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Summer sunshine, warm sand, crisp ocean water, and your best fur friend at your side: the key ingredients for a top-tier beach day. And you can make your outdoor adventure even better—and safer—by supplying your pup with all the necessary dog beach essentials.  From basics like a water bowl for midday refreshments to extras that add a little more pizzazz to your outing, we’ve put together a helpful dog beach checklist. 

More and more of us are willing to pay extra for organic groceries—and for good reason. Eating organic helps us avoid foods that have been treated with potentially harmful chemicals or are genetically modified. Your pet is part of your family, and you know that they deserve the same high-quality food. Feeding your pet organic food leads to a ton of benefits, like stronger immunity and better digestion for a healthy dog. “Many dogs and cats suffer from food allergies,” says Dr. Rachel Barrack, DVM, certified veterinary acupuncturist and certified Chinese Herbalist at Animal Acupuncture in New York City. “Dog allergies can manifest as red, itchy, paws; itchy, infection prone ears; and severe skin disease.” Other symptoms of a food sensitivity often include skin irritation, chronic ear and skin infections, and gastrointestinal troubles, such as vomiting and diarrhea. Food sensitivities can also trigger chronic pain and weight gain. In addition to dog allergies, more canines are overweight and developing serious chronic health problems as they age, including cancer and heart disease. “These conditions can severely impact pet health and daily quality of life,” says Dr. Barrack, who urges her clients to take a hard look at nutrition to rebuild their pet’s health from the bowl up.

Turkey is often included in dog food, but is it safe to give your pup a piece of turkey from your plate? Can dogs eat turkey?  While turkey is safe for dogs (and can be good for them too), it doesn’t mean you should go overboard with the table scraps.  We talked to two veterinary experts about the benefits and risks of turkey for dogs, how to safely feed turkey to dogs, and more.  Before introducing any new food into your dog’s diet, always check with your veterinarian. 

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This tip sounds fancy, but it’s not. You’re essentially finding ways to rewire your dog’s brain to associate something they were once afraid of with something the love. Let’s say your dog is afraid of skateboards. Try placing a skateboard on the floor with dog treats sprinkled on it. “The dog’s going to investigate and realize, ‘Oh, wait a minute, this could be a moving tray with treats.’ In effect, you’re trying to help change the dog’s opinion of this,” says Melese. Once the dog is comfortable with the stationary skateboard, try moving it one inch with the treats on top. Once the dog is no longer fearful of the skateboard moving slightly, start moving it more until mimics what they might find in real life: a moving skateboard with someone on it. This technique reprograms the dog’s response through a combination of managing the exposure (so that you don’t have the dog constantly reacting to that same thing) then reintroducing the stimulus (the thing that is scaring the dog) in a controlled manner and associating it with positive experiences, like food, says Melese. He adds that for this technique to be effective, the treat needs to be high value (consider small pieces of cheese or boiled hot dog).,Raising a dog who is shy or fearful can make it difficult to go to new places or experience new things together. But worry not. Building confidence in dogs takes some work, but it can make new experiences less daunting. So how do you build confidence in a dog? First, determine if they are shy or fearful by looking at your dog’s body language, says Dr. Patrick Melese, a board-certified veterinary behaviorist at Veterinary Behavior Consultants in San Diego, California. “It’s most obvious when a dog is showing body signals of fear: tucked tail, ears back, avoidance, shaking, trying to hide, things that most people clearly would recognize as an avoidance and a fear behavior,” says Melese. Additional signs you should look out for include panting, lip licking, shaking off, dropping his tail and maybe even crouching. Fearful dogs may also check in often with their owners or, if they are extremely afraid, may become aggressive to make the source of their fear go away, says Dr. Liz Stelow, a behavior clinician at the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital in Davis, California. From allowing your dog to observe other dogs, to putting your pooch in a new environment the right way, here are six ways to help boost your dog’s confidence: