Two years ago at the BRAT convention in DC, I remember petting someone's basenjis who had the softest fur I'd ever felt on a dog. Marveling, I asked the owner what kind of shampoo they used. They told me that it wasn't shampoo -- they simply fed their dog a high-quality food, and a daily capsule of fish oil.
In the past year, I have been experimenting with different kinds of high-quality dog food (see my previous posts on What Difference Does Food Make?) and the jury's still out on which one seems to have the best impact on my dogs. We're presently feeding Blue Buffalo, but I think I may switch again because I'm not seeing quite as big a dietary impact as I'd hoped for. However, about a week ago I was at Costco and I had a coupon for a big bottle of 1000mg fish oil capsules for $5, and I remembered the advice that I had received at the convention. I bought the bottle, and started feeding my dogs each one capsule of fish oil at night with dinner.
That was about a week ago, and in just two days I was amazed to notice the dogs' fur was already getting softer. We're now 7 days in, and my two little basenjis feel like soft velvet, and I swear that even their eyes seem brighter. They absolutely love the fish oil with dinner (I slit the capsules open and squeeze the oil over their food), and I was surprised that it doesn't seem to give them bad breath as I had feared. My only complaint is that the fish oil smells absolutely GROSS and there's no way to squeeze out the capsules without getting some on my fingers! So, if you don't mind washing the smell of dead fish off your hands (it comes right off, I promise), I highly recommend feeding your dogs one capsule of fish oil every day with their food. It costs virtually nothing for the capsules, and it really makes a huge difference in their fur and their health!
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
What Difference Does Food Make - Part 2
In April, I posted a blog entry about "What Difference Does Food Make?" and I promised I'd follow-up to let everyone know how my experiment with moving to a supposedly higher-quality (more expensive!) dog food is going. Well, here it is!
We started on the Innova back at the end of April, and right away the dogs loved it. I gradually phased out their old food by mixing the Innova into the last 1/4 of the bin, and the dogs transitioned nicely. About halfway through the giant bag of Innova I started to notice that the dogs were looking a bit chunkier than usual, so I quit free-feeding them throughout the day and moved to only 1 bowl per dog at 6pm daily, with a little bit of water mixed in so they would eat it up right away. I also started being more mindful of the amount of exercise that they were getting, and tried to make sure they always came with me for the first 3 miles of my daily run.
By the time we were nearly done with the giant bag of Innova, my dogs had each put on two pounds. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but on my sleek little hounds, both of whom typically hover around a healthy 20lbs since they're on the petite side for basenjis, that 2lbs makes a big difference! Now they both look rather stocky, and when they sit upright I can see a bit of belly bulge. Plus, they both just don't have the endurance for runs like they used to.... in short, I think I made my dogs overweight!
So, I decided to make another food switch. Nearing the end of the bag of Innova, I decided to try Blue Buffalo next because it is also made from high-quality ingredients and it is advertised as "healthy weight, low-calorie" food. I've heard a lot of great reviews about this food, so I bought a big bag and gradually transitioned my dogs to that.
It's only been about a week now since we've been fully on the Blue Buffalo, so I can't tell yet if it's making a difference. I'm looking for them to slim down to their regular weight, get shinier, softer coats, and just look healthy in general. Both Reef and Biko seem to like the Blue Buffalo just as much as the Innova and they would gobble up ten bowls if they had the chance, so I'm still regulating the amount of food they each receive (1 small bowl apiece at 6pm daily). I also now have a foster pup, Pippa (posted on the BRAT website as Talley), who is a skinny little girl at only 17 lbs, so I actually do let her have a bit more than the others because she really needs to put on some weight. Since she has arrived at my house I have actually seen a huge improvement in her weight and her coat (she's put on a pound, and her coat is softer and shinier already), but I'm not sure if that's because of the high quality of the Blue Buffalo or because she's just eating better/more food than she ever got prior to coming into rescue. So, the jury's still out on the Blue Buffalo, but I have high hopes! In the meanwhile, if anyone has any suggestions on slimming down my now pudgy little pups Reef and Biko, I'd love to hear them :)
We started on the Innova back at the end of April, and right away the dogs loved it. I gradually phased out their old food by mixing the Innova into the last 1/4 of the bin, and the dogs transitioned nicely. About halfway through the giant bag of Innova I started to notice that the dogs were looking a bit chunkier than usual, so I quit free-feeding them throughout the day and moved to only 1 bowl per dog at 6pm daily, with a little bit of water mixed in so they would eat it up right away. I also started being more mindful of the amount of exercise that they were getting, and tried to make sure they always came with me for the first 3 miles of my daily run.
