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Excessive self-licking and chewing can be caused by a medical issue. It can also be a behavioral problem, a classic example of an obsessive/compulsive disorder. Either way, it's annoying to the dog's human companion, and dangerous to the health of the dog. Here are tips for dealing with dogs who self-lick and chew excessively. To begin behavior modification, determine your dog's stressors and start eliminating them. Make a list of everything?you can think that is stresses your dog – even just a little bit, even if the stressors don't seem directly related to the licking. Your list might include thunder, small children, dogs on television, cats, riding in cars, visits to the vet, shock collars, medical issues, and many more. Most owners can identify between 10 and 20 stressors for their dogs.

A valid food elimination trial for the purpose of confirming food hypersensitivity consists of three phases: elimination, challenge, and provocation. In the first (elimination) phase, the dog is fed a diet consisting of a single protein source and a single carbohydrate source. Both of these ingredients should be completely “novel” to the dog – foods he’s never eaten before. (Thirty years ago, lamb and rice was the go-to food elimination diet, because those ingredients were not yet widely available in commercial pet foods. Because the diet was novel, few dogs had developed allergies to those ingredients, and “lamb and rice” gained an unearned reputation as a “hypoallergenic” diet.

On April Fool's Day 1996, my soon-to-be-husband took me to get a puppy. We already had one dog, Ladybird, but she was getting older and we felt a young friend would encourage her to be more playful. We also hoped Ladybird would pass on some of her fine qualities to the puppy. We drove out of town to a place where people play paintball. There were more than a dozen young dogs running around, and the owner told us to take our pick. One young female seemed to want my attention more than any of the others, and I fell in love with her pretty face. We took her home and named her Cheyenne.

By applying the foregoing criteria, we’ve found a thousand or more good foods to choose from; their manufacturers appear on our “Approved Dry Dog...

The severity of red eyes in a dog depends in part on where the dog’s eye is red.

Some dogs chase their tails when they are excited and some puppies bite their tails in play or frustration. Watching your dog chasing his tail is funny, but should you be worried?

How often your dog should be seen by your veterinarian, and what sort of routine screening diagnostics should be conducted, are highly dependent on...

Many dogs enjoy and benefit from consuming milk and other milk-based foods without any ill effects. Follow these tips if you'd like to add dairy products to your dog's diet.

Canned dog foods represent only about 15% of the overall pet food market. Why don’t more people feed their dogs canned food? It has...

This article is a sidebar to our post "Diet, Dogs, and DCM", which appeared in the November 2019 issue If this is the first you’re...

Given that itchiness" is the most common reason for veterinary visits

It's that time of year again. Runny noses and sneezes abound for us humans, as new plants bloom in the fall. But did you know that your dog can suffer a runny nose too? Dog runny noses are more correctly called nasal discharge. It can run the gamut from clear and watery to thick and purulent. The appearance and frequency of nasal discharge in dogs can tell you much about the underlying cause.