it also has an antiparasitic effect. MSM is particularly effective against endoparasites (worms).

Animal studies confirm that MSM reliably combats worms! Animals whose feces were infested with worms were successfully treated with MSM and freed from the worms.

➤ The parasites of pets can also infest us!

➤ Get rid of parasites now!

✔ Treat allergies

Many pets suffer from allergies that are triggered by their diet. If this is the case, change your pet's diet. For example, make sure that the pet food does not contain any grain or sugar. In addition to a healthy diet, the addition of valuable omega-3 fatty acids can help to treat allergies successfully.

Omega 3 fatty acids (especially the fatty acid EPA) help with dry skin, asthma and allergies, as inflammation associated with these complaints is alleviated. It is best to enrich the food with it.

✔ Take care of dry animal skin

Collagen supplements ensure optimally moisturized skin (70 % of the proteins in dog skin consist of collagen) and strong claws that do not splinter or become brittle. The coat also becomes softer and shiny again.

➤ Order collagen now!

✔  Keep your pet busy and reduce stress factors

If your pet is bored, it may adopt bad behaviors such as scratching or biting. The same applies to nervousness. Make sure your pet gets enough exercise, attention and love. You can, for example, get your dog used to chewing on a dog bone in stressful situations to relieve stress.

Older pets in particular are very susceptible to skin and coat problems!

Support your pets in their skin and coat health and prevent any complaints such as annoying itching.

➤ Buy turmeric extract as a natural painkiller now!

Buy green-shell mussels now!

➤ Buy MSM powder now!

➤ Order collagen hydrolysate now!

Omega-3 for dogs and cats: joints, skin and coat

Omega-3 fatty acids do more than protect the heart. The long-chain fatty acids EPA and DHA from marine oils have been tested in controlled studies in pets, for the joints as well as for skin and coat:

• Getting up, playing and walking: In a randomized, double-blind study, 127 dogs with osteoarthritis from 18 veterinary clinics were fed either a typical commercial food or a food rich in fish-oil omega-3 for six months. According to their owners, the dogs on the omega-3 food were significantly better at rising from rest and playing after 6 weeks and at walking after 12 and 24 weeks (Roush et al., 2010).
• Weight on the sore leg: In a second study, the force a dog puts on its most affected leg improved in 82% of the dogs on the omega-3 food, compared with 38% in the control group (Roush et al., 2010).
• Less pain medication: In 131 dogs that were receiving the painkiller carprofen for chronic osteoarthritis, the dosage decreased significantly faster over twelve weeks when the food was supplemented with fish-oil omega-3 (Fritsch et al., 2010).
• Cats with osteoarthritis: In a randomized, double-blind crossover study, cats showed less stiffness when walking and jumped higher during ten weeks of fish oil than during ten weeks of corn oil (Corbee et al., 2013).
• Itching and coat: In a double-blind crossover study in dogs with itchy skin disease, marine oil with a high dose of EPA significantly improved itching, hair loss and coat condition compared with corn oil (Logas & Kunkle, 1994).

What counts is EPA and DHA themselves. You can add them to the food with omega-3 capsules for dogs and cats or, as a plant-based alternative, with algae oil for pets.

Cardiovascular complaints in animals

Do you have a heart for animals? So do we!

And that is precisely why we want to support and promote its health in the best possible way.

Speaking of the heart, did you know that even our beloved pets can suffer from heart problems?

Cardiovascular disease in pets is not all that rare

Unfortunately, our pets can also develop heart problems. For example, more than 10% of dogs already suffer from heart disease. But cats are not immune either.

The typical symptoms:

• Shortness of breath
• Rapid fatigue
• Excessive panting (dogs)
• Coughing after excitement (dogs)
• No desire for exercise
• A retreat into dark corners

Cardiovascular disease is often not recognized until it is too late, as it usually goes on for a long time without symptoms. If symptoms then occur, action must be taken quickly.

Cardiovascular disease is usually genetic. However, the gene alone is not always the decisive factor. Lifestyle factors such as obesity are much more likely to activate those genes and cause cardiovascular problems.

Animals should always start with their lifestyle, which means as much as possible: Plenty of exercise and a healthy diet.

➤ Over 10% of dogs suffer from cardiovascular disease!

A healthy weight: more good years for your pet

Excess weight puts a strain on the joints, the heart and the metabolism, and keeping your pet lean is one of the most effective things you can do for it. In a lifelong feeding study, 48 Labrador Retrievers were paired, and one dog in each pair was fed 25% less food than its partner. The leaner dogs had less body fat and lower insulin, blood sugar and triglyceride levels. Their median life span was significantly longer, and signs of chronic disease generally appeared later (Kealy et al., 2002).