By the time we were nearly done with the giant bag of Innova, my dogs had each put on two pounds. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but on my sleek little hounds, both of whom typically hover around a healthy 20lbs since they're on the petite side for basenjis, that 2lbs makes a big difference! Now they both look rather stocky, and when they sit upright I can see a bit of belly bulge. Plus, they both just don't have the endurance for runs like they used to.... in short, I think I made my dogs overweight!
So, I decided to make another food switch. Nearing the end of the bag of Innova, I decided to try Blue Buffalo next because it is also made from high-quality ingredients and it is advertised as "healthy weight, low-calorie" food. I've heard a lot of great reviews about this food, so I bought a big bag and gradually transitioned my dogs to that.
It's only been about a week now since we've been fully on the Blue Buffalo, so I can't tell yet if it's making a difference. I'm looking for them to slim down to their regular weight, get shinier, softer coats, and just look healthy in general. Both Reef and Biko seem to like the Blue Buffalo just as much as the Innova and they would gobble up ten bowls if they had the chance, so I'm still regulating the amount of food they each receive (1 small bowl apiece at 6pm daily). I also now have a foster pup, Pippa (posted on the BRAT website as Talley), who is a skinny little girl at only 17 lbs, so I actually do let her have a bit more than the others because she really needs to put on some weight. Since she has arrived at my house I have actually seen a huge improvement in her weight and her coat (she's put on a pound, and her coat is softer and shinier already), but I'm not sure if that's because of the high quality of the Blue Buffalo or because she's just eating better/more food than she ever got prior to coming into rescue. So, the jury's still out on the Blue Buffalo, but I have high hopes! In the meanwhile, if anyone has any suggestions on slimming down my now pudgy little pups Reef and Biko, I'd love to hear them :)
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
What Difference Does Food Make?
For several years now, I've been listening to dog owners duke it out about whether it truly matters what food you feed your dog. Of course, if your dog has a sensitive stomach or is allergic to something, such as wheat, then it's a no-brainer that it does matter, and you would need to feed your dog a gluten-free food. But I'm talking about the vast majority of dogs out there who aren't allergic to anything, and who don't have particular dietary requirements -- does it really matter what kind of dog food we choose to feed them?
I can't say I've done my homework about this topic because I really haven't, but as I mentioned, I've been listening to the banter for years between dog owners and on BRAT-chat. To be honest, I had always sort of dismissed the idea that a more expensive food would make a dog healthier, because it all just sort of looks like brown kibble to me. Plus, I'm on a really tight budget (as most of us are) and a $50 bag of dog food just didn't seem worth it when I could get the same-size bag in a cheap brand for $15.
But then, two years ago, I went to my first BRAT Convention up in Syracuse NY. I met lots of basenji owners and basenjis, and I noticed that some of the basenjis had the softest, most beautiful fur I'd ever felt on a dog. I commented several times to several different owners about what wonderful coats their dogs had, and every single one of them said that it was because of the food their dogs eat. I started to wonder whether there was something to this food argument, after all.
The brands the owners said they fed their dogs were all different, so in the course of conversation I asked each owner why they chose that particular brand of food over others. Every single one of them said that the key to choosing a good dog food is to flip the bag over and read the actual list of ingredients on the label. Not the advertised ingredients on the front of the bag, because that can easily be misleading (I mean really, how am I supposed to know that "made with chicken" doesn't actually mean there's chicken meat in the food??). Rather, read the actual list of ingredients that go into the dog food. The first two ingredients are the ones that matter the most, because they are what the majority of the food is made of. If it says "chicken," then your food is made with actual chicken meat. If it says "chicken meal," that means chicken meat with the skin and bones and stuff ground up in it. If it says "chicken by product," then that means it contains the bones, the feathers, the entrails, and all other stuff that you probably want to say away from, and probably very little actual meat. The rest of the stuff they put into dog food is generally just filler, most of which has no nutritional value (wheat and barley husks? That's not even actual wheat or barley grains!) and just makes your dog eat more and poop more. For more info on ingredients, check out www.peteducation.com.
