Pet Food: What’s Your Dog Really Eating?

Pet food is primarily made up of leftovers from human food production, such as the animal products that aren’t wanted or those which are considered unfit for human consumption. The type of ingredients and their quality can vary widely. Naturally, you get what you pay for, as the cheapest pet food is likely to contain lesser quality ingredients. But in some cases you may be paying a premium price for mediocre foods that have simply got a great marketing promotion. There are a few ingredients to look out for on a pet food label that could give a good indication of the food’s overall quality. These could not only prevent your pet from eating foods that may make them ill over time, but will also stop you paying premium prices for foods that are harming your pets’ health.

Animal Fat

Also known as tallow, animal fat is a product of rendering. In this process, parts and pieces of animals (and sometimes the whole animal) are put through a giant grinder and then boiled for 30 minutes to several hours in large vats. The high heat is necessary to kill off bacteria, viruses and moulds, along with other pathogens. This also enables the fat to separate and float to the top, where it is then skimmed and used in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. When pet food companies use fat from a single species, they will label it as such. However, when its a mixture, it is labelled as general ‘animal fat. The latter is not something you want your pet to be eating.

Meat and Bone Meal

Meat and bone meal, known as MBM, is yet another product of rendering. This single ingredient doesn’t refer to a combination of meat meal and bone meal. The remaining material from rendering is pressed and dried to create a fluffy brown powder, which is MBM. It’s a high protein powder that is commonly used to bulk out low cost pet foods. It’s also a generic term that could include any one species or a variety. For years, it was rumoured that euthanised cats and dogs were processed into pet foods, but this was denied by the pet food industry. In tests, no samples of either species were found but it was found that meat and bone meal were the ingredients most likely to be associated with the presence of sodium pentobarbital – the drug used for euthanasia.

Animal Digest

This is a common flavouring agent that is sprayed onto dry kibbles to make them more appealing to pets. It’s made from a stew of animal parts than are broken down with enzymes and chemicals. As before, the term ‘animal’ could refer to anything. If you pet is allergic to a certain animal protein, this could be a problem.

Corn Products

Corn products are often found in pet foods, including whole grain corn, ground corn and corn bran. It’s used to provide a source of energy, but the vast majority of corn in the U.S is genetically modified – 85 per cent, in fact. Corn gluten is especially problematic as it is a cheap substitute for meat. Cats and dogs require a meat based diet, so this can lead to health problems.

Chemical Preservatives

Mny pet food companies use synthetic preservatives, such as BHA, BHT and ethoxyquin. These have been linked to a number of health problems, including cancer. Try to opt for foods that offer natural preservatives, such as ascorbic acid (vitamin C), tocopherols (vitamin E) and rosemary oil.

Categories: animal, bone meal, corn, corn products, Food, food companies, health, health problems, pet food, pet foods, pets

Should You Take Your Pet in for Chiropractic Care?

You may think complementary wellness is just for people, but cat owner Mary Arabe has found that alternative therapies can work wonders for a pet’s wellbeing. Last August, Ms. Arabe’s nine-year-old grey and black tiger cat, Leo, came home, clearly in pain, with a severe limp and an elbow swollen three times its normal size. Ms. Arabe details, ‘He kind of lay around the barn that day; you could tell he was hurting. He was in so much agony I thought, “If someone can’t remove this animal’s pain I have to put him down.”’ When the vet told her there was nothing he could do for Leo, Ms. Arabe took the cat to chiropractor Rick Tsai, who manipulated Leo’s joints after an x-ray revealed a large amount of swelling and fluid retention. Ms. Arabe notes, ‘We brought the cat home, and the next day he was walking fine. Two thirds of the swelling in the arm was gone. Whatever Dr. Tsai adjusted, it worked. He healed him.’

 

Ms. Arabe is just one of a growing number of pet owners who swear by their chiropractors for relieving arthritis, sprains, joint pain and other ailments in their furry little friends. In 1987 – 92 years after human and animal chiropractic first began – animal chiropractic began to gain wide appeal when the late Sharon Willoughby-Blake, a veterinarian and chiropractor, started Options for Animals. This practice taught vets and chiropractors how to adjust animals and, two years later, the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association, a professional membership group and the main certifying agency in North America, was formed. According to Robbie Hroza, vice president of operations for Options for Animals, 2,000 students have now gone through their programme.

 

Nonetheless, chiropractic remains a controversial practise, in both people and pets. It’s true that research shows chiropractic care can be more effective than medications for people with problems like neck pain, but other studies have linked forceful neck manipulation to strokes, and even claimed that unfavourable chiropractic outcomes are under-reported in medical trials. And that’s just in people. When it comes to animal care, there are only a few scientific studies about chiropractic’s efficacy, and tensions exist both within and between the chiropractic and veterinary communities. Depending on the US state, a chiropractor may or may not be allowed to touch an animal without either a veterinarian’s referral or direct veterinary supervision.

 

In its pain management guidelines for dogs and cats, the American Animal Hospital Association and the American Association of Feline Practitioners warn that ‘chiropractic methods potentially can cause injury through the use of inappropriate technique or excessive force…There is currently insufficient published evidence of efficacy in dogs and cats to make specific recommendations about the use of chiropractic intervention.’ In fact, the American Chiropractic Association’s position is that the term “veterinary chiropractic” is a misnomer and should ‘not be used to refer to the application of manipulative techniques to animals.’ So, then, was Ms. Arabe making a mistake in taking Leo to Dr. Tsai?

