Green Dog Blog

As a Green store, we of course are dedicated to sustainability, but that can be a real challenge with pet food.
The larger a company is, the more difficult and expensive it is for them to source the most sustainable ingredients on a large enough scale to meet national demand. One might expect that we would source only Organic foods, but this is more of a challenge than you might expect – many pet foods that are certified organic are not, in our opinion, necessarily suitable nutritionally for carnivores; organic meats are expensive, and often a very large percentage of the protein is derived from less expensive organic grains.

We dropped one line of “organic” pet food (Castor and Pollux) because we found out that they were using farmed salmon in their foods, one of the most ecologically harmful, least organic ingredients you could use (enormous amounts of antibiotics and other chemicals used, extremely polluting, and a big risk to wild salmon populations) as well as being so high in PCBs that humans are recommended to not eat it more than once a month due to risk of cancer – what about much smaller animals that eat it every meal of every day? We don’t like farmed salmon, and we were upset that a food that touts the benefits of organic foods (more humane to the animals, more sustainable, lack of chemicals used to raise/grow products, etc) would not stand up publicly against this very un-organic ingredient, let alone allow it in their foods.

Most of our food companies use pastured, antibiotic and hormone free meats, as well as sustainable fisheries and cage free chickens, though not all. Commercial raw foods for pets almost always score higher in sustainability – Some of our most sustainable foods are found in our freezers; brands like Rad Cat and Small Batch are our favorites, as they use locally sourced ingredients, pastured meats, and organic fruits and veggies, and are both produced in or near Portland.

GMO ingredients are more and more pervasive though both in human foods and pet foods, and are very difficult to avoid, especially because they are not labelled. We realize that they of course occur in many commercially made foods, so it is impressive when a company steps forward to make foods that are largely GMO free. Two kibble companies that are doing this are KLN (Natural Planet Organics, Pure Vita, and Nutrisource) and Champion (Orijen/Acana).

What is GMO?
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) refer to plants and animals with an altered genetic make-up. GMOS are created by changing an organism’s genetic composition by artificial means, often involving the transfer of specific traits, or genes, from one organism into a plant or animal of an entirely different species.

According to Gracelinks.org, nearly 400 million acres of farmland worldwide are now used to grow GE crops such as cotton, corn, soybeans and rice.  In the United States, GE soybeans, corn and cotton make up 93%, 88% and 94% of the total acreage of the respective crops.  The majority of genetically engineered crops grown today are engineered to be resistant to pesticides and/or herbicides so that they can withstand being sprayed with weed killer while the rest of the plants in the field die.

Proponents claim genetically engineered crops are designed to use fewer pesticides than non-GE crops, when in reality GE plants can require even heavier use of chemicals.  This is because weeds and insects can and do become resistant to pesticides, leading farmers to spray an ever increasing volume of chemicals on their crops, and eventually are having to resort to more and more toxic chemicals to fight these “superweeds” and “superbugs”.  This pollutes the environment, depletes the soil, exposes food to higher levels of toxins, and creates greater safety concerns for farmers, farm workers, and people living adjacent to these farming operations. Pollen from GMO plants can spread and contaminate other crops (a real risk for organic crops).

There have been very few credible studies on GM food safety. Nevertheless, the available findings already give cause for concern. Opinion polls show that up to 90% of Americans want GMO ingredients to be labeled as such, but so far, efforts in the U.S. have failed. Many other countries in the world (more than 60) have already passed laws labeling GMO foods for the consumer. Meanwhile, our country just passed the Monsanto Protection Act, effectively protects biotech companies Like Monsanto from federal courts should any evidence come to light about negative health side effects to the crops.

