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Myth? Nutritional Balance Over Time

July 26th, 2011

The theory goes like this. It doesn’t matter if each individual meal we feed ourselves or our pets is balanced … because overtime, with enough variety, it’ll all balance out. I know I’ve said this to myself, especially if ice cream is on the menu for dinner.

I’ve heard the idea used to explain / justify things like:

• Supplementing a commercial pet food with “people food” (which I do)
• Rotating through a variety of commercial pet foods (which our pet food shopping habits survey shows 45% of our readers do)
• Making a variety of homemade pet foods (and not worrying too much about day-to-day nutritional balance)

Ongoing micronutrient imbalance can erode a pet's health over time.

Thanks to a press pass at the recent American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine Forum, I got to attend some pet nutrition seminars given by board-certified veterinary nutritionists. I wrote a bit about one session on homemade pet diets earlier (on my own blog), but I wanted to give more time and space to one concept in particular:

This idea of nutritional balance over time.

Jennifer Larsen, DVM, a board-certified veterinary nutritionist at University of California-Davis, poked a few wholes in the idea during her seminar. After reading through my notes from the event, I sent her some follow-up questions via email to find out more.

When Larsen chooses or creates a pet diet for a veterinary teaching hospital client, she explains, “First, my perspective is that the primary goal of the nutritional management of any case is to provide adequate amounts of energy as well as all the required nutrients. Secondly, specific nutritional modifications are considered if needed (like fat restriction, limitations in potassium or phosphorus, etc). Then, I consider ingredients that work within these parameters (as well as withing criteria from the patient and client) and go from there. This is the same process whether I ultimately meet my goals using a commercial diet (over the counter or prescription), a parenteral formulation [via IV], a liquid elemental enteral product [via feeding tube], or a home-cooked diet.”

Other considerations include:

• The pet’s nutrient requirements compared to a “normal” pet population
• How a pet’s energy intake affects micronutrient requirements
• The bioavailability of those micronutrients in specific diets or ingredients
• What digestibility values determine nutrient content of the diet

Calling nutrition both a quantitative and a qualitative science, Larsen sums up her concerns about “nutritional balance over time,” like this: “I have heard the ‘balance over time’ concept as a means to promote dietary variety and achieve nutrient balance, and specifics on how this is achieved are never provided.”

Questions to Ask, Answers You Need: Nutritional Balance Over Time

Which version of nutrient requirements will you use? There are several … National Research Council, Association of American Feed Control Officials … etc.

How exactly will you balance out the various deficiencies? For example, if the diet is deficient for your pet’s needs (in something like zinc) and you feed the diet for two weeks, then do you on day 14 give a supplement that has 14 x the daily requirement? Or, do you give various levels of supplements over many days with the idea that the total amount will average out to the daily requirement?

Nutritional Balance Over Time: Concerns [emphasis mine]

“My fear,” says Larsen, “is that it is a convenient way to justify the approach of feeding casually and not worrying about such things as micronutrient requirements. It seems to me that this practice could set us up for multiple chronic marginal deficiency syndromes, such that over clinical signs of such would show up after a long period of time, if ever (given the short life spans of our pets). Also, this brings up the concern of suboptimal performance that may only be manifested in certain parameters of health and well-being that we don’t typically measure. I do see overt deficiency and toxicity cases. But, what about the many potential others that have more vague signs? The deficiency signs for multiple nutrients include lethargy and inappetence.”

Ingredient variables include things like cooking method (which can alter nutrient levels). Then, there is the common mistake of substituting volume measurements for weight ones. And, even a seemingly well-balanced homemade pet food that looks good for protein, carbs, and fats … can still be deficient in micronutrients (there are 40 of them). So, even if you use a decent recipe and merely swap out protein or carb sources once in a while, a fundamentally deficient recipe is still fundamentally deficient.

Plus, there is a tendency for “recipe drift,” where:

• Measurements get less precise over time
• Ingredients get substituted
• Feeding amounts shift (up or down)
  

Nutritional Balance Over Time: The Human Comparison

Larsen calls the human analogy (that we don’t feed ourselves particularly well and we’re mostly OK) a poor one … because there are many forms of rampant malnutrition in industrialized countries, including:

• Obesity
• Vitamin D deficiency
• Vitamin B12 deficiency
• Iron deficiency
• Calcium deficiency

In other words, we don’t do a terrific job on this for ourselves. Even if we work hard at a dietary variety, most people return to the same foods again and again.

Do you believe it’ll all work out? Or are you regularly calculating and re-calculating your pet’s nutritional intake, especially when it comes to micronutrients? If so, I’d love to know more about your methods and strategies.

