Stuffed Toy Alert!

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Tracie

I just this minute learned something entirely shocking: stuffed animals can KILL your dogs. I had no idea. Which makes me feel like a fool because I view myself as a lighthouse indicating all sorts of dangers to fellow dog lovers — I mean don’t even get me started on “corn gluten meal”!! — but there has been an unknown-to-me danger lurking right in front of my nose all these years!

I learned about the stuffed toy warning from the newsletter from Friends for Pets in Sun Valley, California, which is a Weimaraner (and other sporting dog) rescue from which I got my first two Weims. I am in Vermont now but I still send contributions of things and money to Friends for Pets (in fact, as soon as I read their newsletter this time, I boxed up a whole lot of new dog toys and a lot of bags of HALO Liv-a-Little biscuits to send along with my check).

The warning is as follows: do not share children’s stuffed toys with dogs, especially dogs that like to chew vigorously. These toys all contain chemicals for flame retardant and mite control that are highly toxic to pets. As the newsletter said, you might expect a child’s toy to be super-safe, but manufacturers would never expect a child to chew the stuffing from a toy — but many dogs will rip a stuffed toy to shreds, often swallowing some of the stuffing. And the stuffing can either make the very ill, or even kill them.

I have been offering stuffed animals to my own dogs for decades — the sort of big, soft stuffed toys meant for human children, not the small tightly stuffed toys made for dogs. The reason for my choice was that I have had large dogs, who are not that interested in a stuffed toy that is a mere mouthful — they absolutely adore a big fat stuffed animal like a cuddly teddy bear. When I first introduce a new stuffed toy to the household the dogs will carry these toys around for weeks whenever someone new arrives or when I return home, strutting with pride over their beloved stuffed animal. With multiple dogs in the house (I seem to have settled on three as my “default” number) I have found it is best to bring three of anything home so there is no need to wait your turn to fill your mouth with that stuffed animal. Also, with only one stuffed toy I had seen the tendency for the dogs to veer towards a tug of war with the valuable new stuffed animal, although I always nip that behavior in the bud. In fact, the incredible thing is that the dogs do not squabble over the stuffed monkeys. There are about half a dozen of them strewn around the toy basket right now. Yes, I actually have three different sizes of stuffed monkeys, with one being a huge gorilla that the dogs can barely see over as they walk with it clamped in their jaws! They are monkeys because our neighbor’s chocolate Lab, Charlie, had a beloved stuffed money that she’d had her whole life (washed many times in the machine) and my guys snitched it one day from in front of the neighbor’s house. I got them their own monkeys after returning the pilfered one. I don’t know if they can tell a monkey from another critter but I wasn’t taking any chances. The monkeys have been to the animal hospital themselves many times: one is missing an arm, they are all minus a nose or an eye because if I don’t see one of the dogs getting too excited around the stuffed animal, they can get a bit overworked about rearranging the monkey and I wind up doing emergency surgery to sew it back up!

My dogs have never shown any interest in the stuffing but I had no idea it was full of toxic chemicals (against flame or insects). And many dogs would swallow that stuff. The Friends for Pets veterinarian told a story about a dog that ate a child’s teddy bear and got an intestinal blockage. When the doctor operated he found a huge gelatin-type mass inside and so much dead tissue in the digestive tract that the dog died.

That did it: all the stuffed monkeys in my house are hitting the bottom of the trash barrel, to be replaced with stuffed toys made for quadrupeds, not for two-legged kids!

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All Kibble Is Not Created Equal

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Tracie

You should not have to be afraid of putting a premium kibble in your dog’s bowl! A nicely created dry dog food is healthy as (at least as part of) your dog’s meal. Kibble may have gotten a bad rap because lower-quality kibble (like the majority sold in the supermarket) is subjected to artificial flavoring, preservatives, sugars, coloring agents and chemicals for texture or shape. This is the reason some people shun kibble at all for their dogs. But all kibble is not created equal! My dogs have kibble as part of every meal. I happen to have chosen HALO from all the possible brands because the company is transparent about where their ingredients come from and how they are handled. They only use good stuff- real meat for the protein and whole ingredients for the rest. There are even charming little bits of dried veggies in with the kibble pieces in some of the recipes!

Although the food value of ingredients can be somewhat compromised by the kibbling process, you still want to look for whole foods that went into making that dry food. You want to look for a protein source by its name (lamb, salmon, chicken) and also any whole grain. There is a lot of misunderstanding out there about grains in dry dog food when it is not the grains that are the problem — a “grain free” kibble is not necessarily better nutrition for your dog. You won’t see corn in any quality kibble because it is rarely whole corn that is used in pet food and corn “leftovers” are not nearly as nutrient rich. The worry about grain in dog food usually refers to wheat which can be allergenic. But many pet food companies use the leftovers of grains, the nutrient-depleted parts that are left after the good part has been used for human food. Look for words like oats, oatmeal, barley, millet, and white or brown rice, which are all good because they are easily digested and all good sources of complex carbohydrates, which supply fiber, along with a consistent level of energy.

All of us need to learn to read the label on bagged dog food and be able to recognize all sorts of ingredients to avoid. My favorite saying about dry dog food is: Res Ipsa Loquitor (the thing speaks for itself). You can easily see when a food is made up of many highly processed chemical-laden ingredients — if you aren’t sure, look up the ingredients list in my book THE DOG BIBLE to find the “Ingredients to Avoid.”

Many brands of kibble utilize the protein portion of their recipes from a rendering process, by which a wide variety of very different meat ingredients (some from decidedly unsavory sources which are discussed in THE DOG BIBLE) are reduced down into a kind of Mystery Meat soup through extremely high heat cooking. This is done to kill any bacteria or diseases in the ingredients (since many of those “meats” are actually parts of animals that may have been sick or died before being rendered). This rendered meat concoction is the final product, which can also be used in making kibble. Some original sources of protein for dry dog food are even subjected to irradiation to neutralize the toxic or rotten ingredients, which means at that point they have removed whatever true food value was in those elements to begin with. Then the extruded kibble dough that has been cut into circles or triangles and been baked or fried is sprayed with fat (for flavor) and with man-made versions of the vitamins and minerals that would have been in the ingredients in the first place.

The higher price of HALO is a result of using whole ingredients and never using rendered meats or by-product meat meals. I know I am getting what I paid for — and glad to do it for my dog’s long-lasting health!

People are a little confused about how kibble is made and what goes into it. It’s true that the ingredients in a dog food factory are heavily managed — by frying, boiling or crushing — as part of being turned into a dough that is then made into the small nuggets you find in the bag. Kibble is made by subjecting even good quality ingredients to high heat in order to make the dough, so which then passes through an extruder (like what is used to make pasta if you have ever seen a machine for home use). After it exits the machine and is cut into the appropriate shape, it is baked or fried. All this processing can break down the nutrients in any food but a high quality pet food company has studied how to retain or replace those nutrients — and in some cases, to make them even more digestible and usable by the dog’s body.

Good kibble is perfectly fine as long as it is not the only thing your dog ever eats. People who want to feed their dog the best quality meals and use whole, real food will still continue to use the best kibble they can find as about one-third to one-half of their dog’s dinner. This is especially true of larger, more active dogs who really need those extra calories and quality carbohydrates to feel full and have energy. Dry dog food can satisfy hunger over many hours and supply a nice balance of nutrients, even in their processed state.

If you wish, you can supply a variety of other food (in as unprocessed a form as possible) to complete the meal, in addition to a good kibble. Myself, I like Halo and I rotate amongst the three protein sources in every bag of dry food I buy — chicken, fish or lamb. I round out my dogs’ dinner by also putting in their bowls quality protein (from canned dog food, cottage cheese, eggs or protein I cook for them or myself), real vegetables and even some fruit.

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Lucky Buddy Gets Nuthin’ But Halo In A Can

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Tracie

Jimmy, my Sirius/XM engineer for CAT CHAT®, is absolutely devoted to his adopted mixed breed dog Buddy. Jimmy is a great guy to work with, especially because he’s always so interested in my opinions and advice about how and what to feed dogs and cats. When Jimmy and his then-fiancé Emily (since then happily married) rescued Buddy, Jimmy asked me what brand of dog food to feed and I said “Halo,” as I do to anyone who asks me. I figure if it’s the brand I choose for my own wonderful rescued Weimaraners and Collie-mix, then I wouldn’t expect anyone else to do less for their own four-legged family members! But I only recently found out that Jimmy’s dog Buddy actually eats a whole lot better than my threesome because Buddy gets only Halo in a can! Jimmy just told me this last week on the air when one of my callers asked about why I choose Halo and I said it as all about the integrity of the company and the excellent of the basic ingredients in the kibble, which is what my dogs eat as part of their meals.

“Oh I don’t feed any dry food,” Jimmy explained. “Buddy will only eat Halo in a can.” “Wowie,” I said, genuinely amazed that he could afford to feed nothing but the Spot’s Stew in a can — as a relatively young guy with a wife (who is also a Sirius/XM radio engineer!!) and the high cost of living in New York. “That’s really nice of you to splurge on him like that.”

“Hey, Buddy’s worth it: nuthin’ but the best for my boy. It’s expensive, but you get what you pay for. Besides, now he’s so spoiled by that delicious Halo food — he won’t touch anything else!”

I guess Jimmy only has me to blame for putting him in this “predicament,” but I really don’t think he minds. “I think of it the way you explain good nutrition on your show: it’s an investment in his long-term health.”

I actually feel humbled that Jimmy trusts my opinion — and the high-quality look and aroma of Spot’s Stew in a can that he can see and smell for himself.

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Hide the Halo Dental Chews on a High Shelf!

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Tracie

First, an admission of laziness and failure as a canine maternal figure: I do not brush or even rub my 3 dogs’ teeth. I know I should. I know that dental health is seriously important to a dog’s well being and overall wellness, but I cannot seem to get my act together about a daily or even thrice-weekly teeth brushing for them. I can do the toenails (because I can see those, and they all run and dig so much that I know if I don’t keep their nails trimmed, they may crack or split and cause them pain and problems). But I cannot see their teeth! Still, it makes me feel guilty and lame for not using any of the many variations on doggy toothbrushes I have, or the jars of dental wipes.

Halo Dental Chew

Halo Dental Chew

So imagine my sheer delight when Halo came out with a dental chew that was designed to massage a dog’s teeth and gums! [I was particularly happy because I had no faith for the ingredients in the product that has been on the market for years and claims to freshen a dog's breath or clean his teeth.] But little did I know how enthusiastic my pooches would be to get their grubby little paws on a Halo Dental chew — good grief! Each of them got a chew and there wasn’t a peep or sound out of any of them while they got to chewing on those functional treats. Problem solved! I thought. Now a couple of times a week I’ll be giving them cause to celebrate and do their mouths a good deed into the bargain. After I opened two packages and put them in a container, I found the two empty packets had been fetched from the trash and the pieces were torn up and strewn around the room, clearly in search of more chews! Now I suppose that chewing apart the bag to get more of the delicious chews has its own cleaning action on the teeth, but I am sure that’s not what Halo intended when they made such a good tasting and smelling treat! I’ll just have to lay in a good stash of them to get me through the winter and remember to keep those chews in a sealed canister up on a high shelf!

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What exactly do they mean by “crude protein” in dry dog food?

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Tracie

“Crude protein” is one of those measurements that can be especially slippery for us to figure out when choosing a dog food. I feel as though “crude protein” should have a yellow caution flag next to it because this pair of words on dog food labels is so misleading. Protein is the most expensive ingredient in any pet food. It’s also true of human nutrition — that protein, especially good quality protein, is the most costly part of a meal. Therefore, savvy pet owners have learned to seek out high protein pet foods, in the belief that those foods are best. But there is a huge difference in where that protein comes from!

Pet owners believe that the words “crude protein” and the number with a “%” sign next to it (as required by the regulatory body AAFCO) refers to how much animal protein there is in the food. Instead, “crude protein” is actually a chemical analysis of the food whereby the amount of nitrogen present is used to estimate the amount of protein in the food. While nitrogen does come from animal protein, it also comes from non-animal proteins like grains, as well as other non-protein nitrogen (NPN) sources. This obviously creates a gap between what you think you are buying and feeding your dog (especially thinking you are getting a food with a high percentage of animal protein) — and what has actually been used to determine that number.

