Energy powers everything your dog does. Not “like everything,” but literally everything. Jumping, running, barking, eating, drinking, panting, slobbering, feeling excited when she sees you, learning a new command, snoring like a chainsaw, growling at the delivery guy, pooping in the living room, fighting off an infection, blinking her eyes, dragging a sled across the […]
Your dog’s veterinarian can be a tremendous resource in your quest to optimize your dog’s health and fitness. Vets are full of unique specialized knowledge and usually have years of experience helping dogs just like yours. They can diagnose latent problems, recommend the most effective interventions, and give you lots of helpful tips and tricks […]
Domestic dogs evolved from wolves some 15,000 years ago. When it comes to temperament, the animals are obviously quite different—the wolf is in every sense a “wild” animal, while the dog is the quintessential domesticated one. But when it comes to how the “below the neck” organs function and interact—particularly those organs relating to digestion […]
It has been my experience that most people believe that they make healthier lifestyle decisions than their generational predecessors. There is a compelling causal narrative at the core of their beliefs: scientific researchers uncover new truths about the world every day; as that newly-discovered information trickles down into the mainstream over time, we all become […]
At Varsity Pets we beat our anti-body-fat drum loud and proud. Body fat kills dogs. And we want our dogs to live for a long time. So we’re against body fat. The purpose of this article is to explain one of the reasons why body fat is so dangerous, not only for dogs but for […]
Obesity kills dogs. It’s that simple, really. We can spend our time discussing the specific health conditions that have been linked with obesity – nasty stuff like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Or we can focus on figuring out how obesity does it’s dirty business – explaining the specific biological processes going on inside an […]
It’s easy to forget that the world as it appears to a dog is very different from the world as it appears to you and me. I mean that literally. Because we all “know” that our dogs experience the world differently than we do (at least in the sense that we’ll all agree with that […]
If you spend as much time as I do talking about pet obesity and fitness, you’re bound to run across someone who attempts to defend their overweight dog using some variation of the “so what?” defense: “Yeah, I know he’s overweight, but so what? Look at him — he doesn’t seem to mind, he’s perfectly […]
On a high level, the chain of reasoning supporting the claim “your dog should lose some body fat” looks something like this: (1) canine overweight and obesity are “bad” for dogs (they shorten lives and amplify suffering); (2) your dog is overweight or obese; therefore (3) your dog should lose some body fat. Most dog […]
Hang around a fancy boutique pet store long enough and you may run into a bizarre and confounding creature – the pet owner or animal rights advocate who feeds his dog or cat a primarily (or even exclusively) vegetarian diet. These curious critters come in all shapes and sizes. And while some are elitist snobs, […]