 

‘A person should be allowed to take their animal anywhere they want if they think it benefits them,’ Dr. Tsai asserts. He points out that while he has worked in tandem with many veterinarians over the years, a lot of them don’t like his field because it takes away their business.  Gene Giggleman, a veterinarian, animal chiropractor and a professor of anatomy at Parker University College of Chiropractic, in Dallas, adds. ‘My philosophy as a vet is “chiropractic first, drugs and surgery second,” but a lot of vets don’t understand or know about animal chiropractic, and so they don’t refer people.’

Categories: animal, animal chiropractic, arabe, Cats, chiropractic, chiropractic association, chiropractic care, Debate, dr tsai, ms arabe, veterinary chiropractic

Doctor Doglittle: Could You Benefit from Animal Therapy?

While guide dogs are so commonly used that you wouldn’t even think anything of it, you may be less sure about animal-assisted therapy (AAT). Otherwise known as pet therapy, this complementary wellness practice sees animals being trained to help you achieve specific physical, social, cognitive, and emotional wellness goals.

 

Though it sounds fairly unusual, people have been using animals to boost their wellbeing ever since the ninth century. In Gheel, Belgium, an assisted living programme designed for people with disabilities revolves around learning to care for farm animals, while animal-assisted healing has been more commonly used in the US for mental health problems. However, AAT has gained more of a formal presence in the last few decades, even being implemented in schools, prisons, hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, and outpatient care programmes.

 

So what are the benefits of owning a pet, or visiting a therapeutically-trained animal?

 

Heart Health – According to various studies, physical contact with a pet can reduce your high blood pressure, and improve your survival rate after a heart attack.

 

Happy Hormones – Evidence also shows that petting an animal can cause your body to release endorphins, which are the chemicals in your body that improve your mood and suppress the pain response.

 

Special Skills – With the assistance of a therapy animal, you can learn or improve in many different skills. If you need physical therapy after an accident or operation, walking, running or playing fetch with a dog can encourage your rehabilitation. Petting, grooming and feeding an animal can improve your motor skills, while giving verbal and physical commands, or writing and talking about therapy animals and pets, can enhance your communication.

 

However, you can’t just interact with any animal for it to qualify as AAT; practitioners and their animals are required to undergo a high standard of training to ensure you have a safe and positive experience. Although the pets are trained by volunteers, these volunteers will work with other medical professionals, and be fully trained to set you specific goals and track your progress. Plus, the animals themselves should be well trained to be around people, medical equipment and other animals, and should not get distracted by food and odours, chew inappropriate objects or mark territory.

Categories: animal, Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT), animals, heart health, hormones, nbsp, therapy, trained

How to Eat Wild Game Safely

When looking at the food landscape, it quickly becomes clear to people who want to eat organic that doing so can be a challenge, especially given how loose the definitions are when it comes to applying the organic label to a product. When it comes to meat, though, it doesn’t get more organic than wild game. While farmed game meat is also a healthy option, being lower in saturated fat and calories than meat from domestic animals, the presence of human input raises the question of antibiotics, growth hormones, and other contaminants that the FDA has been notoriously lax in policing.

 

How to procure wild game can be another question: the options range from the convenient but questionably provenance option of purchasing online to the time-consuming task of hunting and fishing for your own. In between these are the premium online meat providers (with premium prices), trusted butcher shops, and hunter connections who supply the (relative to farm-raised) minuscule supply of wild game meat on the market.

 

If you’re going to get meat from non-USDA inspected sources (and if it’s not processed on a commercial scale it probably isn’t) you need to either have a supplier you can trust or have a knowledge of what to look for. Of course, given the unknown steps that go between harvesting the animal and the dressed meat that winds up in your kitchen, there’s a lot you have to leave to trust even if you inspect the meat thoroughly when you get it. Given these considerations, the only real way to be sure you’re getting absolutely safe game is to harvest it yourself. If this isn’t possible, then use only meat from farmed game for rare/medium rare preparations.

 

The safest way to use wild game you haven’t harvested is to cook it thoroughly in low and slow preparations. Another approach is to make it into sausage. The sausage should not only be made with care to avoid introducing microbes into the mince, it should then be given a good hot smoking to make sure the internal temperature reaches safe levels. Canning, if done carefully, will also do, but improper processing can cause growth of the microbes that cause botulism. Jerky has also been known to cause problems when the smoking temperatures weren’t high enough to kill the bacteria.

 

If you have the time and the inclination, the best option is obviously to go out and harvest your own game. This of course assumes that you can efficiently take down your quarry, keep it cool, and dress it either in the field or in a convenient location. Below are some tips for making sure that your harvested meat is safe:

 

Make sure you know what human-affecting conditions there are in your quarry in the area you’re hunting in, and make sure you know how to identify them in the animal while it’s alive and in the carcass. Common sense dictates that a sick-looking animal probably won’t make for good eating.

Try not to get a gut shot. If you do, don’t gut the carcass when you butcher it since the spilled gut contents will ruin any meat it comes into contact with.

 

Wear gloves while dressing the carcass, and separate the innards from the rest ASAP.

 

Cool the meat quickly. It’s better to field dress on site and store in a cooler than drag a carcass any considerable distance on a hot day.

 

Use a separate knife or saw to remove the head. This is for deer and the like. You don’t want any neural matter contaminating the meat just in case the animal had any wasting disease.

 

Keep the meat clean. Cut away any hemorrhaged tissue, try to avoid bacterial contamination as much as possible, and wash the cuts thoroughly after butchering.

 

Lastly, when in doubt, throw it out. And if you wouldn’t eat it yourself, don’t feed it to your pets—remember that they can be affected just as much as, if not more than, you by certain parasites and infections.

 

Brandon Peters is an entrepreneur, writer, lover of the outdoors, and amateur cook. He enjoys the kind of eating experiments that you can live through.

Categories: animal, diet, farmed game, game, game meat, meat, nbsp, nutrition, wild, wild game