Hundreds of microorganisms that support a disease-free body is prevalent in just about every warm-blooded creature on the face of the earth – including our tail-wagging, wet-nosed furry friends. These microorganisms are known as probiotics. It has been supplementing humans’ diets for decades, and now it is also available for canines, named probiotics for dogs.
The idea of supplementing the probiotic intake for dogs has risen in prominence in recent times. With a wide array of probiotic for dogs available and considered a must to support their diets, the question arises: how safe are they?
Mary Ellen Sanders, PhD, is an internationally recognised leader in probiotic for dogs microbiology. She says in the canine gastrointestinal (GI) tract, probiotics promote health by “piggybacking on the important relationship between the normal immune system and microbes”.
More specifically, Sanders suggests that probiotics for dogs increase “the activity or numbers of immune cells or cytokines, whose job it is to attack invading pathogens.” When the immune system senses these microbes in the gut, it launches a response. Probiotics can also produce antibacterial compounds called bacteriocins, which directly inhibit the body’s tolerance of pathogen growth.
In plain English: probiotics are the good bacteria that kick out the bad, and then make it harder for the bad ones to get a foothold. They help your dog digest its food, increase the absorption of nutrients while boosting the immune system, too. A good general understanding of how probiotics function, can be found here nccam.nih.gov.
When it comes to optimising the use of probiotics, Dr. Robert Boyle, a clinical lecturer with the UK’s National Institute for Health Research, suggests that they work best as preventive agents. “Once disease is established,” Boyle writes, “it is harder for [probiotics] to compete with pathogenic bacteria and processes that have already become established in the gut.”
While your dog is well, get them started with a diet rich in good microflora.
