Parallels in the Health Trends between Pups and Humans

Hi everybody, Dr. Rick here. I've been focusing a lot on this particular book. It's called The Forever Dog. I highly recommend it to anybody who has a dog and loves them and wants to keep them around for a while. There's some really really strong parallels between canine and human health. Now, I know we've touched on that before. I just wanted to go a little further into depth about another key component that a lot of us may not even be looking at. ​

 A lot of this comes from my own personal experience with my dog Kayla who has taught me tremendous amounts about unconditional loving and being empathic because she is,  and most dogs I found really are. When we first met Kayla, she  was a rescue dog. She was really fearful, anxious, and would cower if I moved too fast near her. It broke my heart. Then my wife begged me to start doing Network Care on her, which I had to learn from the creator of Network  Spinal Analysis  Donny Epstein, and a few other practitioners. Dogs spines are totally different from human spines. And lo and behold, after beginning treatments she really started to come back. Kayla was given a safe, stable environment. She was given Network Care. She was given exercise. Everything that we could do for her and she completely changed. She became the strong, confident, friendly, outgoing, and also fierce dog that she is today.

I wanted to just touch on that so that you know this is not only coming from a book, this is also coming from my personal experience. There's some key factors in a dog's life and just like there are in ours. So what are some of those key factors if you want to keep your dog healthy?

Number one diet. What are you feeding him?
Number two, exposure to toxins, environmental toxicity.
Number three, exercise.
Number four, socialization. 
Number five is mental health.

I'm going to focus on this last one right now. So when we talk about mental health for dogs, what does that even mean? Well, let me just kind of give you that same parallel between humans and dogs again. I'm just going to read you some statistics here.

• So with humans there's been a 400 % increase in antidepressant prescriptions since 1990
  
• The suicide rate has become increasingly high especially among young people teens and even younger specifically.
  
• Insomnia affects one quarter of the population in the United States.
  
• Three out of five people have admitted to feeling lonely or out of place
  
• And interestingly enough there's also been a massive decrease in exercise and movement overall generally among the population.
  

Guess what? Dogs are the same thing. They reflect us really, really well. And one of the key points that I wanted to bring up here in terms of mental health and socialization for dogs: imagine if you took your dog, right, and they mirror you. They feel everything you're feeling, right? If you're stressed, they're stressed. And then their normal ways that they're able to dissipate that stress is through walks or playtime or hikes or laying out in the sun. It's just basically being a dog.

But now imagine that same dog is kept in an apartment and the only time they get to go out is just for brief walks to do their business and then boom, they're right back in the environment. Maybe that environment isn't even healthy. You can see how that's really going to affect them. Some may become aggressive, some may become anxious. These are the kind of symptoms we see in dogs when their mental health isn't doing so good. So what do we do about that?

Well, it's the same for us. We need to take care of our nervous systems. . One of the best ways you can take care of them is take care of yourself. So that's where the Network Care comes in. That's where taking care of your own nervous system, finding a ways to manage and dissipate your own stress and hopefully even use that stress as a vehicle to help your own being evolve, in order to become more adaptable, more flexible. When you take care of yourself, your dog is going to sense that. Dogs are pack animals. They're used to being connected with the pack, and you can bet that if you're taking care of your pet, they're looking to you as pack leader.

If you're anxious or nervous or depressed or stressed out, it's completely going to unravel them. So one of the primary things you can do for yourself and for your pet, get outside. Get some exercise get some playtime get some socialization. The other amazing thing that Kayla taught me is that it's not just physical exercise that dogs need. They also need mental stimulation that means games or playing fetch. We have this game where we would hide little treats around the house and not let Kayla see. Then we let her go and she has to find them. So she's got to use her brain and her nose to really figure this out. She loves that game, by the way. These are just some tips for how you and your furry friend can stay healthy and happy together. Thank you.