In addition to this problem, for many dry food manufacturers, “crude protein” includes carcasses and other waste from slaughtered animals and the word “meal” on a pet food bag may indicate the inclusion of such ingredients, along with meat not fit for people. This certainly helps clean up the slaughterhouse floor without having to call the garbage company! Unfortunately, inferior meals can also make a mediocre dog food high in protein — but not high in quality protein.

Since pet food can include a variety of questionable ingredients, and crude protein measurements will always include non-animal protein, I have included some tips on finding a high quality protein dog food:

  1. Choose a food that lists real whole meat on the bag as a primary ingredient – chicken, lamb, salmon, etc. — because then you are getting true quality protein, not ingredients used to manipulate the nitrogen levels. The same applies to whole vegetables, whole grains and real fruits — all hallmarks of a higher quality nutrition source.
  2. Read the entire label and make sure you understand all of the ingredients. Keep in mind that melamine was added to pet food as a non-protein nitrogen source to increase the protein content of pet foods.
  3. Call the pet food company and ask about their protein or any of the ingredients you have questions about. A company should have a well-trained customer service staff as well as a veterinarian or nutritionist that can answer your questions.

Personally, I choose HALO! They oversee their ingredient sources and other environmental variables and promptly answer phone calls from interested customers. I believe Halo kibble is a great foundation for the quality dry portion of your dog’s nutrition.

 

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Her Cat Will Only Eat Halo in a Can for Dogs!

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Tracie

I think you know by now how strongly feel about feeding cats only wet food, never dry, because they are obligate carnivores with digestive systems that struggle to deal with the highly processed carbohydrates of bagged food. Between my radio shows DOG TALK® (and Kitties, too!) and CAT CHAT® I thought I had heard every possible problem people have encountered in trying to get their cats off the dry kibble and onto wet, meat based food. And then I had someone call into CAT CHAT® (on Sirius/XM channel #110 live every Wednesday at 8 PM EST) with an entirely unique dilemma. She said her cat would only eat dog food — but a very good brand, Halo. I told her I agreed that Halo was a terrific kibble — and explained the coincidence that, in fact, Halo is the only bagged food I will feed my dogs as part of their meals. But then I began to explain that dry dog food is just as bad for her kitty as dry cat food when she interrupted me by saying, “No! My cat will only eat Halo canned dog food!” I asked whether she had tried the Halo canned cat food and of course she had — but the cat would only eat the dog’s dinner, which was Spot’s Stew in a can (the dog in question was a Chihuahua smaller than the cat!) After she explained that she had tried many premium canned cat foods — including the one Halo makes! — she gave up and divides the dog food between her Chi-chi and the kitty but was worried she was doing him some harm. I explained that while cats have a higher need for protein than dogs that she could sprinkle some Halo Dinner Party on the wet food to increase the protein content (it’s dehydrated pure chicken meat) or crumble some Halo Liv-a-Littles on top of the cat’s dog food, which is also pure dried meat. After that, I told her that the only missing element would be the taurine that pussycats need added to their foods — which Halo does in the cat version of their canned foods. Since the cat would not touch the cat food (which seems pretty nutty given that the products are made the same way) I recommended making certain that the cat gets her taurine by using a daily supplement like Platinum Performance, which supplies taurine (as well as some ingredients which can prevent joint issues and arthritis).

This nice lady was so happy to “get permission” from the Food Police (me!) to continue sharing the Halo canned stew between her kitty and the Chihuahua. I’d love to have a picture of that dinner scene!

–Tracie Hotchner

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Dog Talk® Quiz

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Tracie

Dog Talk® Quiz

I have had such fun answering the dog and cat questions that arrive every day from Freekibble.com because I learn something — but also often have a good laugh. The best part of the Freekibble quizzes is that (right or wrong) by answering I participate in kibble from HALO going to shelters, so it’s all good! This DOG TALK® quiz is just for the heck of it — a snappy way to remind you to avoid low quality kibble and make a premium dry food like HALO fundamental in your dog’s dish, as I do.

Corn in dog foods is counted as a protein — this makes no sense because:

1)    Corn is not displayed in the meat department of a food store since it is not an actual protein food
2)    Corn is a plant which grows in a field — and makes good (although unhealthy) snack chips for people
3)    Corn is appropriate to fatten animals raised for human food like cattle and chickens — nobody wants to eat their own Labrador so why feed him as if they do?

