Entries in nutrition (3)

Monday
Jun282010

just the facts ma'am

marketing schmarketing, oh boy!

We just saw a full page ad in a new dog magazine for a food with the big words HOLISTIC in the name. Well, we got so excited we almost fell over ourselves trying to get to the computer to look up the ingredients. We LOVE healthy and holistic food for dogs! Yipee!

Well, our little doggie party was soon broken up and our yaays turned to great disappointment. We looked up the ingredients of every flavor of their food. Not one single source of WHOLE protein. Every bag of food has a non protein as a leading ingredient, then the second or third ingredient is a "meal" of some sort (chicken "meal", lamb "meal", salmon "meal", duck "meal"). No whole source of protein. Geez, how hard is it to just put some actual protein in there? Why the "meal" scraps? Yikes! Some of the filler ingredients are: Ground Brown Rice, Oatmeal, Peas, Ground White Rice, Pea Fiber, Dried Beet Pulp, Chicken Fat.

Looked up the price on Amazon.com and a thirty pound bag is $54.99! What the what? You can actually get a high quality food for the same price. But how many consumers are going to be convinced by the fancy packaging and the marketing that says "Holistic" all over the bag?

Out of curiosity, we looked up the price of a good quality food, that has one whole source of protein and none of that filler of grains. A thirty pound bag of that better food, is $59.99 on Amazon.com. Here are the ingredients for you to compare: Bison, lamb meal, chicken meal, egg product, sweet potatoes, peas, potatoes, canola oil, roasted bison, roasted venison, natural flavor, tomato pomace, ocean fish meal, salt, choline chloride, dried chicory root, tomatoes, blueberries, raspberries, yucca schidigera extract.

We don't like to endorse any manufactured dog food by name brand, rather we like to endorse them by the ingredients. For example, one food that we used to promote by name, was just sold to a larger corporation that is not known for having quality food. We are going to be watching that dog food to see if the ingredients on the bags suddenly and quietly begin to change to lower quality ingredients.

So what we want to promote to dog owners everywhere, is for you to learn how to read ingredients. Pick up the bag of food before you buy it and read the ingredients. Forget all of the fancy packaging and marketing claims, all that matters is the ingredients.

To learn more about what to look for in ingredients and what to avoid, check out what's your wigglebutt eating and also check out the nutrition info we have posted.

What ingredients are you putting in your dog? Hey everyone, let's give our dogs the chance for longevity and do right by them!

_______________________________________________________________________________________________ FUNDRAISING UPDATE AS OF TODAY: Thank you friends of Camp Cocker and friends of friends of Camp Cocker, we are getting there with our big fundraising plea. As of right now, we are at thirty five percent of our goal. Please keep checking our fundraising thermometer below to see the progress. No donation amount is too small! Keep passing it forward! We woof you very much!

Thursday
Jun032010

Crosby's got some moves and getting healthy with Harry

Crosby gets his doggie makeover today!

Crosby went to the groomer today and after they cleaned up all the matts from him and gave him a puppy cut, he looks like a whole new man! He smells wonderful and his fur is so soft and silky. Crosby has a move where he will come up to you and push his head into your chest and just stand there and wait for you to go "awwww" and pet him. Or his other move is to touch you, put his paw on you just in case you might forget to pet him. Someone asked us today if he is a Welsh Springer Spaniel mix and we looked at him and thought, maybe? We don't know what he is, but whatever it is he is one hundred percent uh-door-ab-bull!

Who wants to join Harry in getting healthy?

We LOVE getting letters like this one below from Harry's mommy whom as a result of our website, has now switched Harry's food and he is getting healthy. Who else out there wants to join Harry? It's easy really, just learn to start reading the ingredients on everything you give to your much loved doggies! (thank you Mary, for sending us such a nice letter and if you are reading this, please send us Harry's picture to put up here) If you double click on the letter below, the text gets larger and easier to read. (or you may have to double click and then click again)

and while we are on the topic . . .