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Tags: American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine, American College of Veterinary Nutrition, cat food, cat nutrition, dog food, dog nutrition, homemade cat food, homemade dog food, pet food rotation, veterinary nutritionist
Posted in Dog Food Basics, Dog Food Debates, Dog Health, K9 Nutrition | 2 Comments »

New FDA Regulations Target Food Safety, Including Pet Food Safety

July 19th, 2011

In the wake of the big melamine recalls and pet deaths as well as ongoing smaller recalls of pet foods, I took a little time to listen to this American Veterinary Medical Association podcast with Dr. Dan McChesney, director of the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) Center for Veterinary Medicine’s Office of Surveillance and Compliance. Here is my recap of that Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) podcast.

Food Safety Modernization Act: Background

McChesney offered this background on why the updated food safety rules (including those that apply to pet food supply safety) are necessary:

• In the U.S., 15% of the food supply is now imported.
• The number of individuals considered at high risk for food-borne illness now sits at 30% of the human populatioin.
• Each year 48 million people get sick from some sort of food-borne illness (that’s 1 in 6).
• Just under 130,000 of them are hospitalized … with about 3,000 dying each year.

McChesney admits these illness numbers are “significant but not astronomical,” but he points out that some short-lived food-borne illnesses can lead to long-term problems, including arthritis and kidney disease.

Food Safety Modernization Act: Focus on Prevention

McChesney explains in the AVMA podcast that the new rules focus on prevention, including:

• Requiring food product makers and suppliers to develop food safety plans that target the most likely problems they’ll face.
• Identifying the possible hazards for certain foods or ingredients
• Better collaboration and shared tools between federal and state food safety officials
• New regulations on any imported foods

McChesney says that the Food Safety Modernization Act addresses things that can go wrong, especially during transportation of foods across the country or around the globe and what he calls “food defense” (keeping us safe from food “attacks,” in other words).

Thanks to the Food Safety Modernization Act the FDA also gained more inspection and recall powers. It can, now, for example institute a mandatory recall, if necessary. In addition, new rules boast stronger registration procedures for food  companies with:

• Updated registrations required every 2 years
• FDA ability to “delist” companies, if necessary, which would prevent them from selling products across state lines

When it comes to imported products, McChesney says the Food Safety Modernization Act puts the responsibility for product safety on the shoulders of IMPORTERS. That likely means importers will want their suppliers to implement similar food safety processes.

So, in theory, that means if a TAINTED ingredient comes in from another country, then the pet food manufacturer who used that tainted product would be responsible.

Food Safety Modernization Act: Faster Response

McChesney explains that the FDA also gained the ability to STOP the sale of a product quickly. “In the past,” he says, ” we had to rely on the states to do that.”

I’m not convinced these new FDA food safety regulations will necessarily keep foods safer overall. I do think these are important steps, and I do think it’s good that the FDA can move FASTER to stop potentially dangerous product sales … before more people or pets get sick … if / when something happens.

***

I called the FDA to be sure these new rules indeed apply to both human and pet foods, and I was assured that is the case. At this point, I think it’s hard to say whether or not the Food Safety Modernization Act will keep our pet foods safer or not.

Have you read the new regulations or listened to the podcast? Do you think it’ll make a difference? What are your main concerns?

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Tags: FDA pet food regulations, food safety, Food Safety Modernization Act, new food safety regulations, pet food recalls, pet food safety
Posted in Dog Food Basics, Dog Food News, Dog Health, K9 Nutrition | Comments Off

Research Review: Raw Dog Food, Raw Cat Food

June 28th, 2011

In the past, Dog Food Dish has covered The Case for Feeding Raw, The Case Against Feeding Raw, Raw Feeding Logistics as well as a bunch of Q&As with K9Cuisine.com community members who feed homemade, raw food to their dogs and cats. Today, I’m happy to share with you a few details from a recently published veterinary medical journal article that reviews and assesses the existing research into raw food diets in companion animals.

Published in January 2011 by the Canadian Veterinary Journal (vol 52, pages 50-54), the review article abstract begins:

“Feeding of raw meat-based diets to pets has become an increasingly popular trend amongst pet owners. Owners, who desire to provide the best for their pets, seek veterinary opinions about food options. This paper reviews and applies standards of evidence-based medicine to grade the available scientific literature that addresses the nutritional benefits or risks, infectious disease risks, and public health implications of raw, meat-based pet diets. Although there is a lack of large cohort studies to evaluate the risk or benefit of raw meat based diets fed to pets, there is enough evidence to compel veterinarians to discuss human health implications of those diets with owners.”

