Coccidia at 400%

Coccidia in Puppies and Kittens – Treatment and Prevention

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Almost every dog breeder I know has encountered the nasty organism known as Coccidia at one time or another. Purchasing dogs from another breeder is often the most common route of infection, and always makes for a wonderful ‘bonus’ gift (“Oh look, the new puppy just sprayed explosive diarrhea all over the wall!” is a cry too commonly heard just after you let the little darling out of their crate for the first time). For all types of dogs, Coccidia can be picked up in a myriad of ways, in particular from dog parks or show sites – any place where your dogs can encounter cysts shed by other infected dogs.

 

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Pug Eats paper

Feed Pumpkin (Not Paper) To Pets on a Diet

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Does your dog or cat eat a weight loss or weight management pet food? For people, we assume that a diet formula food has less fat and less sugar, and most of us believe that this is also how our pet’s special diet food is made lower in calories. That’s not the case, however.  Read the ingredients list on a bag of diet kibble, and you’ll probably find an ingredient called ‘cellulose’ fairly high up on the list.

Have you ever  wondered what cellulose is?

‘There are various forms of powdered cellulose available from trees like pine and beech to bamboo and cotton. By and large, the cellulose used in petfood applications is derived from pine trees. The ingredient starts its journey in the pulping mills, the same mills used to produce paper. The pulp is made into long continuous sheets and rolled just like paper stock going to the local newspaper. However, cellulose intended for food and feed is ground through specially-designed hammer mills, then sized to certain particle lengths in giant “ball-mills.”

From here it is packaged in bags and bulk sacks for distribution to the respective markets.’

– From Petfood Industry Magazine

Cellulose is quite simply powdered and shredded paper fibre. Bulking up the fibre in food allows us to feed our pet’s the same volume of food, while also giving them less calories.  In Hairball Formula cat food, cellulose fibre binds with hair, making it move more effectively through the gut.

We can achieve the same results as cellulose when feeding cats and dogs by adding pureed pumpkin to their food. Pumpkin adds fibre to the diet in the same way that cellulose does, but instead of a nutritionally void filler, we’re also providing Vitamin E, Magnesium, Phosphorus and Potassium, along with omega-6 oils.  Pumpkin also is also rich in antioxidants, and is a potent anti inflammatory. Dogs  (and even some cats) enjoy pumpkin’s rich taste and texture. When feeding pumpkin to pets, you can make your own puree from fresh pumpkins, or else use a pet specific canned supplement or pure, unsweetened puree from the grocery store (not canned pie filling).

The only downside of using pumpkin instead of cellulose is that your dog will no longer smell woodsy, like a pine tree air freshener.

Here ‘s a recipe for making your own pet friendly pumpkin puree at home. It freezes easily, and costs pennies per portion, and you can also use it in recipes for the two legged people in your life. As a general rule, 3 pounds of fresh pumpkin will yield about 3 cups of mashed and cooked pumpkin.

Microwave Pumpkin Puree:

1. Rinse the pumpkin under cool water to rid the skin of any residual dirt and dry well with a clean towel.
2. Cut the pumpkin in half. Remove the seeds and stringy fibers with a metal spoon or ice cream scoop. Save the seeds for toasting, if you like, and discard the innards.
3. Cut halved pieces into three or four smaller pieces.
4. Fill glass microwave safe bowl 1/3 of the way full of water. Arrange pieces in bowl, skin side up. Cover with plastic wrap, and microwave on high until paring knife glides easily through flesh, 14 to 18 minutes, turning pieces over halfway through.
5. When tender, remove the pumpkin halves from the microwave and place on a flat surface to cool.
6. Once cool enough to handle, but not cold, scoop out the pumpkin flesh.
7. Puree the pumpkin in a food processor, in a food mill, with a hand held blender or by hand.
8. Pumpkin flesh holds a lot of moisture. Line a sieve or fine mesh colander with paper towel or a coffee filter and set over a deep bowl. Let drain for about 2 hours and stir occasionally.

To Freeze:

Once the puree has cooled entirely and drained for two hours, place in freezer containers or ice cube trays. Leave room at the top (headspace) of the containers or individual ice cube compartments. Label, date and freeze the puree for future use.

 

Image of unrepentent paper eating Pug from DogShaming.com

 

dog eating leftover vegetables

In Praise of Leftovers – the Original Dog Food

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Every year, no matter what the holiday season is, we can expect to get bombarded with advice about being super careful to not feed our dogs any leftovers or table scraps. “No people food for dogs!”, trumpet the vets. “Dogs can’t eat table scraps – it will KILL them!”. Oh, the horror of contemplating a world where dogs eat leftover macaroni salad – how shall we all live through it?

I’m here today to sing the praises of lowly leftover table scraps for dogs, in spite of what authorities might have told you.

This weekend, we ate barbecued steak and chicken, caesar salad, tossed salad, grilled zucchini and peppers, steamed asparagus, sauteed mushrooms, fresh bread spread with roasted garlic. Anything that didn’t get finished or eaten – bits of steak, gristle from the chicken, left over veggies and salad, that last bite of garlic bread – got dumped into one big bowl in the fridge, that we fondly refer to as the ‘dog food bowl’. In fact, any ‘healthy’ leftovers are fair game for the ‘dog food bowl’ – plate scrapings of stew, the last bit of pasta, the turkey that’s worn out its welcome, the dessicated piece of cheese rind. Nothing too spicy (no jambalaya or chili) or too greasy (no cooked chicken skin or  pork fat), and of course, no bad for dogs ingredients like raw onions or grapes. Everything else goes in the bowl, chopped if needed but usually just left as is.

