What are the best probiotics for dogs and do our pets need them?

Video: Best Dog Probiotic on the Market

I am sure by now everyone has heard of the benefits of probiotics. There are yogurt commercials, health food stores, and grocery stores touting how it can improve people’s gut flora and general health. But are the the best probiotics for dogs and do our pets even need them?

Do dogs receive the same benefits from ingesting probiotics as humans? What is the best way to administer probiotics to your dog? I’ll answer all these questions and more in this article.

But why would you give your dog probiotics in the first place? Many vets agree that improving your dog’s gut flora and digestive tract through administration of probiotics, which has been proven with research (links below), may be the only way.

“The gut is the largest immune organ in the body. Its job is to allow absorption of food, while excluding elements like bacteria and toxins, yet sometimes these defenses break down.” – Susan G. Wynn, DVM, dog nutritionist at PetMD

Video: How to Improve Your Dog's Health with Our Best Probiotics for Dogs by Doberman Labs

Not only that, but probiotics may also improve many other health factors in canines, from skin and coat to immune system and general well-being. So let’s talk about these supplements, how to give them and how exactly they can benefit our pets.

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Best Probiotics For Dogs and Why Our Pets Can Really Benefit from Them

It turns out that not only people, but dogs can also benefit a lot from consuming probiotics, and this has been supported by a vast amount of research. Giving probiotics for dogs, pets receive all the same benefits that people do from taking these supplements.

Some of the conditions in dogs that may be helped by probiotics include:

• Skin issues
• Stress
• Poor coat
• Vomiting
• Weight problems
• Allergies
• Diarrhea or loose stool
• Yellow stool
• Excess gas (flatulence)
• Stool eating
• Excessive shedding (not normal seasonal shedding)

Research in this are is still ongoing, but we’ve already seen many studies on how probiotics improve dog’s skin and coat, how probiotics help with dog’s digestion and diarrhea, assisting dog’s digestive tract and fighting several types of worms in dogs, and can even improve canine’s immune system.

With these benefits, it is good to keep your pet on a regular probiotic regimen, but there are times when dogs can benefit the most from a probiotic. Those situations include when the following has happened:

• The normal intestinal balance may have been disrupted by drugs, like antibiotics, NSAIDs, or steroids
• Dietary change or poor diet
• Exposure to a pathogenic virus or bacteria
• Surgery
• Exposure to pollutants or allergens, such as pesticides, chemical fertilizers, etc
• Inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract
• Stress due to changes in environment, etc

What I find most interesting is that probiotics can help with stress in pets.

Stress is a big health factor that affects general well-being of our canines. Therefore, a good way of calming down a dog is one of the things most pet parents will be interested in, and if we can reduce the amount of stress our dogs experience just by giving them probiotics, this may just be a life saver.

“Dogs or cats that receive probiotics have a lower incidence of diarrhea compared to animals not receiving it. The best effects are observed when probiotics are given in advance in anticipation of stressful events, for example boarding flights, long car rides, etc.” – Dr. Jan Suchodolski, Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences

It’s clear that there are far more benefits from giving probiotics to dogs than just improving their digestive tract and gut flora. As more research emerges, we can see how much of our pets’ health (and our own, actually) depends on a healthy balance of good bacteria in our gut.

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