Joni's Dog School

Joni's Dog School I’m Joni, with 20+ years working with dogs of all types. I offer daycare, boarding, and training built on clear boundaries and consistent handling.

The goal is simple, calm, balanced dogs that know what’s expected and carry that behaviour back home.

16/08/2026

🥒 A Cool Summer Treat With Surprising Benefits
Looking for a healthy summer snack your dog will love? Reach for a cucumber.
Made up of about 95% water, cucumbers are one of nature’s best ways to help keep dogs hydrated on hot days. They’re low in calories, naturally crunchy, and make a refreshing alternative to highly processed, high-calorie treats.
And the benefits go beyond hydration. That extra moisture helps support healthy skin from the inside out, while nutrients like vitamin K, vitamin C, potassium, and antioxidants contribute to overall wellness. Better hydration also helps maintain a soft, shiny coat and supports healthy cells throughout the body.
Chill cucumber slices in the refrigerator or freeze them for a cool, crunchy treat your pup can enjoy after a walk or play session.
Sometimes the healthiest treats are also the simplest. 🥒💚🐶

09/08/2026

DOES SPAYING OR NEUTERING REALLY MAKE DOGS CALMER?

For decades, many people have been told that spaying or neutering helps reduce unwanted behaviors. But a new 2026 peer-reviewed review published in Animal Reproduction suggests the science is more complicated.

After reviewing decades of research, the authors concluded there’s not enough consistent evidence to recommend spaying or neutering solely to change behavior. In fact, several studies included in the review found some dogs showed more fear, anxiety, or certain forms of aggression after being spayed or neutered.

Why? The review explains that reproductive hormones don’t just influence reproduction. They also play important roles in brain function, learning, memory, stress responses, and emotional regulation. Removing those hormones may affect dogs differently depending on their genetics, age, s*x, breed, and individual temperament.

One of the most interesting parts of the review is that the authors discuss hormone-preserving alternatives that prevent breeding while allowing the body to continue producing its natural hormones. These include:

🐕 Vasectomy – prevents male dogs from reproducing while leaving the testicles in place, so testosterone production continues.

🐕 Ovary-sparing spay – removes the uterus but leaves one or both ovaries intact, preventing pregnancy while preserving ovarian hormone production.

The authors suggest they deserve more attention because they can help preserve some of the health and behavioral benefits associated with natural hormones while still preventing unwanted litters.

The review doesn’t argue that dogs should or shouldn’t be spayed or neutered. Instead, it encourages veterinarians and pet owners to move away from a one-size-fits-all approach and make decisions based on each dog’s individual health, lifestyle, behavior, and risk of reproduction.

08/08/2026

🧬 CAN WHAT YOUR DOG EATS CHANGE HOW FAST THEIR BODY AGES?

A fascinating new peer-reviewed pilot study suggests it might.
Researchers followed pugs for 6 months, comparing dogs that stayed on extruded dry kibble with dogs switched to a cooked, minimally processed, human-grade diet formulated by a board-certified veterinary nutritionist.

Instead of just measuring weight or bloodwork, researchers looked at changes in the dogs’ DNA associated with biological aging — essentially, how old their bodies appeared compared with their actual age.

🥩 The surprising finding? Dogs switched to fresh food showed a nearly 1-year shift toward a younger biological age in just 6 months, while dogs that stayed on kibble did not show a significant change.

🥩 Fresh food: +2.75 years → +1.80 years
🥣 Kibble: +2.77 years → +2.46 years

Even more interesting, the dogs’ bodyweights remained stable, suggesting the shift wasn’t simply due to weight loss. Researchers also found significant changes involving KISS1R, a gene associated with metabolism and obesity, in the fresh-fed dogs but not the kibble-fed dogs.

Published in Veterinary Record Open, a peer-reviewed journal of the British Veterinary Association published by Wiley, the study adds to growing research on the potential benefits of balanced, minimally processed foods.

🥦 Want to add more fresh food to your pet’s bowl but aren’t sure where to start? That’s why Dr. Karen Becker and Rodney Habib wrote The Forever Dog LIFE.

It includes 30+ complete and balanced fresh-food recipes that can be served raw, poached, slow-cooked, or baked, with versions for dogs and cats, different activity levels and life stages, plus hundreds of variations online.

Whether you feed fully fresh or simply want to add more fresh food, The Forever Dog LIFE helps you do fresh food right. 🐶🐱🥩🥦

08/08/2026

A NEWER “FOREVER CHEMICAL” IS NOW SHOWING UP MOST OFTEN IN PET FOOD

A new peer-reviewed study found 10 different PFAS (“forever chemicals”) across 39 commercial pet foods. Even more surprising, the most common wasn’t one of the older PFAS you’ve probably heard about. It was GenX, a newer replacement chemical linked to liver, immune, hormone, and developmental problems in animal studies. Researchers also found that pet food contributed far more PFAS exposure than tap water for most of the chemicals they measured.

What can pet parents do?

🐾 Choose brands that actively monitor for environmental contaminants.

🥦 Feed a balanced, minimally processed diet that contains adequate fiber, which helps reduce the reabsorption of some PFAS in the digestive tract.

💧 If PFAS contamination is a concern where you live, use clean, filtered drinking water for both you and your pets.

Addressing food-borne contaminants is another reason Dr. Karen Becker formulated Liver Lift™. It contains nutrients involved in the liver’s normal detoxification pathways, including N-acetylcysteine (NAC), glutathione, milk thistle, broccoli sprouts, glycine, and TUDCA, to help support healthy liver function and the body’s natural detoxification processes.

Every exposure may be small, but it can add up over a lifetime. Reducing unnecessary exposure is one practical step you can take.

👉🏼If you want a science-backed liver support option for dogs and cats, comment “CLEANUP” and we’ll send you the link.

Address

33 Bataan Circuit
Bateau Bay, NSW
2261

Telephone

+61407269246

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