To Flush or Not to Flush – disposing of pet waste

Posted by & filed under biodegradable poop bags, Green Tip, what to do with dog poop.

By Green Dog Pet Supply

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…)

Saying No to Poor Quality Pet Food… Even When It’s Recommended by Your Vet

Posted by & filed under diet and health, pet food ingredients, prescription pet foods.

By Dr. Becker

Recently the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) added a fifth ‘vital health assessment’ for veterinarians in determining the health status of their cat and dog patients.

The four existing assessments are: temperature, cardio function, respiratory health, and pain.

The new “5th Vital Assessment”1 is nutrition.

Per Michael Cavanaugh, DVM, and executor director of the AAHA:

“Incorporating nutritional assessment into the routine examination protocol for every patient is important for maintaining optimal health, as well as their response to disease and injury.

The goal of the new guidelines is to provide a framework for the veterinary practice team to help make nutritional assessments and recommendations for their patients.”

Integrative and holistically-oriented vets have always done nutritional assessments on our patients.

In fact, I view species-appropriate nutrition as the first and most influential of the three pillars of health – the other two pillars being a sound, resilient body and a balanced, functional immune system.

And while I applaud the traditional veterinary community’s addition of a nutritional assessment in determining the well-being of dogs and cats, I’m a little concerned with where this initiative could be headed.

Here is how the AAHA introduced their new “5th Vital Assessment” initiative in October 20102:

DENVER — Nutrition is integral to optimal pet care. However, the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) found through its Compliance Study that only seven percent of pets that could benefit from a therapeutic food were actually on such a regimen.

The compliance discrepancy along with the many factors considered in assessing the nutritional needs of a healthy dog or cat, as well as the pet with one or more medical conditions, led to the development the AAHA Nutritional Assessment Guidelines.

The phrase ‘therapeutic food’ gives me pause, especially when I see that a major manufacturer of ‘therapeutic’ pet food has provided an educational grant to print the AAHA Nutritional Assessment Guidelines for Dogs and Cats3 in several languages.

Coming Soon to a Veterinarian Near You …

… a big push to switch your pet to a ‘therapeutic’ dog or cat food.

My discomfort with the therapeutic food angle grew when I came across a PetfoodIndustry.com article in January of this year.

According to the article, the same pet food manufacturer who provided an educational grant to the AAHA “… will make regular visits to more than 22,000 veterinary hospitals and clinics to help build support for and implement nutritional recommendations as the ‘5th Vital Assessment’ in pet healthcare.”

To accomplish this the pet food company plans, among other things, to add sales staff to call more frequently on vet offices across the country in order to sell more therapeutic pet foods.

Then I came across another PetfoodIndustry.com news item, also from January, announcing that a pet health insurance provider is adding coverage for therapeutic pet food.

According to the article, “… coverage now includes half the cost of therapeutic pet foods purchased through a veterinarian to assist in care of a pet for two months.”

‘Therapeutic’ Pet Food Ingredients Revealed

The following is a list of the first five ingredients in some of the therapeutic pet foods you may hear a sales pitch for the next time you take your pet to the vet for a wellness exam.

A can of cat food marketed as capable of improving feline bladder health:

  • Pork By-Products
  • Water
  • Pork Liver
  • Chicken
  • Rice

A bag of kibble advertised as good for feline gastrointestinal health:

  • Chicken By-Product Meal
  • Brewers Rice
  • Corn Gluten Meal
  • Whole Grain Corn
  • Pork Fat

A can of dog food to improve cardiac health in senior dogs:

  • Water
  • Corn Flour
  • Pork Liver
  • Rice Flour
  • Beef By-Products

Dry dog food marketed for canine renal health:

  • Brewers Rice
  • Pork Fat
  • Dried Egg Product
  • Flaxseed
  • Corn Gluten Meal

Regular readers here will immediately recognize the remarkably inferior, species inappropriate ingredients in these pet foods.

For the uninitiated:

  • By-products are what are left after all the good stuff is harvested for the human food industry. Beaks, feet, feathers, wattles and combs are chicken by-products. There could be something beneficial thrown in, like the heart or gizzard, but because there’s such potential for undesirable pieces and parts in ‘by-products,’ it’s better to avoid them altogether.
  • Corn in any form (including corn gluten meal, whole grain corn, corn flour, etc.) is an extremely allergenic food and difficult to digest. It’s also one of the three crops most highly contaminated with aflatoxins.
  • Brewers rice is a low quality ingredient that also happens to be a by-product. In addition, it’s a grain. Grains are not species-appropriate nutrition for carnivores.