Artificial colors and flavors should not be in dog foods because:

1) Dogs don’t need coloring in their food because they are colorblind
2) Synthetic flavorings are unnecessary since most dogs will eat food that is fresh and made from wholesome ingredients
3) Artificial enhancements are chemicals with potentially harmful effects

A dog’s body can get benefits from complex carbohydrates when they are:

1)    Carbs like whole grains which have digestive benefits
2)     Not in the food primarily as a cheap filler to make a dog feel full
3)     Fibrous vegetables but never corn

Brewer’s rice is (the discarded portion of rice after human food manufacturing has finished with the actual rice) is in many prescription dog foods so people are fooled into thinking it must be:

1)   A really nutritious kind of rice, used by brewers to make alcoholic beverages
2)   It is real rice and better than corn
3)    A good kind of multi-purpose rice like Indian Basmati rice

BHA, BHT, TBHQ & Ethoxyquin as preservatives in a dog food tells you something important about a kibble:

1)    Chemical preservatives can keep pet foods from going bad for a very long time on the shelf
2)    The “food scientists” developed some of these chemicals for human foods where they can’t use them anymore, so might as well give them to the dogs!
3)    These chemicals are proven to cause serious health threats to pets — quality kibble uses natural preservatives instead

Some dogs are so gassy they can empty a room. This is because:

1)    Intestinal gas in a dog — especially if it is odorous — is a sign of poor digestion; either a diet is too carb-heavy or may include lower quality ingredients
2)    Some dogs are just stinkers — keep a pack of matches around to light when they let one loose
3)    Dogs make gas because they cannot burp.

Dog foods that contain sugar or corn syrup add it because:

1)    Everybody loves sweet things and dogs deserve to have some fun, too
2)    Dogs have a sweet tooth so it’s natural for manufacturers to take advantage of that
3)    By adding sweeteners a dog food manufacturer can entice a dog to eat otherwise unappetizing highly-processed kibble that is mostly inexpensive carbohydrates

The word “chicken” or “lamb” in the first position on a pet food label is important because:

1)  You want to know what flavor the food is so you know what your dog prefers
2)  The first ingredient is the most plentiful in a pet food and you want a formula with quality protein predominating
3)  The order of words doesn’t matter as long as chicken is in there somewhere

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A Cancer Doctor Responds To The Cancer Show On “Dog Talk®”

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Tracie

I got this thoughtful and interesting comment from Dr. Sara Fiocchi at the Veterinary Cancer Group. She respectfully disagreed with my comment which was as follows:

Personally, I think it is best to stay with your own vet after cancer diagnosis and let them handle the treatment, but only if Oncura Partners were supplying the protocol and medications for the treatment — and then there is 24 hour back up for the vet. I believe this is your business model: pets can stay closer to home, be treated by familiar doctors, but they in turn don’t have to second guess anything because Oncura has done the planning for them and provides emergency advice, as well. It is what I would have recommended to Gil if I had been involved sooner.

Dr. Sara responded:

Thank you for covering this topic.  It is so difficult for everyone involved when a dog with lymphoma dies shortly after treatment is started. This happens very rarely, but when it does, it hurts. I agree with both doctors that you interviewed — we don’t know for sure what happened, but ATLS or leukopenia (low white cells) is most likely.

Not only as a Veterinary Oncologist, but also as an owner of puppy cancer patients and the fiancée of a cancer survivor, I would love to open a discussion with you about seeing one’s own general veterinarian for the management of cancer.  Although I understand that Oncura provides support to these vets, if the vets don’t know that something is out of the ordinary (which comes with experience) and think, as is mentioned in your article, that the dog is just demonstrating chemotherapy-related side effects, they won’t know to call Oncura for help.  This sort of second-hand treatment would never be accepted in the human medical field, and nowadays that is the level of care that people expect for their pets — the same (or as I’m told by my clients, better) care that a human patient would receive.  There are many little nuances to cancer treatment that just cannot be picked up by relaying info over the phone (or e-mail, etc) or following an established protocol, and that one can only learn with years of experience treating hundreds of cancer patients.  I have seen several patients whose general vets started their chemo treatments, and the vets did a fine job while they were treating the patient, but in quite a few cases my review of the records has revealed areas that could have been improved upon (not that things were done wrong, but that they could have been done better from the standpoint of keeping the pet’s cancer in remission longer).  Please don’t get me wrong, though; I am not by any means saying that general vets are not as smart or capable as specialists. But if your dog was diagnosed with cancer, would it make more sense to have him treated by a vet who treats 15 cancer patients a day, or 15 per year? And converse to that, I know that I am not the best vet to treat many of the diseases that general vets treat. Although I could look back in my vet school notes about how to treat mange or intestinal parasites, I just don’t have the experience that a general vet does with those diseases, and am therefore not the ideal vet to be treating those diseases.