Come dinner time for the dogs, each one gets ladled out a portion of the leftovers as a topper for their regular food – and believe me, you have never seen dog food bowls get emptied as quickly as they do when there’s bits of steak and garlic bread in there. For kibble feeders, think of this as a canned topper, minus the canned. For raw feeders, it’s a nice way to give your dogs a different taste and texture, and you’re not giving them enough cooked food to throw their diet off track.

Sure, you need to use some common sense – don’t dump an entire bowl of gravy out for your dogs. Don’t give them cooked bones of any kind. Don’t give them a ton of cooked fat (raw fat or trim, on the other hand, is usually just fine). No raw onions, grapes or chocolate. Exercise moderation, for the obese dog or the dog with a dodgy tummy. But you know all of this already, right?

Up until fifty or so years ago, leftovers pretty much defined ‘dog food’ for most dogs in North America and Great Britain, and leftovers still account for the daily meal of many dogs in developing nations. Feeding your dog isn’t rocket science. Got a kid? Managed to raise them to adulthood without giving them rickets or anemia? Congratulations – you’re probably smart enough to create a balanced meal for your dog – or at least an occasional topper for their regular diet.

No Merle French Bulldogs

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We’ve created a new webpage to make potential French Bulldog owners aware of the potential health risks associated with merle French Bulldogs, and to warn them to avoid merle French Bulldog puppies for sale.

No ethical French Bulldog breeder would breed or sell merle French Bulldogs. The gene for the merle pattern is not found in French Bulldogs. The only way to ‘create’ a merle French Bulldog is by breeding to a dog of a breed that carries merle – generally Chihuahuas. The resulting puppies are then crossed back to each other, allowing the ‘breeder’ to claim that their dogs are purebred Merle French Bulldogs.

Breeding merle to merle results in an average 25% of the puppies produced being ‘double merle’  – more accurately called a homozygous merle, and sometimes referred to as a ‘lethal white’ dog. Double merles have been documented to be as high as 86% blind, deaf or deformed. Double merle has also been linked to allergies, autoimmune disorders, organ defects, neurological defects and even death.

Learn more at our website –  http://www.nomerlefrenchbulldogs.com

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No Merle French Bulldogs

Feathers being processed into feather meal for the pet food industry

Trash to Cash – Feather Meal and Pet Food Ingredients

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The poultry industry in the USA is a high volume business. Annually, an estimated 8 billion broiler chickens are produced, resulting in almost 3 billion pounds of feathers. The resulting feathers could only be disposed of in two ways – sold cheaply to the large animal food industry or to fertilizer companies, or by paid disposal to landfills. A decrease in demand for animal by products as a large animal feed additive, and a rise in the cost of landfill usage fees combined to make lightweight feathers a heavy expense for the poultry industry. Lucky for them, there seems to be almost nothing that the pet food industry isn’t game to try as an ingredient.

Feather Meal, or “FM” as it is referred to in the industry, has long been used as a fertilizer. It has a high nitrogen content, and is also high in protein, but it is indigestible unless it is highly processed. There have been numerous attempts to use feather meal as a food additive for animals, but  published studies as long ago as the 1980’s determined Feather Meal to be of “Low Nutritional Value” as a feed ingredient.

Beginning as early as 2000, there were rumblings within the pet food industry about a great new ingredient that was lowering costs for pet food manufacturers who used chicken and poultry meals as the basis for their foods. A German manufacturer, Goldmehl, had patented a revolutionary new method of Feather Meal processing for the pet food industry. They promised that it increase “feces scoring” in feeding trials. Feces scoring refers to the stool quality of dogs fed a diet based on a specific feed ingredient. In the case of feather meal, inclusion of more than 9% FM by dry weight resulted in dogs with a feces score of “1” – industry shorthand for explosive, watery diarrhea. Goldmehl’s patented Feather Meal would allow manufacturers to include up to 14% Feather Meal, with ‘acceptable’ feces scores.

The use of feathers as a pet food ingredient remained an underground rumbling until 2013, when Keith Levy, the President of Royal Canin USA, admitted in an interview with Forbes Magazine that Royal Canin had spent ten years developing a food that used feather meal as its primary protein source.

We have a team in France that is traveling the world to find ingredients. In this case it’s feather meal. It’s not only nutritious but can also be made very palatable to dogs. Feathers are broken down to an amino acid level and don’t have much of a taste. Then we add palatizers for taste. In this case, we have to be very careful not to provoke an allergic reaction.

Levy later in the interview mentioned that Royal Canin also uses hydrolized soy protein as a pet food ingredient, and that Royal Canin is “currently researching worm meal as a potential protein source for some of our foods in China”. Levy illustrated the best example of the Pet Food industry’s theory of ‘garbage in, pet food out’ when he said –

By using alternative sources of protein, we’re using something that would otherwise end up in a landfill.

Some ingredients, however, end up in landfills (or in your garden, as fertilizer) because they simply shouldn’t be used as a food ingredient, no matter how ‘cost effective’ they are. Feather Meal is primarily composed of  insoluble keratin with high cystine content. Dogs suffering from a genetic condition called Cystinuria lack the ability to process cystine via the kidneys. Over time, cystine becomes concentrated in the urine, which leads to the formation of crystals – commonly referred to as kidney stones.

Owners of dogs afflicted with cystinuria, or of breeds prone to this condition or any other kidney related diseases, are advised to avoid foods containing feather meal. This means you’ll need to watch the labels for ingredients such as feather meal, poultry or chicken digest, and perhaps even poultry or chicken by products (I’m still awaiting confirmation from AAFCO on whether or not FM is now an allowable component in these last two ingredients).