Losing weight also pays off when the joints already hurt. In obese dogs with osteoarthritis, lameness decreased significantly from a weight loss of 6.10% of body weight onwards (Marshall et al., 2010). For a dog that weighs 30 kg, that is less than 2 kg.

How to keep your pet at a healthy weight:

• Weigh the daily food ration instead of estimating it
• Count treats as part of the daily ration
• Plan exercise and play every day, adapted to age and joints
• Weigh your pet regularly and write the weight down

Less weight takes load off the joints. The matching building blocks for cartilage, tendons and ligaments are in this pack:

View the Joint Complete Pack for Pets  ➜

✓ MSM + green-lipped mussel + collagen

The right diet is the be-all and end-all!

Whether they are gourmets or omnivores - the right diet is essential for heart health! Lay the foundation for a long and healthy life for your pet.

What should you look out for?

When feeding, make sure that the food is grain-free (cats and dogs) and, above all, sugar-free. This is because a sugary diet can trigger or increase inflammation and lead to obesity and diabetes.

Why should you feed grain-free or low-grain food?

Compared to fresh meat, grain is much cheaper and is therefore used by the industry as a cheap filler. However, the digestive tract of your pet (cat or dog) is not designed for the consumption of so much grain. In sensitive animals, grain can therefore lead to digestive problems, diarrhea and flatulence as well as diabetes and obesity.

In addition, more and more four-legged friends are suffering from grain-related allergies and food intolerances these days. Certain types of grain can even trigger itching or hair loss under certain circumstances.

➤ Up to 50% of all dogs and cats are considered overweight or even obese!

Why should the food be sugar-free?

A diet high in sugar promotes inflammation immensely. So if the diet contains a lot of sugar, this is anything but beneficial for your four-legged friend's health.

Sugar also causes the pet's insulin level to rise rapidly and then fall again just as quickly - the dog/cat gets ravenously hungry and begs for more food. As a result, the animal eats more and gains weight. Other consequences include diabetes, joint problems, tooth decay and heart problems.

Sugar is also a cheap flavor enhancer. This makes carbohydrate-rich food taste particularly good to the animals.

➤ Ideally, cats' food should contain no or very few carbohydrates

Do you already know barfing?

BARF stands for "bone and raw food" and means feeding cats and dogs raw food that is as species-appropriate as possible. The feeding method is based on the eating habits of wild carnivores. Conventional dry and wet food is completely avoided. Instead, they are fed raw meat, offal, bones and cartilage, fish, fruit and vegetables, healthy carbohydrates, essential oils such as salmon oil and vitamins and minerals.

Barfing has many advantages, as it contains no artificial additives, flavor enhancers or sugar. This feeding method is also suitable for sensitive or allergic animals.

Sounds complicated and time-consuming? No, nowadays barfing is anything but complicated, as there are even practical ready-to-eat barf menus.

Enrich this healthy diet with omega 3

In addition to a healthy and species-appropriate diet, it is important to supplement your pet's diet with omega 3. This is because omega 3 reduces inflammation as soon as it arises.

Omega 3 fatty acids not only help us, but also our pets with their heart health. Green-lipped mussel extract capsules for animals naturally contain the valuable omega 3 fatty acids. The fatty acids help to combat cravings, lose weight and prevent disease.

What does current research say about supplementing animal feed with omega 3?

The current study situation:

• Study results show that dogs with heart problems are often deficient in the essential fatty acids EPA and DHA.
• The fatty acids EPA and DHA counteract cardiac arrhythmia by stabilizing the heart muscle cells
• EPA and DHA are available as energy for the heart muscle
• The essential fatty acids EPA and DHA delay the progression of heart disease by reducing inflammation

A diet rich in omega-3 therefore provides good prevention and support for your pet's heart disease.

Whether you barf your pet or not, a healthy diet including valuable omega-3 fatty acids is important. This can help prevent heart disease and other ailments. Add to this sufficient exercise, lots of love, comprehensive health support and regular check-ups at the vet and your pet will be well looked after.

Frequently asked questions

What are the benefits of owning a pet?

A pet keeps you moving, gives the day a rhythm and is good company. A review of the research concludes that owning a pet, particularly a dog, is associated with positive health benefits: dog owners are less sedentary and have lower blood pressure, cholesterol and triglyceride levels (Arhant-Sudhir et al., 2011). The healthier and more mobile your pet is, the more of this the two of you can enjoy together.

Do dogs increase physical activity?