What you can do:

* Look for foods that are labelled GMO free.
* Choose Certified Organic products – USDA regulations prohibit organic foods from containing GE ingredients, and organic meats cannot come from animals that were fed GE crops. So eating organic is a surefire way to avoid GE foods.
* Support efforts to label GMO ingredients for human consumption
* Avoid soybeans, canola, corn, and sugar from sugar beets as these crops can have a high prevalence of GMO
* Making your pet’s food at home allows you to control the quality and sourcing for all of your ingredients, but make sure you do it right! Here are our favorite resources to help you make food at home that’s safe and balanced. Dogs: http://www.dogaware.com/diet/homemade.html Cats: http://catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood

GMO Resources:

The Center for Food Safety – This network aims to educate consumers about the dangers of genetically engineered food. Their True Food Shoppers Guide lists brand-name foods that contain GMOs and those that are GE free

JustLabelIt This coalition strives to educate consumers about GE foods and to urge the FDA to label GE foods.
A summary of some of the environmental impact problems with GMO – click here

One of the craziest things happening in the GMO debate right now: we are on the verge of the approval of the first Genetically Modified animal: salmon that have been genetically altered to grow twice as fast. Act today to tell the FDA that it is unacceptable to approve this project without reliable safety testing and more complete research on environmental impact. If nothing else, it’s an enormous risk to wild salmon populations.

When we first opened, one of the things we thought was a no-brainer was looking into LED or other efficient lighting options for the sales floor. As the first environmentally friendly pet supply store in the nation, we wanted to make sure that we did everything we could to design for sustainability. The spotlights seemed to be a challenge though. LED technology has come a long way, but at the time, most LEDs were kind of blue, and not very bright at all. We needed bright spotlights to showcase products, and nothing existed at the time outside of the typical commercial spots. We kept doing research through the years, but even a few years ago the LED kind were enormous – like a dinner plate! Finally (9 years later), we found bulbs that really fit the bill! These new bulbs have a nice bright, warm white light, and are going to save us so very much money! Up front stings a little, as we had 87 bulbs to replace, but this will save us more than $1000 per year in energy costs. We got a healthy rebate from Energy Trust of Oregon for the purchase, and the rest will be paid for in energy savings in 2 years. The bulbs will last another 10 years after that at the rate we use them (each bulb has 40,000 hours of life). If you used these bulbs at home for 3 hours per day, they’d last 36.5 years and cost just $1.81 per year (based on 11 cents/kWh)! The best news? This project offsets about 4 tons of Co2 generated by fossil fuels , equal to taking one car off the road or more than 1/2 and acre of reforested trees! LEDs also give off far less heat (those regular spots were super duper hot!), which will likely help us with summer temperatures in the store, are dimmable, and have no mercury. If you’re interested in LED lights for your house or business, check out http://www.gc-lighting.com

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Not long after we first opened the store, we found a product that we thought sounded like a no-brainer for a green store – doggie poop bags that broke down quickly in water so that they could be safely flushed. It seemed quite logical that pet waste would be best disposed of in a system already in place to treat sewage, so we bought them. However, it occurred to us that we had only worried about the safety of the home sewer system before we bought them, and had not considered to ask what happens to the water supply when pet waste was flushed. We were already selling flushable cat litter and advocating the flushing of litter. Is flushing really the best way to dispose of pet waste?  We contacted the city of Portland about this issue, as we wanted to make sure that it would truly be a good idea on all sides. They vehemently opposed the idea at the time, and we ended up not reordering those bags again (and they weren’t selling that well anyway, so we left it at that).

We heard recently that a few of our distributors were probably bringing in flushable bags, which concerned us a bit, as it means  they would then be actively promoted to local retailers and therefore marketed more widely to the public. As some years had passed and I knew that Portland has made some upgrades to the system in recent years, I called again to discuss the issue. (more…)

Christine was interviewed yesterday on a blog called DandelionDish about how to green your pet – the topics included:

- What do we look for in a product and how do we define green when it comes to pet products?
- What should you generally be looking for in a food and what do you absolutely not want to see on a label?
- What is the greenest way to feed your pets?
- Discussion of more sustainable cat litters vs. clay
- What do we look for in things like beds and toys?
- Are green products necessarily more expensive?
- What are ways that people can save money and still live sustainably?

Here’s the link to the podcast

I just stumbled upon an interesting article about flame retardants in furniture having agreater cumulative effect in the bodies of our pets than in people. Apparently many of these chemicals were phased out in 2004 in the U.S., but of course many of us own furniture manufactured before that time. It’s very important to try to minimize chemical exposure for our pets and our children- those little bodies are even more susceptible to toxins than we are.  Here’s the link. http://news.discovery.com/animals/ditch-your-old-couch-for-your-dogs-sake-110427.html

Bokashicycle!

