Green Meadows Kennel

As important as diet, exercise is critical to maintaining a healthy body weight, muscle tone, and developing a bond between you and your dog. Golden Retrievers need at least an hour and a half of exercise a day.
Exercise can be as simple as throwing a favorite toy for your friend to retrieve or going on a walk together. When walking, make sure that you have an appropriate collar and lead for the weight of your dog. I recommend choke collars for young dogs that like to pull on the leash; these collars do not choke or hurt your puppy if you use them correctly. It is a training collar that helps your puppy to recognize he needs to listen to you and not pull on the lead. Goldens also LOVE to swim. Trust me, these guys will look for water even if it's only a big mud puddle! By the way, wading pools are great for your golden in the summer; dogs really enjoy a cool- off during the dog-days of summer.
Good toys are an ever present part of a golden's life. We have found the perfect toys for avid chewers and dogs that tear up the soft, stuffed animal toys five minutes after you get them home from the pet store; Coleman sporting toys are tough toys made especially for retrievers and dogs that play hard with their toys. We really like Kongs which are made in the USA. These can be filled with something tastey like cheese or peanut butter to occupy your pooch for hours. You can find these great toys at stores like Sports Authority and Accademy Sports and Outdoors.

Goldens thrive on spending time with their people.

Being a dog owner, I know how important it is to keep your best friend in optimal health. Let's start with diet. After trying several kinds of dog food on the market, I did some research into what exactly was in dog food and how each ingredient affected my dogs. Little did I know that the typical ingredient lists on most dog food brands contain cornmeal, animal byproducts, and even wheat, which are not good choices for my dogs' digestive systems. Besides all this, most of these foods contain harmful preservatives that can lead to kidney damage and cancer. Cornmeal has also been linked to serious skin allergies in dogs. Also, I was looking for ingredients that were missing: probiotics and antioxidents. Antioxidents are found in fruits and vegetables and strengthen the immune system. Probiotics are healthy bacteria that help with digestion.
I knew after learning all of this, I wanted to change my dog food to somthing offering ingredients that would help my Goldens enjoy great health. Because we had made the decision to eat more whole foods in our diet, and have also been reaping the benefits of such a diet. I wanted to find a dog food with ingredients minimally processed and without harmful preservatives. With all these things in mind, we found a really great dog food to meet all of these demands: Life's Abundance. Not only does this food contain no cornmeal, byproducts, artificial ingredients, wheat products, processed animal remains, or harmful preservatives, it has a 6 week long shelf life to assure its freshness.
Life's Abundance was specially designed by a holisitic veterinarian who had a huge concern for the health of her dog patients. Dr. Bick stands behind Life's Abundance. If you have any questions about the food you can email her, and she will get back to you. Life's Abundance is available through independent distributors like me. You can check it out by clicking on the Life's Abundance link on this page. I will be happy to answer any questions you might have about the food or shipping.
Leaning in the direction of holistic care, I have come across a good book written by a veterinarian about natural health. The book is called Dr. Pictcairn's Complete Secrets To The Natural Health Of Dogs & Cats by Richard H. Pitcairn, DVM, PHD, and Susan Hubble Pitcairn. His book contains all natural remedies for common ailments such as diarrhea and flea control among other things.