Broad Recap of Raw Pet  Food Studies Noted

After explaining the various kinds of research out there and its relative level of evidence, the review article goes on to recap studies the authors found and considered. On this scale (1-5), those with lower level numbers carry more scientific weight based on a variety of factors. This graphic and page from Dartmouth University explains what evidence-based medicine means.

Evidence of Nutritional Benefit

Level 4 evidence of nutritional benefit ( ~98% of pet owners reporting “healthy” dogs and cats)

Level 5 evidence of nutritional benefit (the Prochaska and Piekutowski paper noting increased bioavailablity of raw food) … except another study in people showed cardiovascular risks of raw (non-meat) diets due to Vitamin B12 deficiency

Evidence of Nutritional Risks

Level 4 evidence of nutritional risks, including:

• Too much Vitamin A in cats fed raw pork liver
• Feline pancreatitis in cats (usually related to too much fat in the diet) fed cooked pig brain or raw or cooked oily fish
• Poor bone development in two litters of 6-week-old, large-breed puppies (fed raw since week 3)
• Excessive thyroid hormone production in a some members (not all) of litter of German shepherd puppies (eating 80% rice with 20% raw meat, with excessive phosphorus)
• Commercial and homemade diet analysis showing low calcium and phosophorus in three of five diets measures
• Commercial and homemade diet analysis showing two of the five deficient in potassium, magnesium, and zinc

Evidence of Infectious Disease Risks

Level 2 and 3 evidence of infectious disease “risks” to pet or humans sharing their environment, including:

• 6% of raw pet foods testing positive for Salmonella
• 50% of raw pet foods testing positive for Escherichia coli
• 80% of raw chicken diets testing positive for Salmonella (some pets on this diet shedding Salmonella in stools up to 1-7 days after consumption)

While the authors note some antimicrobial resistance and some cases of animal and human illness, they go on to say, “Few studies document that Salmonella shedding by dogs or cats can result in illness in humans.”

Yet, there is more Level 4 evidence that Salmonella, in particular, is indeed found in many raw pet diets, so they say, “As there appears to e strong evidence that raw food can contain Salmonella, it is vitally important, if feeding a raw meat diet to a pet, that hygiene of the food preparations area and the feeding bowls be diligently maintained. This may, however, be difficult to achieve. A recent study found that standard methods of cleaning and disinfecting food bowls were minimally effective at eliminating Salmonella. This included soaking with bleach and cleaning in the dishwasher.”

Study Conclusion

The authors ultimately conclude that at this point, looking at the research that currently exists, “Clearly, there is some compelling evidence suggesting that raw food diets may be a theoretical risk nutritionally. In addition, raw food poses a substantial risk of infectious disease to the pet, the pet’s environment, and the humans in the household. What is lacking, however, is level 1 evidence from randomized controlled trials or strong level 2 evidence from large cohort studies to evaluate risks or benefits of raw meat diets in pets.”

***

I know this post is much more technical than usual, so holler if you have questions, and I’ll do my best to answer. I have not read all 42 references cited in the footnotes. It’s actually quite hard (an expensive) at times to get copies of scientific journal articles.

I had the chance to attend the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine Forum in Denver a couple weeks ago, and I planned to attend a session called “Raw Food Diets: A Research Review,” but the presenter ended up super sick and could not do the session, so it got cancelled.

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Tags: raw cat food, raw dog food, raw pet food, raw pet food research
Posted in Dog Food Basics, Dog Food Debates, Dog Health, K9 Nutrition | 5 Comments »

Top 3 Reasons for Pet Food Recalls

June 21st, 2011

After going through all of the FDA reports of pet food recalls, withdrawals, and safety alerts for 2010 and so far in 2011, I can report the following results. Essentially when animal food makers or the FDA pull a product, the reason falls into one of three categories:

1. Salmonella contamination (~ 74%)
2. Another contaminant (~ 14%)
3. Too much or two little of an essential nutrient (~11%)

Pet Food Contamination

Remember, of course, that this figuring comes years after the HUGE melamine contamination and pet food recalls that affected numerous pet food brands, particularly in 2007. [ Look for an Excel file at the bottom of this FDA pet food recall page for all kinds of recall data. ]

Digging through the recall notices, however, I found other pretty scary contaminants in all kinds of food for animals, including for horses, turkeys, sheep, reptiles, and pigs … in addition to dogs and cats:

• Livestock / poultry medications (like monensin sodium, an antibiotic that can be fatal to horses in high amounts)
• Aflatoxin (a naturally occurring fungus / mold that can cause liver problems in people and pets)
• Metal fragments

Pet Food Ups and Downs

Pet foods can also get recalled for having too much or too little of a good thing … in other words, an essential nutrient in:

• Inadequate amounts
• Too high a concentration

In the last couple years, I found recalls due to too little thiamine (B12) in a couple of cat foods, too little Vitamin D in swine food, and one due to an excess of Vitamin D.

