Halloween Safety Tips

Posted by & filed under behavioral tip, dog safety, Pet Safety, poisons and toxins.

By Green Dog Pet Supply

Happy Halloween!10626878_10152327038381761_2622935969487730386_n

Halloween can be fun, but there are a few important things to keep in mind to help keep pets safe.

Beware of Toxic Things on Halloween

Don’t forget to be on guard for dogs getting into that Halloween Candy stash! Chocolate isn’t the only thing that’s toxic to dogs; macadamia nuts, raisins, and especially the sweetener xylitol are all on the list of things that can be very poisonous and sometimes deadly to dogs. Remember, the wrappers and other decorations can also cause problems when ingested. Check out this link to other common household items that are toxic to dogs, and what to do if your dog gets into them.

Behavioral Tips

Make sure that if your dog is stressed out by strangers to have him in a secure area of the house where he won’t be plagued by constant scary monsters ringing the doorbell. Conversely, if you’re up for it this is a great time to work on door manners with a dog that isn’t frightened, just excited. The doorbell rings, dog on leash sits, door opens, dog and costumed kid both get their own treats. Lots of repetitions available on Halloween equals lots of chances to practice how to act when people come to the door.

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Tips For Reducing Plastic Waste

Posted by & filed under Green Tip.

Part Three of a three-part series – Part one was an announcement about the loss of many kinds of plastic recycling, and what plastics are still able to be recycled. Part Two focuses on why China has recently stopped importing recyclable plastic, and why attempting to force recyclers to take materials we wish they would recycle actually can ruin the chances of recyclable materials getting recycled. Read part two here.

We often focus on recycling as it feels like such a direct way to help curb the waste stream, yet it’s actually at the bottom of the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle hierarchy.
If you want to save energy, water and resources, the best thing you can do is reduce the items you consume (products, packaging) and then reuse the items as many times as possible.

Ideas for reducing plastic waste: 
Some of them seem obvious but do you actually do them? Could you do a few more? It might be easier than you think.

Compare brands to look for alternatives:
If you are considering buying a product but it comes packaged in plastic, see if there’s another brand that doesn’t. Rice or pasta often comes with the choices of plastic bags or cardboard. Cardboard is at least recyclable or compostable. Some products these days are being purposefully designed to create less waste – Seventh Generation has a laundry detergent designed to reduce waste – the detergent is concentrated to provide 4X the number of loads, and the package is a thin plastic bag enclosed in a clever sturdy recyclable/compostable cardboard shell. It’s also lighter to transport so uses fewer fossil fuels than heavier containers. Keep your eyes open for options like these.

Buy in Bulk: Better yet, look for stores that have bulk bins – you can bring a reusable container and buy your rice or pasta (or granola, or nuts, or flour, etc) in bulk. It saves you money as well! Some places even have bulk shampoos, olive oil, peanut butter, etc.

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No More Wishful Recycling!

Posted by & filed under Green Tip.

Part Two in this three-part series:

Have you heard that we can no longer recycle many kinds of plastic in the US that we’ve gotten used to being able to recycle?
We were so disappointed when we heard the news that China has stopped importing post consumer plastic waste. We try hard as a Green store to find creative ways to reduce the amount of waste that we generate and to find ways to re use everything we can, but for some materials, mostly soft clear plastics like plastic bags, we relied heavily on recycling. This recent import ban crates an enormous challenge for us and for all consumers, as the amount we are forced to send to landfill will increase quite a bit.

The Chinese recycling industry is a $5 billion annual business, and scrap and waste is the sixth largest U.S. export to China. When shipping containers come into the U.S. from China they are laden with products, but those empty containers must return to China. Due to the trade deficit, this resulted in heavily discounted shipping rates that allowed huge volumes of mixed paper and plastics to be delivered inexpensively to China for recycling. Last year China imported 7.3 million tons of waste plastics, primarily from the U.S. and Japan. Non-curbside plastic has almost no other place to go if it can’t go to China (except our landfills).

Economic Impact for Recycling Industry and their U.S. workers:
The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) quickly condemned the ban, stating it would have a “devastating impact” on recycling on a global scale and in the U.S. Robin Wiener, ISRI’s president says, “More than 155,000 direct jobs are supported by the U.S. industry’s export activities, earning an average wage of almost $76,000 and contributing more than $3 billion to federal, state, and local taxes. A ban on imports of scrap commodities into China would be catastrophic to the recycling industry.”

So Why Did China stop taking plastics for recycling?

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Unfortunate Changes to Plastic Recycling in Portland

Posted by & filed under Green Tip.

Part one of a 3-part series

By Guest Blogger Barbara Bailleul, Master Recycler, class of Feb. 1997

China has been the buyer of our post-consumer plastics and other used commodities. They have just announced to the World Health Organization adoption of new environmental regulations, under which they are no longer allowing importation of recycled plastics, etc. from the United States and Europe.

With no buyer, recyclers here will no longer be collecting these items.

No need to go from one recycler to another, or one grocery store to another — recyclers will stop collecting plastics. They have no one to sell them to.

