Author: Chevelle

Strut Your Mutt

Saturday May 21st we will be joining thousands of other mutt stutters in order to raise money for No More Homeless Pets In Utah. We are teaming up with the PawsZow dog pack and looking forward to the festivities. If you want to strut with us, join the team by going to our Donner page here. If you are already registerd be sure to come by the booth and buy some food or treats. We will be donating the proceeds from all sales to No More Homeless Pets.

Cooking’s Effect on Food

When you cook any food you are changing its molecular structure. You see it happen in your frying pan A piece of meat becomes more firm, a carrot gets soft, a potato gels and a tomato turns into a sauce. What’s happening is the cellular structure is breaking down and forming different bonds. This means the nutrient value is changing, and in most cases the its is decreasing.

The FDA’s Salmonella Scare

The raw pet food industry is regulated by the FDA. This is because pet food is considered to be a ready-to-serve product where the chicken you buy from your butcher is not. Recently the FDA feels that regulations on the raw pet food industry needs to be changed and that “certain criteria should be considered in recommending enforcement action against animal feed”. In other words they want to do more testing on pet food and determine if they should reject food with very minute amounts of bacteria.

HH Backer Pet Show (day 1)

The first day of the Backer Pet Show was very good. It started out a bit crazy as we were running all around the convention center trying to find out if our show sign was delivered by UPS only to discover that once again UPS failed to get it to us despite the guaranteed delivery we were given. I am really looking forward to finally getting an answer as to what happened.

The Growing Market Demand for Raw Meat Diets

More and more pet owners are realizing the benefits of a raw diet, but either do not have the time or worry about contamination and do not desire to make it themselves. The demand for a properly prepared, complete diet, raw meat pet food is growing exponentially.

When Vomiting Is Not About The Dog Food

When you pet vomits it can be a very alarming incident. Immediately you think “Is something you ate?”, “Are you sick?” and then the sympathy sets in and you feel bad for pour sick Fido.

Food Habits of Feral Carnivores: A Review of Stomach Content Analysis

A good deal of disagreement exists within the veterinary profession about the proper diet for dogs, some nutritionists advocating meat and fat rations and questioning the need for carbohydrates, and others describing a necessity for carbohydrates and suggesting deleterious effects from high meat protein diets. The proliferation of commercial dog food products and the hyperbolic television advertising associated with them have compounded the dilemma for the veterinarian and the dog-owning public.

Benefits of Raw Dog Food Diets

We all know that people need real, whole, minimally processed foods in order to thrive. So do dogs and cats. I’m sure no one here would want their children to live exclusively on a diet of only processed foods, like Special K¬ or Total¬ cereals. Why would you want your dogs or cats to eat only highly processed foods? Dogs and cats, like people, to be at their best, need a variety of whole minimally processed foods: meats, vegetables and fruits containing natural enzymes, phytochemicals and flavonoids.

More on Cat and Dog Nutrition

Canine and feline nutritional requirements reflect evolutionary experience extending hundreds of thousands of years into the past. Until recently, dogs and cats always ate a diet based upon real, raw foods. Scientists are learning more every day about the values of phytochemicals, enzymes, antioxidants, bioflavonoids and essential fatty acids, especially the Omega-3s. Recent research, for example, is focusing on the cancer fighting properties of phytochemicals. There are tens of thousands of phytochemicals, which occur naturally in vegetables and fruits.

Is Raw Safe?

This is a very legitimate concern, and is often the first question pet owners have. It is an easy question to answer. Properly prepared raw meat-based diets are very safe for dogs and cats, and appear to have a better safety record than processed grain-based foods.