Salmonella in Pet Food. Salmonella Sickness in Dogs and Cats

Clearly, however, salmonella surfaces as a real culprit in pet food recalls. You can find Salmonella enterica in the GI tracts of many animals. It’s most common for animals, including our pets, to live in a “subclinical carrier state.” Essentially, that means they have Salmonella in their bodies, but it doesn’t make them sick.

Other pets can and do get sick from Salmonella. Look for these symptoms:

• Fever
• Anorexia (not wanting to eat, cannot eat)
• Lethargy (dull, low-energy behavior)
• Diarrhea, possibly with mucus or blood
• Abdominal pain

The good news, though, is that often pet food manufacturers learn of possible Salmonella contamination before any animals turn up sick.

Because these Salmonella-related recalls are so common, it’s easy to get a bit complacent about them. But, Salmonella can be a big deal. So much so, for people, that the USDA hopes to convince people to be more careful with food prep at home.

QUESTION: Has your pet ever gotten sick relating to a pet food recall? How’d it happen? How’d you track down the cause?

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Tags: cat food recall, dog food recall, FDA, food contamination, Melamine, pet food recalls, Salmonella
Posted in Cat Food Basics, Cat Food News, Dog Food Basics, Dog Food News, Dog Health, Feline Nutrition, K9 Nutrition | 1 Comment »

Why Having a Baby Makes Your Dog Fat

June 14th, 2011

The team at Flexcin (which makes a joint supplement called FlexPet) analyzed data from June – December 2010 and found, “New parents represent the fastest-growing demographic inquiring about dog-joint health issues relating to pet obesity.”

In the six months studied, new parents totaled nearly one-third (32.3%) of the outreach for help with pet joint pain issues linked to being overweight. That’s  6.6% jump over numbers pulled in 2008.

The pet obesity link to arthritis and other troubles is clear. Even a couple extra pounds or two (especially in our smaller canine friends) is the equivalent to a big percentage overload on their bones, joints, and connective tissues.

Why Dogs With New Babies in the Family Gain Weight

The reasons behind fatter pets in households with young children include:

• Dogs eating foods babies / toddlers drop from high-chairs (78.4%)
• Families paying less attention to the dog’s food portions (67.7%)
• Dogs getting fewer walks due to time constraints and logistics of dogs + strollers (64.6%)

Simply put … too much food, too little exercise.

Friend of the company and blog, Dr. V from Pawcurious recently gave her take on this subject called “The long slow descent down the totem pole.” You can hop on over there to read her real-world advice on where to seek (perhaps demand) help with petcare tasks that might slide with a newborn in the house.

Dogs Love Food-Wielding Kids

A former colleague and longtime friend Elizabeth McGuire writes a blog called Peace, Love and Guacamole. It’s part photo essay, part written essay that elevates the tiny, everyday moment to the universal, part belly-laugh funny.

For example, she once posted THIS photo with the headline “Hope or Faith?”

My reply? “Stone-cold fact.”

To which Liz said, “Yep, it’s a fact. And also a reason that Zoe is our chubby dog!”

My Meager Dogs + Kids Advice (Relating to Food)

Since I am not a mom, I cannot offer much more advice than this … since it’s probably a given that your baby / toddler will share food with your dog — accidentally or otherwise:

• Make sure it isn’t foods poisonous to pets, like raisins.
• *Try* to cut back on regular meal portions to make up for extra calories gotten elsewhere.

Tell Us Your Dogs + Baby Survival Strategies!

So, how did you cope when babies came into your once dog-only home?

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Tags: baby, canine joint pain, canine obesity, dogs and kids, Flexcin, FlexPet, parenting, toddler
Posted in Dog Food Basics, Dog Food News, Dog Health, K9 Nutrition | 2 Comments »

Vegetarian and Vegan Food for Dogs and Cats

June 7th, 2011

I had the chance recently to research and write a feature article for the pet section of WebMD about the risks and dos / don’ts of feeding a vegetarian to vegan diet to pet carnivores … namely dogs and cats.

When I work in the traditional journalism realm, I do not get the chance to voice my opinion. So, let me recap a few things and comment here.