The exception, right now, is Curbside Recycling. Refresh your memory at Metro’s web page on plastics accepted curbside In short,

” Sort plastic by SHAPE, not by number:
• Ignore the numbers. Ignore the arrows. Sort by shape.
• See IMAGE.

These items are OK in your recycling container – rinse thoroughly:

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Dr. Ian Billinghurst’s Targeted Nutritional Therapy, Which Includes a Ketogenic Diet, Can Kill Your Dog’s Cancer

Posted by & filed under Cancer, Cat nutrition, diet and health, Dog Nutrition, interesting, other health concerns.

 This is an important article from Dr. Karen Becker DVM

September 03, 2017

Story at-a-glance

  • World-renowned veterinarian, author and the father of raw pet food, Dr. Ian Billinghurst, has written a new book about treating cancer with nutrition
  • Dr. B’s book, “Pointing the Bone at Cancer,” lays out the science behind the use of a ketogenic diet in treating cancer in dogs, cats and humans
  • Dr. B has successfully treated dogs with many different cancers, including aggressive lymphomas and mammary tumors, and seen them live years longer, with an excellent quality of life

By Dr. Becker

I’m very excited today to be interviewing the father of raw pet food, Dr. Ian Billinghurst, or Dr. B, as he is often called. Dr. Billinghurst is a very well-known veterinarian and author who wrote the first books on raw feeding. For that, we are forever indebted to him. Today Dr. B is here to discuss his latest book, “Pointing the Bone at Cancer.” I asked him to talk about what inspired him to write a book about cancer in dogs, cats and humans.

‘Cancer Is a Problem That Has a Lot to Do With Nutrition’

“This was a book I most definitely had to write,” says Dr. B. “I had no choice. We, as veterinarians and as medical doctors, are losing this war against cancer. This is a war that we’ve been fighting for hundreds of years, but very specifically, since Richard Nixon began that first battle against cancer in the 1970s, when he initiated all that research. That research, unfortunately, has done very little to defeat cancer.”

“This whole problem became very personal to me when members of my own family developed cancer,” he continued. “I watched them pass away under the current standard of care. I knew this didn’t have to be.

As a veterinary practitioner for many years, and as someone who advocates raw feeding and evolutionary nutrition, I also watched my own patients who had developed cancer. I watched them become free of cancer. I watched my patients who didn’t eat processed food not develop cancer. If they did develop cancer, it happened later in life. I knew this was a problem that had a lot to do with nutrition.”
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Toppers Are Important Part 3 – Hearts

Posted by & filed under cat health, Cat nutrition, diet and health, Heart Health, other health concerns, Products We Love, raw foods, Whole Food Toppers.

Hearts are high in natural taurine and make an excellent treat or topper!

Taurine  Dr Karen Becker DVM says, “Taurine, especially essential for cats, is an important amino acid for liver and gallbladder support. It’s essential for optimal blood flow, eye health, cardiovascular health, and the production of bile in both cats and dogs. Pets with less-than-optimal levels of taurine may be at greater risk of adverse effects from toxins. Although a minimal level of taurine is included in most commercial pet foods, taurine is easily depleted in stressed pets”.

Taurine can be found naturally in milk, eggs, meat, and seaweed, however, amino acids like Taurine are easily damaged by high heat cooking, which is why you’ll generally see kibbles and cans supplemented with synthetic taurine for cats, and with cysteine and methionine, which are the building blocks for taurine synthesis in dogs). If cats don’t get enough taurine from the foods they eat they can die, but many holistic vets believe that it’s incredibly important for dogs as well.  (more…)

A few Myths about Senior Dogs and Nutrition

Posted by & filed under Cat nutrition, dental health cats and dogs, diet and health, joint pain, obesity, other health concerns, pet food ingredients, prescription pet foods, specific ingredients.

We all want to make sure we’re supporting our senior pets as they get older, but there are a few myths that persist about what is nutritionally appropriate for senior dogs.

Myth #1: Seniors need lower protein diets

It’s true that we used to be instructed to lower protein when dogs get older, but current research shows that older dogs actually need significantly higher protein than their younger counterparts. Their bodies become less efficient at metabolizing proteins as they age, so increasing the amount (and the digestibility) of proteins is key to supporting them and helping to prevent muscle wasting.

Pro Tip: Raw foods have the most bioavailable proteins, but if you feed a kibble diet, mixing in a nugget or two of prepared raw diets from our freezers can be a delicious, affordable, and super nutritious way to get whole food vitamins, minerals and important amino acids that haven’t been damaged by high heat cooking. Senior dogs need these tools to thrive as they age, and this easy solution is better and cheaper than any commercial supplement or food in a can!

Myth #2: But couldn’t too much protein hurt their kidneys?