All that made sense to me (and the stuff about by-products made me want to hurl), but I still wondered whether it really mattered. I mean, come on -- most dogs will eat just about ANYTHING you put in front of them, and they seem to continue to grow and thrive regardless. My basenjis had been eating a regular and relatively cheap name-brand food for years, and they seemed just fine. But, I was still intrigued by the shiny, soft coats and the sparkling eyes of the basenjis I'd met at the Convention. Would they live longer than my dogs because they were healthier? Were they happier than my dogs because they felt better? Was it easier to keep them fit because they ate more quality calories than empty calories? Did they really eat and poop less, as everyone claimed? I had to find out for myself.
Being the time-crunched shopper that I am, I checked out all of the major chain stores that I frequent (WalMart, Target, Petsmart, Petco, Costco), and found that none of them carried any of the "high quality" brands that other basenji owners had been talking about. Crap. I looked up the high quality foods on their company websites, and found that the closest distributor that carried any of them was a specialty pet store a half hour away, who grossly jacked up the price. Double crap. To order the food over the internet would be to pay a lot extra for shipping, which I just couldn't justify. So, I did the next-best thing I could think of: I went to WalMart and found the "best" food they had there (NaturaLife Lamaderm, $25/big bag, made from lamb meal) and switched to that.
When you switch a dog's food you have to mix the old with the new for a while so it doesn't upset the dog's stomach, but after about a week I was feeding only the new food. About two weeks after that, I noticed my dogs' fur getting softer. Within a month, it literally began to shine. Maybe I made it up, but I swear their eyes got brighter, too. I went from feeding each dog 2 cups/day to about 1.5 cups/day, which was all that they seemed to want because I keep their bowls full so they can eat until they're satisfied. Both of my dogs have always had tons of energy so I don't know if that was affected at all, but I did notice that Reef seemed a little less pudgy on the same amount of exercise. And I have no idea if they pooped less often, but the piles did actually seem a little smaller :) All in all, I was convinced that the improvement in the quality of their food really made a difference.
That was about 2 years ago, and my dogs have been very healthy thus far. Just about two months ago, however, I noticed that Petco made a bold move to differentiate itself in the pet products market, and started to carry high-quality dog foods. These were the brands I had been looking for originally, which the other basenji owners swore by -- brands like Innova, Blue Buffalo, Canidae, Orijen, Wysong, and more. Yay, Petco! So this week I decided to stop by Petco and picked up a bag of high quality dog food. I was pleasantly overwhelmed by the choice I was presented with, and I spent nearly an hour in the store reading ingredient labels.
In the end, I chose Innova's Poultry formula, because the first ingredient was turkey, the second was chicken, the third was chicken meal, and there were very few fillers. The prices were all about the same - about $50 for the big bag, but Petco promises that if the dogs don't like it, I can bring it back for a full refund. My goal is to gradually switch over and feed the new food for a month or two, to see if it will make even more of a difference in my dogs' health and well-being. If my first experience with a better-quality dog food is any indicator, with a high-quality dog food I hope to see silky soft coats, lots of healthy energy, and a devilish little basenji eye twinkle. Not that I need my dogs to get any smarter than they already are (...yikes!), but I look forward to them living longer, healthier, happier lives. Stay tuned for an update in the next few months!
I can't say I've done my homework about this topic because I really haven't, but as I mentioned, I've been listening to the banter for years between dog owners and on BRAT-chat. To be honest, I had always sort of dismissed the idea that a more expensive food would make a dog healthier, because it all just sort of looks like brown kibble to me. Plus, I'm on a really tight budget (as most of us are) and a $50 bag of dog food just didn't seem worth it when I could get the same-size bag in a cheap brand for $15.
But then, two years ago, I went to my first BRAT Convention up in Syracuse NY. I met lots of basenji owners and basenjis, and I noticed that some of the basenjis had the softest, most beautiful fur I'd ever felt on a dog. I commented several times to several different owners about what wonderful coats their dogs had, and every single one of them said that it was because of the food their dogs eat. I started to wonder whether there was something to this food argument, after all.