One of our adopters sent us a link to this amazing website that addresses the link between what we feed our pets and the longevity and health of our pets. Dogtorj.com. That link is a must read. It breaks down how to read ingredients and explains how to understand the tricks manufacturers use to make you think the food is good quality. We even learned something new today, something called "the dilution factor". Oh how we love to have more tools to learn how to read food ingredients, this is a great website for any pet owner.

There is a section here that addresses seizures that is interesting. Because we've been home cooking for Brady and Eli, the puppies whom have been having psychomotor seizures, we've already successfully avoided the bad four ingredients suggested to prevent seizures. But it is great information!(thank you to Camp Cocker adopter Tom, for sending this to us!)

no "animal" protein, no how, no way!

Someone donated a box of dog treats to us at our last adoption event and we know they were well meaning, really, we do. It was a highly popular well known dog treat that lines the shelves of every major grocery store and pet store. We took one look at the ingredients and as soon as we saw the words "meat and bone meal" we shrieked. We don't want to gross you out here, but if you are curious to know what type of "animals" are in animal protein or anything that is labeled in a generic fashion such as "meat", you can google it. But be warned, it is going to give you an upset tummy thinking about it. Here is an excellent article written by veterinarian Dr. Belfield, DVM that addresses what "meat and bone meal" is actually derived from. Yucky, it gives us the creeps to think that pet owners everywhere are feeding this to their dogs and have no idea!

Thank you to whomever has been buying their flowers from our website!

We just received our first donation check today from Florist One for $39.58! Yaaay! Florist One gives us a 22% donation on every purchase you make through the link on our website so please help us out by spreading the word to shop at ShopForThePaws.com to help benefit Camp Cocker.

Thursday
May062010

what's your wiggle butt eating?

From left to right: Cosmo (who loves real food but will eat anything), Maddy (who has skin allergies and needs grain free food and chinese herbal support), Raven (who lost ten pounds simply by eating home cooked meals and giving up a corn based diet her former owner had her on), and Sweet Pea (who's life was literally saved by home cooking). By the way, Sweet Pea weighed in today at 18.5 pounds! Whoo Hooo! (from his emaciated weight of 11.4 pounds)

We LOVE this website! Clean Food for Pets . . . it has the same philosophy we promote, to teach people how to read ingredients of everything they feed to their dogs.

They even have a little video on there on how to home cook . . . so funny because we have a little video we are working on to show you how we home cook, but theirs is so much better than ours (we will still put ours out at some point, Sweet Pea is in it because he likes to be in the kitchen when we cook for the dogs!).

Hey everyone . . . if you are not home cooking, that's okay - really, it is. But how about just making a commitment to learning how to read the first five ingredients of your dog food and being more aware of what you are feeding your dog? (the first three to five ingredients makes up about eighty percent of the food) Awareness and education is half of it, the other half is being willing to be inconvenienced if you have to find another store to buy the better quality food at. But hey, it is worth it in the long run if you are saving money on vet bills and ear infections and skin problems, right? And of course, giving our dogs a chance for a longer and healthier life.

Here's a quick cheat sheet for you:

Do NOT feed anything that has corn, wheat, whey, gluten or grains.

DO feed something that has at least ONE whole source of protein in the first three ingredients. A whole source of protein will not have the words "by-products" or "meal" following it. You also want the protein to be named specifically by name, such as Chicken (stay away from the generic word poultry) or Lamb, Beef, Venison, etc.

One last tip, read through all of the ingredients and if you see the word "animal protein" anywhere - run, don't walk, that entire bag of dog food to the nearest dumpster. Maybe we shouldn't tell you what animal protein is or what the "animal" is they don't care to name specifically. But if you google it or read up on what "animal protein" is on the Clean Food for Pets website, please try to prepare yourself as you may need a trash can handy in case you suddenly feel nauseous. Well, maybe its better you just don't know what it is. The next time you are in a grocery store or a low priced chain store, just for kicks, check out how many dog food bags have animal protein in the ingredients. Its cheap to buy for a reason. Yuck!