This idea was based on studies done on rats, not dogs. Rats have evolved with different nutritional requirements than dogs have, so when they did study this question in dogs, it was determined that no amount of protein can hurt a healthy kidney. Mary Straus of dogaware.com says , “In fact, senior dogs fed high protein diets live longer and are healthier than those that are fed low protein diets, even when one kidney has been removed. Studies conducted at the University of Georgia in the 1990s demonstrated that feeding protein levels of 34 percent (on a dry matter basis) to older dogs with chronic kidney failure and dogs with only one kidney caused no ill effects. The mortality rate was greater for the dogs fed 18 percent protein than for the dogs fed 34 percent protein. Another study done on dogs with only one kidney showed that protein levels up to 44 percent of the diet had no harmful effect on the remaining kidney.” For a more comprehensive discussion of protein in dog diets, see this link

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Products We Love: Medicinal Mushrooms

Posted by & filed under Amazing Things You're Not Buying, cat health, digestive issues, Joint health, joint pain, other health concerns, Products We Love, skin issues, specific ingredients, Whole Food Toppers.

by Christine Mallar

 

In each of our newsletters I’ve started to write a little piece called “Amazing Things You’re Not Buying”, featuring a product that we love. We have a number of products that are truly amazing, and that we wish so many more pets could have access to, due to their ability to support their good health, or ability to help with common chronic health issues. But, too many customers buzz in and out of the store to pick up their bag of food without taking the time to explore some of the other ways they could be supporting their pet’s health and longevity.  I’ve been reticent about posting specific products on the internet, as we don’t have the time to support online sales on our website. However, I would be happy if more pet owners everywhere used these products, and I know you’ll be able to ask your local independent pet supply stores to order them for you, or you can find them online. Of course there are many resources for other products containing medicinal mushrooms – the one featured is a good one, but not the only one! Don’t forget, these same benefits can be found for humans who might supplement with medicinal mushroom blends for people.

Today’s feature – medicinal mushrooms:

Medicinal Mushrooms are amazing. Many cultures around the world have used mushrooms for centuries for medicinal purposes. Modern research has shown us what ancient healers and scientists have learned through this practical experience – studies indicate that medicinal mushrooms have antiviral, antibacterial, and anti-tumor properties. Some mushrooms contain compounds that stimulate the immune system, activating the pet’s natural defenses and healing response. They can assist the healing of the liver, kidneys, and heart tissues. They can also support healthy digestion and support flexibility and ease of movement. The most impressive results we’ve seen in our store have been with dogs that have been diagnosed with cancerous tumors – many customers swear by the Bixbi Immunity mushroom blend for helping to slow down or shrink tumors and say they’re convinced it gave them longer survival rates and better quality of life. This is big stuff in our world!

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Caution! Hot Pavement!

Posted by & filed under dog safety, Pet Safety.

Safety Tip For Dogs in Summertime:

Please remember, if you bring your dogs outdoors during a hot summer day, as the day gets hotter pavement heats up much more than the air. Today it’s almost 100 degrees – we measured the pavement temperature and it was 141 degrees! This temperature can easily cause pain and blistering for dogs and verges on the temperature that could result in permanent damage to the pads (120 degrees can cause pain, 140 degrees can cause permanent damage after 1 minute of contact, and 150 degrees can cause instant damage). Please remember that the darker road temperature can often be hotter than the lighter sidewalk, but not by much – the sidewalk can be almost as hot, or in some places hotter. Bring dogs out in the earlier part of the day for their exercise, and keep an eye on their feet. Reach down and feel the pavement – leave your hand on it for a minute – can you leave it there? They might have slightly tougher feet than we do, but heat is heat, and tissue damage can occur. Blistered paw pads are no fun for either of you to deal with! A pair of boots wouldn’t be the worst idea if you know you have to be on hot pavement with them.  Here’s a good article that mentions the device we use to measure pavement temps, and discusses this issue in greater depth. One tip from this link: the temperature of car seats can be very hot as well – he measured his at 150 – this is hot enough to cause damage. Make sure to travel with towels or a blanket to throw onto hot seats when traveling with a dog.

You might even want to pick up a surface temperature reader for yourself to know when conditions are safe. You can find them for as little as $14.99 on Amazon.

Giardia Recovery Tips

Posted by & filed under digestive issues, Giardia, other health concerns, Parasites, Pet Safety.

Friendly Reminder: spring is Giardia season! It’s important to try and prevent dogs from drinking from puddles and slow moving water. Giardia and other diseases that can be transmitted through contact with animal feces are prevalent this time of year (snow and ice is melting, releasing accumulated deposits, and the rain rinses fecal matter down into streams and puddles). We’ve really noticed swampy spots at local dog parks like Fern Hill (lots of dog poop is being washed down the hills into the gullies!) and we see dogs playing in these little “ponds”. We also have a handful of customers who have recently reported their dogs have tested positive for Giardia.

Giardia is tricky to eliminate and is unfortunately also tricky to test for. Symptoms can take several months or more to begin because they are caused by gradual changes in the lining of the intestine. It’s possible to get a negative test result if the sample didn’t contain a spore, so multiple stool samples may need to be collected and tested. Symptoms can persist for some time after treatment, as the lining of the gut may need repair. Here are two tips:
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