Another factor to consider with cancer treatment is the actual administration of the chemotherapy agents. While it is perfectly acceptable (in human and veterinary medicine) to “fish” for a vein when placing an IV catheter or administering most intravenous medications (I was a 2-time victim of “fishing” in the emergency room just yesterday!), it is completely unacceptable when administering chemotherapy. Our chemotherapy nurses go through months of training in chemotherapy administration and how to handle a possible extravasation (meaning, if there is even the slightest chance that any of the chemo leaked outside of the vein) before they are allowed to administer chemotherapy, and they treat several chemotherapy patients every day. Knowing how to handle an extravasation is of the utmost importance in preventing tissue damage around the vein.  With some chemotherapy drugs, tissue damage can be so severe as to necessitate surgical management of the wound. Fortunately, extravasations occur very rarely in our Oncology practice, because our chemotherapy technicians have a healthy respect for the agents they are administering. When tissue damage from an extravasation occurs, it is horrifying for everyone involved.

An exception to my statements occurs when there is no specialist in close proximity to the pet’s home. I do agree that driving several hours every week to receive chemotherapy treatments could be incredibly difficult (emotionally, temporally, financially) for a pet and its family. I am fortunate to work in Los Angeles and Orange County, where there is an abundance of specialists, but I do have quite a few patients from the inland areas that drive 2-3 hours to see me for treatment… and are happy as a clam when they walk in our front door and get their special greeting… and treats!

I hope you understand that I mean no disrespect in writing you this note. Rather, since you are a pet lover and an educator to the pet-owning public, my intent was to help you understand the importance of specialists (and conversely the importance of general vets!) in treating various diseases.

Respectfully and with kind regards,
Sara

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Dogs Are Not Corn-Ivores – They Are Carn-Ivores!

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Tracie

Lesser quality dry dog food is made from corn in various forms because corn is cheap and there is a whole lot of it leftover from various uses in the human food production chain. Manufacturers have found all sorts of ways to fry and spray highly processed corn with enticing fats and flavorings so that when it is made into kibble, dogs will eat it — but just because they will eat it does not mean they should eat it! Meat protein is essential to a dog’s body for optimal health, which means that bagged dog foods that are primarily made of corn are cheating the dog’s body of the necessary nutrition that meat supplies.

Dogs are considered carnivores. They need meat. Some experts refer to dogs as omnivorous carnivores (they eat all sorts of things but basically need meat) or others call dogs carnivorous omnivores (they are basically meat-eaters but also can eat from other food groups). Whichever you call them, dogs need the protein and amino acids in meat as the foundation for their diet. Dogs are definitely referred to as carnivores and their diets are referred to as carnivorous, so any way you cut it, your dog needs protein from meat as the foundation of his diet, not a highly-processed carbohydrate like corn.

In looking at the shelves of dog food in supermarkets it seems to me that dog food manufacturers have gotten their alphabet letters mixed up because instead of respecting a dog’s basic need for meat — and formulating the recipes to acknowledge them as the carnivores they are — the inexpensive corn-based ingredients in those dog food bags suggests those companies are treating dogs as if they are “corn-ivores” like a chicken or  cattle! Corn is great for feedlot animals to fatten them quickly for human consumption — corn in a dog’s diet will have the same effect, even though it is not what we intended!

Dogs have a need for a high percentage of good protein in their diet, so they should be eating the feedlot animals that are fed corn to fatten them up for our dinner tables. Let me put it this way so it’s easy to remember: dogs should not be eating corn at all — they should be eating the animals that do eat corn! The reason I choose HALO kibble is because not only does it never contain corn or wheat or soy, it also derives its protein from actual meat, never from “meal” or “by-products.” It respects the dog as a true carnivore and supplies quality meat as the main ingredient.

