Dog Food Blog

These days, unfortunately, pet food safety has become a very hot topic. As seen in the latest recall, customers want control and many dog owners turned either to holistic dog food or started making their own dog food. Still, according to a survey held by Pet Food Institute inquiring US pet owners, 70% of consumers were NOT changing brands.

For tomorrow July 12th, Petfood Industry has scheduled a web seminar sponsored by PetFood Forum ASIA about this number one topic. Pet food safety experts Julie Lenzer Kirk (traceability expert at Interstates Companies) and Matt Frederking ( Director of Regulatory Affairs at Poet Nutrition), will present this forum and discuss preventative measures (the why’s and how’s of automated traceability systems) and present practical ideas on what to do when a contamination crisis occurs.

To show pet food safety is a crucial item on the agenda, and the recent recall is not just an unfortunate one-of event, I’ll list a few historical US feed safety issues:

• 1973: Fire retardant chemicals in animal feed where “Firemaster” was substituted by accident for “Feedmaster” as a nutrient additive. The PBBs that are in “Firemaster made it into the human food chain through the poisoning of animal feed (over 1.5 million animals affected in the US)
• 1989: Fumonisin B1 (a mycotoxin) in animal feed
• 1995: Fumonisin B1 in animal feed
• 2005: Aflatoxin in cat and dog food. Aflatoxin is a naturally occurring toxic by-product from the growth of the fungus Aspergillus flavus on corn and other crops (US and 29 other countries)
• 2007: Melamine in cat and dog food (over 10,000 complaints to FDA)

Notice that the same toxin hit animal feed twice in 6 years. This clearly shows the pet food industry needs to learn from past experiences.

JUST REALIZE WE ARE IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY ! THIS CONCERNS US ALL !

The source of the melamine in US cat and dog food was found in imported ingredients from China. In June 2007, the Swiss research institute Agroscope Liebefeld-Posieux discovered the illegal compound melamine in food ingredients imported from China. According to the Swiss, Chinese exporters had forged the shipping documents. Not only companion animals in the US are at risk. China is exporting food ingredients to countries all over the world and these are also used to produce food for humans.

More news to follow soon, so stay tuned!

No doubt about it, vitamins are essential for a healthy happy dog. But as is true for everything in life; too much of anything can hurt. As Paracelcus (1493-1541) postulated: “It’s not the substance that defines what is toxic and what isn’t, but the amount“. Though we do not generally consider vitamins as toxins, intake of high amounts can give unwanted results.

In February 2006, Mars Inc. recalled seven lines of its Royal Canin dog and cat foods after discovering an overage error in the formulation of its diets. Royal Canin company executives said they recalled the food as a precaution due to elevated levels of vitamin D3.

Late March, a 50 million dollar class-action suit was filed against Royal Canin. This Canadian lawsuit has yet to be certified. It seeks compensation for anyone who has purchased Royal Canin dog or cat food since Aug. 1, 2004.

Foods contain low levels of vitamin D and an overdose is only seen when using artificial supplements. A vitamin D overdose in dogs can lead to high levels of calcium in their blood. This can eventually cause severe damage to bones, soft tissue and kidneys.

For more information about the vitality of vitamins for dogs continue reading at Best Dog Food Guide.

Have you ever wondered what food tastes like to a dog? Well, I have! And I have tasted a few samples of dog food myself. What can I say… I’m a curious person and I’d like to form my own opinion . Sometimes I could make sense of my dog’s response, but other times I just couldn’t.

We have more taste buds, but dogs can smell much better than we can. But if they have such good smell, than how can they love that dirty paunch so much? It smells just really offensive! Guess that’s only our (human) opinion. By the way, I have never tasted paunch, ever.

Science hasn’t figured out what really lights up the “Mmmmmm” inside that doggy brain. Though animal nutritionists do have the knowledge it takes to create a dog food recipe that contains all the required nutrients. When you decide to cook for your canine, you need to go and seek advice. You can’t just invite your dog to dinner (sorry) and have him eat the same meals as you do. There are a lot of differences between you and your dog when it comes to digestion, nutritional requirements, likes and dislikes and… table manners (I hope ).

Continue reading to find a list of commonly used ingredients in human meals that should not go into your dog’s dish.

Read the rest of this entry »

Scientists at Guelph’s University, Canada, have discovered a chemical process that may explain how cats and dogs were sickened and killed by melamine-contaminated pet food in March 2007.

Only when this mechanism is elucidated we can be 100% certain that melamine is indeed the cause. Though melamine has been proven toxic in rodent experiments, levels of this substance found in the dog food samples were very low (below what is considered toxic for rodents). This was quite puzzling and demanded for an explanation.

The scientific findings of the Agriculture and Food laboratory in Guelph now show that the relative non-toxic melamine reacts with cyanuric acid (a metabolic by-product of melamine) to form crystals that may block kidney function. These crystal-like substances were discovered in kidney and urine samples of affected cats and dogs.

Their research explains how two compounds that aren’t dangerous on their own, can become toxic when they react together.

What are table scraps anyway? Sure, these are the left-overs of one’s meal. But your meal probably differs from my meal, so there is no clear definition.

A colleague, who regularly feeds his dogs table scraps in addition to premium dog food, told me the following story yesterday. He had fed this three dogs Indonesian table scraps. Two of them, the Australian Shepherds, could handle this without any problems. However, the Portuguese Water Dog got severe diarrhoea. When my colleague woke up in the morning and went downstairs, he discovered the huge smelly mess on the floor. For two days the unfortunate Portuguese walked around with bubbly sounds coming from his stomach and didn’t care so much for food. So what seems ok for one dog, may hurt the other.

This morning, when I was walking my Akita dog, I met a woman with a Husky. We chatted for a while and the conversation soon went to dog food (I didn’t even start ). She told me she feeds table scraps regularly. The other day she had been cooking a real spicy Chilli meal for her family. Without thinking about the spicyness of the food, she gave her pooch the left-overs. The dog developed severe diarrhoea and they had to urgently visit a vet in the weekend and get expensive medicines to prevent dehydration.

 

What can we learn from this?

What works for one dog, can get another one seriously ill. Don’t use your dogs as a waste bin. Throw fatty or spicy left-overs in the garbage bag. When in doubt, don’t ask your doggy. You have to be the wisest! Dogs aren’t like us. They can’t handle the greasy spicy foods we often like and there are ingredients in our food – onions for example - that are potentially toxic to our furry friends.

I sometimes give kitchen counter scraps to my pets. By this I mean quality ingredients like uncooked unsalted unflavored chicken, beef or fish. It’s not to substitute their food or to enrich it as all nutrients they need are provided in their daily menu. The kitchen counter scraps are just an occasional treat.

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Do you want to learn more about dog food, deciphering dog food labels, recognizing dog food allergy symptoms, dog digestion processes and the differences between his and yours, the use of novel and new ingredients in dog food, and much more? Then I invite you to go and visit Best Dog Food Guide.