Read here for the secret to cracking the code on your dog’s (or cat’s) pet food label.

Just Say No to ‘Therapeutic’ Pet Foods

Unfortunately, veterinary students don’t learn much about nutrition in their coursework. They graduate, go into practice, and become easy targets for pet food companies eager to fill their reception areas and storage closets with inferior quality ‘prescription’ diets for dogs and cats.

Now that the AAHA has added nutrition as the 5th vital assessment of a pet’s health, I think many pet owners will be hearing more about diets during vet visits. I also suspect many of these conversations will end with a recommendation to buy a ‘prescription’ (therapeutic) pet food to take home with you.

I absolutely do not recommend the extremely low quality, species-inappropriate pet food formulas being sold through vet practices as ‘therapeutic.’

I encourage my Natural Pet clients and all of you reading here to learn everything you can about the vital importance of biologically appropriate, high quality nutrition to the health and longevity of your pet.

I believe the more informed pet parents are about the type of food dogs and cats need to thrive, the less vulnerable they’ll be to a sales pitch for low quality pet food – even when it’s recommended by a veterinarian.

References:


What the Heck is Target Training?

Posted by & filed under behavioral tip, dog training, training, training cats.

A Tapir learns to touch a target in a zoo

A Tapir learns to touch a target in a zoo

By Christine Mallar

We just brought in some nifty extendable target training sticks to the store, and so I thought I should write up a description of what it’s used for, as targeting is such a fun and really easy activity to do with your pets, no matter what species – I’ve even taught a fish to target. No, seriously! This isn’t an indication of what a good trainer I am, it’s just an illustration of how easy it is to teach and learn this behavior. (In fact, I have to laugh as I just Googled “Target Training a Fish” and came up with lots of results! Here’s one).

To ask an animal to target, you are asking the animal to deliberately touch an object, and you are marking the moment with a sound (like a click from a training clicker, or even the word “Yes!”). The animal knows this sound means that a treat is coming their way, and allows them to pinpoint the exact thing the trainer wants them to do to earn that treat.  This clever concept was created by dolphin trainers. Dolphins are very smart, but slippery. Trainers couldn’t possibly have used traditional methods of training that required physical domination of the animals (like cowboys did with horses, or dog trainers did with leashes and choke collars) – it just isn’t possible. With a whistle and a bucket of fish, dolphins participated voluntarily in their own training (and if they weren’t having fun they could easily swim away).

Picture this: a dolphin trainer wants the dolphin to jump out of the water and touch a ball that is suspended way up high. First, the trainer might toss the ball onto the water and wait until the dolphin investigates it. The trainer is watching for the moment the dolphin touches the ball with its nose, and they mark that moment exactly with a whistle. This noise means a piece of fish, which the dolphin happily goes to collect from the trainer. When the dolphin happens to touch the ball again and hears that whistle, it starts to become quite clear to the dolphindolphin that she can touch that ball on purpose to make that trainer give her another fish. Now that the intent is clear that the behavior is to touch the ball with her nose, the trainer can introduce a hand signal or word right before she touches it, which becomes the command. The trainer might suspend the ball from a rope right at water level, and ask for and whistle/reward touches to the ball. Then the ball can be raised a little at a time and the dolphin must now stretch to reach it, and then jump to reach it, etc. Targeting can also be used to teach her to touch other parts of her body to objects or even a trainer’s hand, allowing the trainer to perhaps shake a flipper (first a “trick”) and then this trick is used to slowly shape a far more difficult behavior, like allowing a vet to take blood from a vein on that flipper – all with voluntary participation from that dolphin. It removes the fear of that procedure as it’s taught gradually, and is certainly easier and much less risky for everyone involved than corralling that dolphin and herding her into some sort of restraint device that would enable them to get that blood sample forcefully, and good luck getting that done a second time! With positive reinforcement training, it became possible for trainers to get voluntary participation from the dolphins for complex behaviors like veterinary procedures, helping to greatly lower the stress for the dolphins if they needed care.

(more…)