Green Dog Blog

We all love our pets as members of our families and want to do the very best we can to keep them healthy and happy, but many of us overlook the very foundation of health for our pets – their nutrition. Just as our own health is affected by our daily nutrition habits, dogs and cats can develop chronic health issues like diabetes, skin allergies, inflammation issues such as arthritis, yeast overgrowth, bowel issues, urinary infections or crystals, and even cancer. We often don’t realize that chronic issues are developing at a cellular level, and of course many pets seem “fine” until a crisis occurs. Of course, the very best way to support our own health and the health of our companion animals is for us to eat more whole foods and cut out processed foods as much as we can. However, processed kibbles have come quite a long way in the past 10 years, and there is a great disparity between what you might find on the pet aisle of your local grocery store and what might be available at your local independent pet retailer. It is not legally required (or even allowed) for manufacturers to use language on a pet food label that would help a consumer to know if the quality of the ingredients on a label are similar to the ingredients you might use to cook your own dinners or are simply waste products that were inappropriate for use in human foods, though there are some things to look out for on kibble labels that will give you a good idea. I hope to empower you to recognize some of these “red flag” and “green flag” ingredients that might help you to determine the quality of the ingredients you’re feeding to your pets.
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By Dr. Karen Becker

MRSA is short for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Staphylococcus aureus is a strain of bacteria naturally found in most animals, including humans.

In your dog or cat, staph can be found as naturally occurring bacteria on the skin, in mucous membranes, as well as in the GI tract.

Occasionally pets can become infected by their own normal flora.

I refer to these infections as “pet acne,” because they are usually harmless and very easily treated, but when a pet’s normal flora develops resistance to broad-spectrum antibiotics, it becomes a very dangerous health threat.

If these bacteria undergo genetic mutation — making them resistant to even the strongest antibiotic available, including methicillin — it can cause serious illness and even death in pets.

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