Key Point: Vegetarian and Vegan Diets for Dogs and Cats –> Species Inappropriate

Cats are obligate carnivores. They really, truly need meat in their diet. Depending upon whom you ask, that means:

• Cat food that’s mostly meat
• Cat food that’s only meat
• Cat food that’s only raw, fresh meat

Dogs are also carnivores. It gets a little muddier with dogs because they do indeed fall into the family carnivora, but so do some berry-eating bears. So, again, depending upon whom you ask, dogs are:

• Carnivores, with omnivore leanings, who can and will eat carbohydrates
• Straight up carnivores, who need meat-based dog food
• Straight-up carnivores, who need raw meat dog food

So, does feeding these pets we bring into our lives a non-meat diet make sense? Many say, “No.”

The best quote in answer to this question comes from Lew Olson, author of Raw and Natural Nutrition for Dogs:

“Trying to feed a cat a vegan diet would be like me feeding my horses meat. You’re taking a whole species of animal and trying to force it to eat something that it isn’t designed to handle.”

Key Point: Vegetarian and Vegan Diets for Dogs and Cats –> Risk of Nutritional Imbalance

The biggest medical risk dogs and cats face when fed vegetarian or vegan diets is taurine-related dilated cardiomyopathy (enlarged heart with weak contractions and poor pumping ability). Cats cannot make their own taurine, so they need in their diets. Dogs can make taurine if the diet supplies the right amino-acid building blocks (found in meat). Both species can suffer taurine deficiencies, and if it goes on too long, the heart damage is permanent.

Other possible nutritional imbalances from vegetarian / vegan pet diets include:

• Problems with Vitamin A and Vitamin D
• Wrong combinations of amino acids
• Not enough total protein (less than 25 grams per 1,000 calories recommended)

These risks are real for home-made vegetarian and home-made vegan dog and cat food. They are real for commercial vegetarian and vegan dog and cat foods. One of the veterinary nutritionists I interviewed treated a cat who nearly died due to food deficiencies in a commercial vegan cat food.

One of the arguments or justifications I heard was that pet owners can simply supplement their way out of these concerns. After all, they told me, pet food companies do it. Nearly all cat foods include supplemental taurine and other things.

And, yes, that’s true. However, once you start removing an entire category of food from a pet’s diet (meat-based protein), then you can easily cross over into feeding a not-really-food-like pet food. This quote got shortened in editing, but I love it so much, I’m posting it here.

“Experimentally, there are ways to get around it,” says Cailin Heinze, VMD, a board-certified veterinary nutritionist and assistant professor of nutrition at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, “but you’re adding a lot of chemically synthesized nutrients to replace what would normally be in an appropriate diet. If we want to get a specific amino acid into a diet, we can – in theory – make a diet that meets the nutritional needs of the cat, but it’s kind of ‘Franken-Food.’ It’s not food.”

Commentary: Vegetarian and Vegan Diets for Dogs and Cats

Some of my journalist friends who also write about pet health told me they would have a hard time interviewing and being objective with someone who feeds a vegetarian / vegan diet to cats, in particular. Honestly, it wasn’t that hard for me because I COMPLETELY understand where these pet owners are coming from. I really do … even if I don’t agree with them on this choice.

It can be done (more so for dogs than for cats), but it takes a LOT of work and direct, ongoing participation of both a family veterinarian and board-certified veterinary nutritionist. So, if you are considering this option, please don’t do it lightly because there are direct and serious medical risks for your dog or cat. My other article lists several DON’Ts, but the one I want to emphasis here is that these diets are particularly risky as puppy food or kitten food.

I thought Lew Olson summed up the dilemma best with this:

“When people tell me they want to feed a vegan diet, I say, ‘Get a goat, get a rabbit.’”

In other words, if your ethics preclude animal-based food, then choose a pet that naturally does not eat meat.

Your Turn: What do you think about vegetarian and vegan diets for dogs and cats?

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Tags: kitten food, pet carnivores, puppy food, vegan cat food, vegan dog food, vegetarian cat food, vegetarian dog food
Posted in Dog Food Basics, Dog Food Debates, Dog Health, K9 Nutrition | 3 Comments »

Does Dog Food Shape Matter?

May 24th, 2011

These are the kinds of questions that pop into my head at 3 am, when I’m flipping and flopping my way through another bad night’s sleep. Strange. I know. But, I wondered about the big kibble, the small kibble, the shearing kibble, the specially shaped kibble, and decided I’d at least ask if it mattered or was simply hype. You be the judge.