The brands the owners said they fed their dogs were all different, so in the course of conversation I asked each owner why they chose that particular brand of food over others. Every single one of them said that the key to choosing a good dog food is to flip the bag over and read the actual list of ingredients on the label. Not the advertised ingredients on the front of the bag, because that can easily be misleading (I mean really, how am I supposed to know that "made with chicken" doesn't actually mean there's chicken meat in the food??). Rather, read the actual list of ingredients that go into the dog food. The first two ingredients are the ones that matter the most, because they are what the majority of the food is made of. If it says "chicken," then your food is made with actual chicken meat. If it says "chicken meal," that means chicken meat with the skin and bones and stuff ground up in it. If it says "chicken by product," then that means it contains the bones, the feathers, the entrails, and all other stuff that you probably want to say away from, and probably very little actual meat. The rest of the stuff they put into dog food is generally just filler, most of which has no nutritional value (wheat and barley husks? That's not even actual wheat or barley grains!) and just makes your dog eat more and poop more. For more info on ingredients, check out www.peteducation.com.
All that made sense to me (and the stuff about by-products made me want to hurl), but I still wondered whether it really mattered. I mean, come on -- most dogs will eat just about ANYTHING you put in front of them, and they seem to continue to grow and thrive regardless. My basenjis had been eating a regular and relatively cheap name-brand food for years, and they seemed just fine. But, I was still intrigued by the shiny, soft coats and the sparkling eyes of the basenjis I'd met at the Convention. Would they live longer than my dogs because they were healthier? Were they happier than my dogs because they felt better? Was it easier to keep them fit because they ate more quality calories than empty calories? Did they really eat and poop less, as everyone claimed? I had to find out for myself.
Being the time-crunched shopper that I am, I checked out all of the major chain stores that I frequent (WalMart, Target, Petsmart, Petco, Costco), and found that none of them carried any of the "high quality" brands that other basenji owners had been talking about. Crap. I looked up the high quality foods on their company websites, and found that the closest distributor that carried any of them was a specialty pet store a half hour away, who grossly jacked up the price. Double crap. To order the food over the internet would be to pay a lot extra for shipping, which I just couldn't justify. So, I did the next-best thing I could think of: I went to WalMart and found the "best" food they had there (NaturaLife Lamaderm, $25/big bag, made from lamb meal) and switched to that.
When you switch a dog's food you have to mix the old with the new for a while so it doesn't upset the dog's stomach, but after about a week I was feeding only the new food. About two weeks after that, I noticed my dogs' fur getting softer. Within a month, it literally began to shine. Maybe I made it up, but I swear their eyes got brighter, too. I went from feeding each dog 2 cups/day to about 1.5 cups/day, which was all that they seemed to want because I keep their bowls full so they can eat until they're satisfied. Both of my dogs have always had tons of energy so I don't know if that was affected at all, but I did notice that Reef seemed a little less pudgy on the same amount of exercise. And I have no idea if they pooped less often, but the piles did actually seem a little smaller :) All in all, I was convinced that the improvement in the quality of their food really made a difference.
That was about 2 years ago, and my dogs have been very healthy thus far. Just about two months ago, however, I noticed that Petco made a bold move to differentiate itself in the pet products market, and started to carry high-quality dog foods. These were the brands I had been looking for originally, which the other basenji owners swore by -- brands like Innova, Blue Buffalo, Canidae, Orijen, Wysong, and more. Yay, Petco! So this week I decided to stop by Petco and picked up a bag of high quality dog food. I was pleasantly overwhelmed by the choice I was presented with, and I spent nearly an hour in the store reading ingredient labels.
In the end, I chose Innova's Poultry formula, because the first ingredient was turkey, the second was chicken, the third was chicken meal, and there were very few fillers. The prices were all about the same - about $50 for the big bag, but Petco promises that if the dogs don't like it, I can bring it back for a full refund. My goal is to gradually switch over and feed the new food for a month or two, to see if it will make even more of a difference in my dogs' health and well-being. If my first experience with a better-quality dog food is any indicator, with a high-quality dog food I hope to see silky soft coats, lots of healthy energy, and a devilish little basenji eye twinkle. Not that I need my dogs to get any smarter than they already are (...yikes!), but I look forward to them living longer, healthier, happier lives. Stay tuned for an update in the next few months!
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Going Green
When I discovered Bow on the BRAT site two years ago and read that she liked broccoli, brussel sprouts and other veggies, my first reaction was that surely couldn't be true. But once she became a part of the household I learned that it was definitely true, and it always shocks non-basenji owners when I tell them that she'll eat up snap peas with so much enthusiasm you'd think it was bacon.I'm curious if this is something other basenjis typically do or if there is any risk of her eating them. Like anything, I give it to her in moderation, but since I've seen nothing out there suggesting it's risky I'm interested to hear others' perspective.
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