The Pet Microbiome: How Your Dog’s Gut Affects Their Mood, Behaviour, and Overall Wellbeing
When we think about our dogs’ health, we often focus on the obvious things: good food, exercise, mental stimulation, and plenty of love. But there’s a hidden world inside your dog that plays a huge role in how they feel, both physically and emotionally. It’s called the gut microbiome, and it might just be one of the most important parts of their body.
🌿 What Exactly Is the Microbiome?
Your dog’s gut microbiome is a bustling community of trillions of bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms living mostly in the gut. They support digestion, immunity, nutrient absorption, and even skin health. When the microbiome is balanced, dogs tend to have better digestion, stronger immunity, and more stable behaviour.
But when it’s out of balance? That’s when problems start.
🧠 The Gut-Brain Axis: The Two‑Way Conversation Inside Your Dog
Your dog’s gut and brain are constantly communicating through something called the gut–brain axis. This connection works both ways:
- A healthy gut can support a calmer, happier dog
- A stressed or anxious dog can disrupt their gut health
This means your dog’s behaviour isn’t just shaped by training or environment, it’s also influenced by what’s happening inside their digestive system.
🍽️ How Poor Nutrition Can Affect Behaviour
Highly processed foods, artificial additives, and low‑quality ingredients can upset the microbiome. When the gut becomes unbalanced, it can lead to:
- Increased anxiety
- Hyperactivity
- Irritability
- Difficulty focusing
- Sleep disturbances
- Excessive itching and scratching as a result of skin issues
Why? Because an unhealthy gut produces fewer “feel‑good” chemicals like serotonin - around 90% of serotonin is made in the gut, not the brain. If the gut isn’t functioning well, your dog may struggle to regulate their emotions.
This is one of the reasons Embark focuses on natural, single‑ingredient treats. When dogs eat real, species‑appropriate foods, with minimal ingredients, their microbiome thrives, and so does their behaviour.
😟 How Stress and Anxiety Affect the Gut
Just like humans, dogs feel stress in their stomachs. When a dog is anxious, the body releases more stress hormones that can:
- Slow digestion
- Cause diarrhoea or constipation
- Reduce appetite
- Disrupt the balance of gut bacteria
- Create secondary health issues
Over time, chronic stress can weaken the microbiome, making dogs more prone to illness, allergies, and behavioural issues. Unfortunately, it becomes a cycle: poor gut health increases anxiety, and anxiety further harms the gut.
🐶 Supporting Your Dog’s Gut for Better Behaviour
The good news? Small changes make a big difference.
- Choose natural, minimally processed treats and food
- Avoid fillers and ingredients such as: cereals, artificial colours & flavours, potassium sorbate, calcium carbonate, glycerine, starch, sunflower oil, vegetable oil and rapeseed oil
- Introduce gut‑friendly proteins like rabbit, venison, turkey or duck
- Offer enrichment to reduce stress
- Keep training sessions positive, calm and force free – certain aversive tools and techniques put harmful pressure on a dog’s nervous system and endocrine system, which can cause unbalance in the gut microbiome along with many other health and behavioural issues such as Cushing’s disease, systemic hypertension, or a weakened immune system
- Feed species appropriate prebiotics to support the gut
🌿 What are prebiotics and how do we use them to our dogs’ advantage?
- Prebiotics are nondigestible food ingredients that feed or promote the growth of beneficial microorganisms in the gut and help to maintain a healthy gut barrier
- They are different to probiotics. Probiotics are the beneficial bacteria already living within the gut that use probiotics for food
- Probiotics encourage a better Microbiome than probiotics alone
- Adding prebiotics to a dog’s diet makes it much easier to balance the gut microbiome
- Here’s a list of our favourite natural and dog safe prebiotics:
Dandelions
Pumpkin (fresh or powdered)
Chicory Root
Slippery Elm
Organic Green Bananas
Shiitake Mushrooms
Raw Organic Apples
Bonus tip:
Pumpkin is also an excellent source of soluble and insoluble fibre.
In short, this means the soluble fibre has good bioavailability for our dogs and they can take on all the health benefits of pumpkin such as regulating stool moisture and helping to alleviate diarrhoea.
But, the insoluble fibre helps to bulk up the stools, aiding the natural expression of anal glands and helps when a dog is constipated.
So, pumpkin helps with diarrhoea AND constipation.. cool, right?
At Embark, every treat and supplement is designed to support your dog’s natural biology, including their microbiome. When you feed your dog in a way that respects their gut, you’re also supporting their mood, behaviour, and long‑term wellbeing.
Click here to browse our full range of healthy, natural treats and supplements!