Dog Dental Health Matters

The statistics are staggering, with 80% of dogs (who are not getting good dental care) suffering from some kind of dental disease by the time they reach their third birthday. Since I’m fairly certain MOST people DO NOT brush their dog’s teeth every day or at all, it isn’t a surprise that companies are trying to help with products aimed at canine dental health.

The first time I heard about kibble shape mattering in a dog’s dental health was when Hill’s Pet Nutrition came out with their “dental diet.” The kibble, which was much larger than usual, shears off in slices as the dog chews. This biting, shearing action is supposed to help keep teeth clean.

Normal Kibble vs. The X-Factor

So, I was surprised that most dog food kibble continued to be the usual round or disk shape for many, may years to come. Now, Pedigree has introduced a patented (not kidding) x-shaped kibble designed to clean a dog’s teeth while he eats.

I’m told the Pedigree folks studied “oral biometrics,” including how much force with which a dog can bite down as well as how wide he can open his mouth, etc. The looked at the geometry and physics of all this and designed an x-shaped food meant to fit better into a dog’s mouth and help out with some scraping while the dog eats.

What Do You Think?

Is this hype? Pseudo-science? Or a helpful way to keep dogs’ teeth healthier?

I tend to give the dog food makers credit on this one because they really do a LOT of research before making a big change. That’s expensive.

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Tags: dog food, dog food shape, dog kibble, Hill's Pet Nutrition, Pedigree
Posted in Dog Food Basics, Dog Health, K9 Health, K9 Nutrition | 6 Comments »

Specialty Dog Foods Not So Special

May 17th, 2011

Hype reigns in many consumer product markets, with companies trying to convince us there is a need that their product fills. The dog food market is no exception. The wonks among us bristle at the marketing messages pet owners accept as gospel, including me at times. So, it’s interesting to learn that veterinary nutrition researchers from Tufts University found that the nutritional content of so-called “senior dog food” varied widely. In other words, these specialty food probably aren’t all that special.

Just because there is gray on your dog's face, that doesn't mean you should automatically change to a so-called "senior dog food."

We’ve talked before about the flaws in the logic that say you need to change your dog’s food ONLY because he is getting older.  Personally, I don’t think that’s a good enough reason to switch foods. My big dog, Ginko, turned 11 years old May 13, and he continues to eat and do well on the same food as our younger dog, Lilly (the border collie, who is the canine heroine of my other blog Champion of My Heart).

Senior Dog Food: What We Think, What Researchers Know

In addition to discrepancies between what pet owners thought was in senior dog foods and what really is in senior dog foods, Tufts researches found a variety of actual nutritional content in dog foods targeting older dogs. For example, the senior dog foods studied featured many differences depending upon brand:

• Calories: 246 to 408 calories per cup
• Protein:  4.8 to 13.1 grams of protein per 100 kcal
• Fat: 2.4 to 6.3 grams of fat per 100 kcal
• Sodium: 33 to 412 mg of sodium per 100 kcal (important for dogs with heart disease)
• Phosphorus: 3x difference in phosphorus content (important for dogs with kidney disease)

“If an owner, for example, had a senior dog with heart disease, they might be inclined to feed them a senior food, thinking that it had less sodium,” says Lisa M. Freemann, DVM, PhD, a professor at Tuft’s veterinary school and a board-certified veterinary nutritionist. “Instead, they might replace a diet that has a perfectly acceptable amount of sodium for one that is considerably higher.”

Not All Senior Dogs Need a Senior Dog Food

“The decision to buy a certain type of food for your aging dog is an emotional one: You want to extend her life and ensure she’s healthy well into her twilight years, ” Freeman says. “However, not all older dogs require a senior diet, and if you do decide to change to a senior food, talk to your veterinarian, because these foods are not all the same. It’s important to select one that is right for each dog.”

***

The full study published in the International Journal for Applied Research in Veterinary Medicine, Vol 9, No 1.

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Tags: dog food resesarch, fat, potassium, protein, senior dog food, senior dog food research, sodium, specialty dog food, Tufts Univeristy
Posted in Dog Food Basics, Dog Food Debates, Dog Food News, Dog Health, K9 Health, K9 Nutrition | Comments Off

Homemade Pet Food Resources and Links

May 10th, 2011

Recently, we posted a series of Q&As with people who feed homemade pet food to their dogs or cats. As a follow up, here are some helpful resources and recipe sites for homemade dog food and homemade cat food.

Getting Homemade Pet Food “Right”

The main concern with homemade dog food or homemade cat food is getting the nutrient balance right. Honestly, I’m not sure I do that very well for myself, so the idea of taking on that responsibility for my dogs makes me nervous. Could I feed a decent meal now and again? Sure. Could I meet their nutritional needs over the long haul? I’m not sure.