We are very excited to introduce you to this product. The disposal of pet waste is one of the most difficult issues surrounding pet ownership, in an environmental sense. Up until now, there has been no good way.  Leaving waste on the ground of course isn’t acceptable – not only is it rude and gross, it rinses away with our plentiful rains straight into the street drains which empty ultimately into our rivers and streams.Poop in a landfill releases methane, and “biodegradable” plastic bags release their own methane when they break down anaerobically in the landfill, only adding to the problem. Compostable bags may not release methane, but the poop remains a methane producer.  We thought flushing the poop was a good idea for a while, but we realized that some pathogens, like toxplasmosis, are not killed by the treatment process and can remain in our water supply. (This has been an even bigger problem in California, where sea otters have been having a recent problem with toxoplasmosis, and they suspect the link lies in flushed cat poop). Finally, some have invested in an in-ground waste disposal device that claims to compost the poop, but this method doesn’t hold up on closer inspection – it is very debatable whether the enzymes have a chance to break down the poop quickly enough for it to be free of pathogens by the time it soaks into the soil. The system recommends a large amount of water which flushes the waste into the soil before the enzymes have a chance to work, and the location of the device never changes, guaranteeing that the natural microorganisms in the soil in that location are depleted of their power to help in this process. Pathogens such as salmonella, E. coli and toxoplasmosis can easily contaminate our water in this way.

Enter Bokashicycle! This is a system that uses closed containers and natural enzymes to ferment the waste, killing all pathogens and making it perfectly safe to bury in the soil, making your garden lush! No smell, no flies, and very easy. They also make a kitchen scrap Bokashicycler (we’re using one in the Green Dog kitchen now), and if you’d like it, just let us know and we’ll get it for you. We can also drop ship either of these to anywhere in the country – what a great Christmas present!

I know this isn’t pet related exactly, but it’s so exciting to see that brilliant ideas like this are being generated. Imagine if we could start building these sorts of roads right away! I know these sorts of things might be a ways off, but consider how much of an impact this plan could have. Real life Jetsons stuff!

Here’s a super easy thing to do to help clean up the oil spill – there is a great nonprofit organization called Matter of Trust that collects human and pet hair and old nylon stockings to make “hair booms” and hair mats that do a remarkable job of soaking up oil (right at the end of this video is a great demonstration of this). This is turning into a large-scale fiber recycling movement nationwide, and here are three easy ways for you to help.

First, contact your local human and pet salons and let them know how easy it is for them to make a difference – they just collect hair in a plastic bag lined boxes and ship it off to Matter of Trust to be made into booms.  Did you know 300,000 pounds of hair are cut every day in the US? Combine that with the amount of pet hair that is cut and you have an amazing resource.

Second, you can collect your own pet’s hair and bring it to a salon that’s participating (their website has information on how to find salons in your area). In the Portland area, you can bring your hair to Pawsitively Clean on Hawthorne – they’ve been collecting hair for Matter of Trust since 2001!

Third, donate to Matter of Trust – $61 buys a 150 foot roll of the plastic netting that goes on the outside of the nylon booms that will be used to soak up oil.

It’s not uncommon for people to come into the store looking for ways to keep cats out of their flower beds. I myself have had a nasty experience or two in my own gardens, digging away, enjoying the feel of dirt between my fingers, and then coming up with something soft and smelly. Cat feces can also carry toxoplasmosis, to add to the fun of the experience. Not only that, but people complain when the sun hits the flowerbed under their open window, that the stench rises up and makes them miserable.  I cringe when customers say their indoor outdoor cat doesn’t use a litter box – “they just go outside”.  Meanwhile, their neighbors are cursing them and coming to our store looking for a magical spray that might repel cats from their nice garden filled with plants they might like to eat some day.
Trouble is, I’ve never really found a spray or powder that is all that effective at repelling cats, (or dogs that might want to dig in all that freshly turned soil). The worst part (more…)