We all know that a parent would not comply at dinnertime if a child requested corn chips as her main course instead of a chicken leg. “But I heard fried corn is good for, Mommy,” is probably not going to cut it! And dogs are different than junk-food negotiating children — unlike them; a dog would never try to swap corn for some nice chicken or beef! A dog would always choose the meat, fish or fowl that is true protein, A dog is a carnivore — not a corn-ivore — and his body craves protein and he knows it. Common sense will tell you that even the finest quality corn is not the kind of protein that a carnivore needs.

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Why I Avoid “By-Products” In My Pets’ Food

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Tracie

There are many by-products of meat and poultry in the human food chain which are delicious and nutritious — but these are NOT the ones used by pet food companies that admit to having “by products” in their food!  In fact, the quick way to determine whether you are dealing with a low quality food is to check if the word “by-products” (meat or poultry) appears on their label. This word has come to be associated with lower-quality dog and cat foods, many of which frequently use “by-products” as the basis of the protein content of their food — but when by-products appears on a label, especially near the top of the ingredient list, it means there is little to none of what we think of as protein (meat) and a whole lot of nasty ingredients you’d probably rather not hear about!

Where people are concerned, there are excellent “auxiliary” parts of animals in the food chain to nourish the body and delight the palate (if you are so inclined!).  Rustic French and Italian country cooking often features the organ meats or the parts of slaughtered cattle, pigs or chickens that were historically cooked inventively by poor folk: lungs, spleen, kidneys, thymus gland, brains, liver, and more. This country cuisine evolved from peasants who could not afford the finer cuts of actual meat and had to make do with all the leftover parts of the slaughtered animals after the wealthier people consumed the actual meat. A good example is the cow’s stomach, which is known as “tripe” and when eaten by people is called trippa alla Livornese when cooked by the Italians, or tripes a la mode de Caen when made by the French.

In theory, meat by-products in pet food could include many of these nutritious organs of the slaughtered animals, which people in Asia and Europe continue to eat, even when they can afford meat. In human cuisine, we think of by-products as typically anything except the actual flesh or muscle-meat of the animal.  However, the by-products that go into pet food are not these fresh, intact body parts of animals used for human consumption. By-products in pet food are whatever is left behind on the slaughterhouse floor after the muscle meat, organs and anything usable for human food has been processed.

In the case of “poultry by-product” in pet food, it is actually defined as “heads, feet and viscera, with an allowable amount of feces and ‘foreign matter.’” While chicken feet might possibly have nutritional value (another poultry body part sometimes found in “poor man’s” rustic cuisine, I doubt that you understood that the ingredients called “by-products” in your pet’s food included chicken heads and a “reasonable” amount of chicken manure and “foreign matter,” which is frankly too frightening to even contemplate and could be anything off the floor, including industrial waste.  Additionally, once by-products are destined for pet food, they can legally be handled with little care in terms of food safety and can be subjected to hot weather, kept in uncovered containers where flies can lay eggs, etc.

When the by-products (or expired meat, which comes from the supermarket to go into pet food still in its Styrofoam and plastic wrappings — which can also legally be included in the final recipe) reach the pet food factory, everything is thrown into a big vat for high temperature boiling to theoretically purify out all the contamination (and much of the nutrition).

In addition, many other sources of “meat” are often included in this “by product” concoction for pets – including dead animals removed from roadsides (“road kill”), farm animals that die before slaughter (usually from illness or disease), and euthanized shelter animals or privately owned pets that have been put to sleep. There is the problem with pet foods that once “by products” are introduced, all the ingredients in that recipe are then designated as “not fit for humans” then there is no attention to the cleanliness or “food safety” handling techniques and temperatures of these ingredients.

A big note of caution: by-products can also include the brain – which is one of the locations for Mad Cow Disease, which can be transmitted through consumption. This means that when you see “by-product meal” on a pet food label you basically want to take a detour. If you want to feed your dog nutritious organ meats, you’ll be best off getting it from the human butcher counter.

Myself, the only kibble I will feed is HALO because they have a strict rule that by-products will never find their way into the recipe.

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