That’s where good, researched pet food recipes come into play. I understand that others feel otherwise, but because of my background writing about veterinary medicine and pet health (dating back to 1995), I feel better about getting this kind of pet health information from board-certified veterinary nutritionists. Both of these sites offer that foundation of knowledge.

Homemade Pet Food Recipes

BalanceIt.com – To select and download recipes, simply:

• Pick your protein
• Pick your carbs
• Pick your species (dog or cat)

You’ll have to create an account for the site so that you can pay for your homemade pet food recipes. $20 for one, $30 for two, $12.50 each for 3 or more … ordered all in the same transaction.

The site also sells and recommends BalanceIT nutritional supplements to ensure pets get the vitamins, minerals, amino acids and such that they need for long-term health.

PetDiets.com – The site requires you to attest to the fact that your pet is:

• Between ages 1 and 15
• Spayed or neutered
• Has no health problems

Then, you can select and download recipes. It’s $25 for the first one, and $12.50 for others for the same species ordered at the same time.

This site also sells and recommends BalanceIT nutritional supplements.

Homemade Dog Food, Homemade Cat Food Q&As

If you’d like to catch up on this series of pet food posts, check out these links:

Homemade Dog Food: Feeding Raw to Active Dogs

Homemade Cat Food: Raw or Cooked

Homemade Dog Food: Food Allergies and Pancreatitis

Homemade Dog Food Q&A: Cooking for Fido

Homemade Dog Food Q & A: Feeding Raw

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Tags: BalanceIT, cat food recipes, dog food recipies, home-cooked pet food, homemade cat food, homemade dog food, homemade pet food, pet food recipes, PetDiets, veterinary nutritionists
Posted in Dog Allergies, Dog Food Basics, Dog Health, K9 Nutrition | Comments Off

Feeding Patrick: Recovery from Extreme Malnutrition

April 5th, 2011

If you love dogs and are online at all, you’ve likely heard about a young pit bull, dubbed “Patrick,” who was found right before St. Patrick’s Day 2011 in a garbage bag at the bottom of a high-rise building trash chute in New Jersey.

Skin and bones, literally, with what doctors estimate to be only hours to live, Patrick clearly suffered from an extreme case of malnutrition. How does a pup come back from that?

While I had heard about Patrick’s case, until about a week ago, I’d only seen the photos of him already well into his recovery. The photos of him the day he was found are graphic and upsetting beyond all measure, so I will not post them openly here. However, if you want to understand the full scope of this case, you can view this photo of Patrick on day one of his new life.

Questions About Feeding Patrick

I wondered how on earth you go about feeding a dog like this in a way that supports his recovery but does not cause additional troubles. So, on March 31, I put a call and an email into Garden State Veterinary Specialists in Trinton Falls, New Jersey, to ask. The veterinary team there has been providing round-the-clock care to Patrick since he was found. Many, many thanks to them.

They post updates to their GSVS Pet Hospital Facebook Page, and they even post videos to a special Patrick YouTube Channel, where you can see him eating, cuddling with his toys, getting various diagnostic tests and even a bath. Word has it that he likes to chase the ball, but I’ve not see video of that yet. I’m sure it’s darling.

Alas, amid caring for Patrick and the many other animals in need at the veterinary hospital and (I’m sure) amid the MANY media requests coming in, I did not hear back from Garden State Veterinary Specialists about my request for an interview about Patrick’s diet.

Honestly, I assumed that would be the case. I know how hectic all of this must be.

So, I also put a call into Tony Buffington, DVM, PhD, a board-certified veterinary nutritionist and professor at The Ohio State University Veterinary Medical Center. He called me back right away, and we had a nice chat about cases of extreme malnutrition in general.

So, while I cannot tell you exactly how Patrick is being fed and what he is being fed, I can explain how cases like this typically go.

Starvation: Back from the Brink

I asked Buffington about starvation and how you bring a dog back from the brink.

“Just as a real pedantic point,” Buffington says, “Starvation means food deprivation to death, so in that case, you don’t have worry about bringing them back.”

So, we agreed to use “extreme malnutrition” to describe Patrick’s current medical state.

Buffington admits he hasn’t seen a case like this in 20-30 years, but the one he remembers most involved 120 dogs — just like Patrick — brought in all at once to a rescue group near the University of California – Davis, where he did his graduate work. “It’s a long story,” he says. “But, honestly, those dogs all did fine except for like one or two of them that essentially died the day they were found.”