Yes. In a UK study of 385 households, the odds of meeting the physical activity guideline of 150 minutes per week were four times greater for dog owners than for people without a dog (Westgarth et al., 2019). This works best with a dog that enjoys its walks, which is one more reason to look after its joints early.

Can pets reduce blood pressure?

Pets can dampen the rise in blood pressure under stress. In a randomized study of 48 people with high blood pressure, those who were given a pet in addition to their medication showed significantly lower blood pressure and heart rate responses to mental stress than those who received the medication alone (Allen et al., 2001).

Do pets make you live longer?

For dogs, the data point in this direction. A meta-analysis of ten studies with more than 3.8 million participants found that dog ownership was associated with a 24% lower risk of death from any cause and a 31% lower risk of cardiovascular death (Kramer et al., 2019).

Do pets help with stress and anxiety?

Many owners feel calmer with their pet around, and research supports this: a review describes weaker reactions to mental stress in dog owners and links the improved mood and emotional state to a calmer autonomic nervous system (Arhant-Sudhir et al., 2011). It is easier with a pet that is relaxed and free of pain itself, because boredom, nervousness and pain show in its behavior.

Sources (in English):

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Rialland, P., Bichot, S., Lussier B., Moreau, M., Beaudry, F., Del Castillo, J. R. (2013, January). Effect of a diet enriched with green-lipped mussel on pain behavior and functioning in dogs with clinical osteoarthritis. Canadian Journal of Veterinary Research, 77(1): 66–74

Maranon, G., Munoz-Escassi, B., Manley, W., Garcia, C., Cayado, P., De la Muela, M. S. et al. (2008, November). The effect of methyl sulphonyl methane supplementation on biomarkers of oxidative stress in sport horses following jumping exercise. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica, 50:45, doi: 10.1186/1751-0147-50-45

Gamble, L.J., Boesch, J. M., Frye, C. W., Schwark, W. S., Mann, S., Wolfe, L. et al. (2018, July). Pharmacokinetics, Safety, and Clinical Efficacy of Cannabidiol Treatment in Osteoarthritic Dogs. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, doi: 10.3389/fvets.2018.00165

Panahi, Y., Alishiri, G. H., Parvin, S., Sahebkar, A. (2016). Mitigation of Systemic Oxidative Stress by Curcuminoids in Osteoarthritis: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Dietary Supplements, 13(2):209-20, doi: 10.3109/19390211.2015.1008611

Pollard, B., Guilford, W. G., Ankenbauer-Perkins, K. L. & Hedderley, D. (2006). Clinical efficacy and tolerance of an extract of green-lipped mussel (Perna canaliculus) in dogs presumptively diagnosed with degenerative joint disease. New Zealand Veterinary Journal, 54(3):114–118, doi: 10.1080/00480169.2006.36622

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Comblain, F., Barthélémy, N., Lefèbvre, M., Schwartz, C., Lesponne, I., Serisier, S. et al. (2017). A randomized, double-blind, prospective, placebo-controlled study of the efficacy of a diet supplemented with curcuminoids extract, hydrolyzed collagen and green tea extract in owner's dogs with osteoarthritis. BMC Veterinary Research, 13(1):395, doi: 10.1186/s12917-017-1317-8

Roush, J. K., Dodd, C. E., Fritsch, D. A., Allen, T. A., Jewell, D. E., Schoenherr, W. D. et al. (2010). Multicenter veterinary practice assessment of the effects of omega-3 fatty acids on osteoarthritis in dogs. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 236(1):59–66, doi: 10.2460/javma.236.1.59

Roush, J. K., Cross, A. R., Renberg, W. C., Dodd, C. E., Sixby, K. A., Fritsch, D. A. et al. (2010). Evaluation of the effects of dietary supplementation with fish oil omega-3 fatty acids on weight bearing in dogs with osteoarthritis. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 236(1):67–73, doi: 10.2460/javma.236.1.67

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Corbee, R. J., Barnier, M. M., van de Lest, C. H. & Hazewinkel, H. A. (2013). The effect of dietary long-chain omega-3 fatty acid supplementation on owner's perception of behaviour and locomotion in cats with naturally occurring osteoarthritis. Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition, 97(5):846–853, doi: 10.1111/j.1439-0396.2012.01329.x

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Westgarth, C., Christley, R. M., Jewell, C., German, A. J., Boddy, L. M. & Christian, H. E. (2019). Dog owners are more likely to meet physical activity guidelines than people without a dog: An investigation of the association between dog ownership and physical activity levels in a UK community. Scientific Reports, 9(1):5704, doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-41254-6

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