The main worry, Buffington says, is that people often assume that the best dog food in a case like this is super high in protein. That can be a mistake … at least in the first few days.

“Sometimes people think, ‘Oh, they’ve lost so much protein, we’ve got to feed them puppy food or a high-protein diet,’” Buffington says. “And, you don’t want to do that for two or three days because the enzymes that get rid of the waste products of protein metabolism adapt down so that the animal can conserve its own protein mass, so you want to feed a 15% protein diet instead of a 50%. Obviously +/- a little bit.”

Extreme Malnutrition: Ramping Up the Dog’s Diet

For a dog like Patrick, Buffington says, you typically start by calculating the basal energy needs. In other words, how many calories does the dog need each day to maintain his body? For a young dog of this size (about 20 pounds when he was found), that’s about 400 calories as a minimum.

But, you cannot just start packing a dog like Patrick with food. “The first day, I would probably feed him a couple of hundred calories. I would break it out over the period of the day,” Buffington explains. “I would feed him a relatively digestible and not-too-high-in-protein diet, just to be on the safe side.”

Essentially, Buffington says, you ramp up the amount of food over several days:

• 50% on day one
• 75% on day two
• 100% on day three

“Within two or three days, you can feed them anything because that’s all the time it takes for the enzymes to adapt up,” Buffington says. “After the third day, you can feed as tolerance allows.”

Extreme Malnutrition: Recovery Outcomes

Like many following Patrick’s story, I worry every day that I’ll get online and find that he has suddenly died. However, Buffington says at this stage that’s “highly unlikely.”

He explains that the critical nutrition period in a puppy’s life begins to close around six or seven months of age. (Patrick is estimated to be about 1 year old.)

“And, he hasn’t been starved for six or seven months, or he would be dead,” Buffington says. “He looks like … I don’t know how long he was without food. Maybe four to six weeks, something like that. That’s about what a dog could tolerate.”

Buffington and I talk about the videos of Patrick eating and that he is showing more playful behaviors, and Buffington encourages me with, “See, he is going to be fine.”

Extreme Malnutrition: Long-Term Effects

Buffington calls long-term organ damage or other lingering health problems in a case like Patrick’s “not likely.”

He points to a study published in 1979 that found some subtle changes in heart function measures following significant weight loss from protein calorie malnutrition.

Researchers found that, “Although animals re-fed ordinary diets following acute weight loss restored normal concentrations of myocardial glycogen, cardiac abnormalities persisted for more than one month following refeeding. These results suggest that the adverse effects of semistarvation on LV function cannot be completely reversed by short-term refeeding.”

In other words, after a month on a normal diet, the dogs in the study persisted in having some heart function issues. After one year, as Buffington recalls, researchers found that the dogs had made a full recovery. “It took almost a year for all of the subtleties they were looking at to come back, but it had no effect clinically on the dogs,” he explains.

These heart concerns are likely why you’ll see veterinarians performing an echocardiogram on Patrick in one of last week’s YouTube video posts.

How You Can Honor Patrick

Changing Animal Abuse & Neglect Laws: Beyond sharing Patrick’s story via social media, some people are working on lobbying for better animal cruelty laws — not just in New Jersey, but in all states — because even if convicted on all counts, Patrick’s owner, who has been charged with the crimes against him, could only receive six months in jail, a $1,000 fine or community service as punishment. And, considering the egregious nature of this case, that doesn’t seem like enough to many people. Search for “The Patrick Movement” + your state to find a local group.

Adopt a Dog: Only one lucky person will get to provide Patrick with a forever home … once he is fully recovered, but you can honor Patrick by adopting another dog in need from a shelter or rescue group in your hometown.

If, like me, you’ve reached your dogs-in-the house limit, there are many other ways you can help dogs in Patrick’s honor:

Volunteer or provide foster homes to animals in need through your local animal shelter or rescue group. While not every case of animal abuse or neglect gets as much attention as Patrick has, there are many animals in need near you.

Make a cash donation to your local animal shelter or rescue group in Patrick’s honor. (Donations poured in right away to cover Patrick’s medical care and to support the humane society responsible for him.)

Make a food donation to your local animal shelter or rescue group in Patrick’s honor.

Make a food donation — people food and dog food — to your local community food bank in Patrick’s honor because more than 52 million families in the U.S. live in “food insecure” households and likely go to bed hungry every night.

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Tags: animal abuse, animal neglect, Associated Humane Societies, Garden State Veterinary Specialists, malnutrition, New Jersey, Patrick, pit bull puppy, starvation
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