Natural Dog and Cat Care 101
What You Want To Know About
Nutrition, Vaccination and Herbs
To Keep Your Pet
Healthy and Happy
Patti Clark
Smashwords Edition
*****
Copyright © 2010 by Patti Clark
Published by 8 am Publishing at Smashwords
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.
An exception to this is reserved for book reviewers, writers and authors who may quote up to 200 words of this book without permission.
This book is also available in paperback from Amazon.com
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9829026-0-8
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
Publishers note: The intention of this book is to educate. Neither the author nor publisher are licensed Veterinarians. This book should not be construed as medical advice. It is not meant in anyway to replace your Veterinarian, or to diagnose a specific illness, or to prescribe a specific treatment, or to discourage you in anyway from regular Vet checkups.
Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time, the author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause.
Website: DogAndCatZone.com
For information and other requests please contact:
Patti Clark
People@DogAndCatZone.com
Or call: 510.214.3548
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Contents
Chapter 1 The Current State of Pet Food
Chapter 2 What Dogs and Cats Need Nutritionally
Chapter 6 Transitioning Your Pet to Different Food
Section II: Environmental Toxins
Chapter 9 How Vaccines Are Supposed to Work
Chapter 11 Adverse Reactions to Vaccines
Chapter 14 Homeopathic Alternative to Vaccines
Section IV: Bach Flower Remedies
Chapter 15 Healing Your Pet Emotionally
Chapter 16 Bach Flower Essences
Chapter 19 Contraindications, Cautions and Drug Interactions
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Introduction
Dog food (and people food) was much more nutritious when I was a kid and there were fewer chemicals in the food and the environment.
But decades of “Factory Farming” - with the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides for crops and low quality feed, hormones and antibiotics for animals - brings us food that is not as nutritious and in fact, not even always safe.
This trend wasn't born out of a conspiracy. The goal was to increase production. And quantity (production) did increase initially. However, quality began a steady decline.
It's the same with pet food. Actually, it's worse with pet food as you'll read.
We're now seeing the results of decades of compromise in our pet's health (and our own health).
“Organic” today is what “normal” was 75 years ago. It's nutritious and not full of chemicals and toxins. Oddly enough, that's now considered “premium” rather than normal.
While I had relied on commercial pet food for numerous animals in my life, about a decade ago I was getting more uncomfortable with ingredient labels that read like a chemistry book. I began doing some research. The deeper I dug into pet food, the more appalled I became at what constituted pet “food”.
Ultimately I decided to go the homemade food route to ensure our dog and cats got good nutrition… And to avoid the chemicals and toxins so common in commercial pet food.
Because good nutrition is at the foundation of health, being sure you feed your pet well is one of the very most important things you can do to ensure your pet is healthier and stays in your life longer.
When the big pet food recall happened in 2007, I didn't have any personal concerns because I wasn't buying any commercial pet food. In fact I breathed a sigh of relief.
But at the same time, I was saddened and horrified.
That inspired - or perhaps provoked - me to write this guide. To pass on information about what really is in pet food; how 'necessary' are vaccines; how you can heal your pet emotionally with side-effect free Bach Flower Essences; and what herbs can you use for specific issues with your pet.
You are, and you always will be, the best advocate for your companion.
The more you understand about good pet care, the better guardian you can be.
I wrote this guide based on extensive research I've done, initially for my own pets, and then more completely to write this. It's just not as simple as it was when I got my first dog at the age of 6. I see too many pets suffering from eating food that's marketed as healthful but in fact is health-compromising - contributing to allergies, liver disease, kidney disease, even cancer.
Sadly, people want to, and believe, they're taking GOOD care of their pet. It's not a question of intent or neglect. It's an issue or mis- and clouded information.
My intention with this guide is to give you more complete information about your pet's nutritional and health needs. So you can make better informed choices.
It's not meant in anyway to replace your Veterinarian
or to diagnose a specific illness,
or to prescribe a specific treatment,
or to discourage you in anyway from regular Vet checkups.
This guide is divided into five sections.
Section 1 is about food and nutrition.
Section 2 is about environmental toxins.
Section 3 is about vaccines.
Section 4 is about Bach Flower Remedies.
Section 5 is about herbs.
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Section I:
Food and Nutrition
Food is very important - critically important. It supplies the building blocks for health. It supports the immune system that helps protect the animal from disease.
The quality of typical grocery store commercial pet food has declined substantially and is more and more associated with chronic illness as well as behavior and emotional problems in our pets. Toxins and the poor grade of nutrition break down our pets' immune system resulting in allergies, digestive problems, skin problems, thyroid, kidney and liver disease cancer and other maladies.
Keep an animal nourished and healthy and you avoid many of the sicknesses a lot of our pets currently experience.
A saying I've seen in different iterations is:
It's better to pay the grocer than pay the doctor.
That applies to pets as well as people.
*****
Chapter 1:
The Current State of Pet Food
There's a reason why the term “dog food” is used disparagingly.
It's starts with the 4-D rule…
Commercial pet food can
contain parts from animals that are Dead, Diseased, Dying or
Disabled… human food cannot.
Cheese rinds can be called
“cheese”.
Feathers can be called “poultry protein
products”.
Corn husks and peanut shells can be called “vegetable
fiber”.
Beaks, nails, claws, hooves, horns, bones, cartilage,
tendons, hair, diseased and cancerous tissue, fecal waste. It all
qualifies as “protein”, though it's certainly not very
nutritious. Nor is it as digestible.
Ann Martin's two dogs became very ill after eating commercial dry food. She sent the food to two independent labs for analysis. Both determined it had toxic levels of zinc.
This inspired her to investigate the pet food industry to determine what exactly is in pet food. Turned out to be a 7 year rabbit hole she jumped down.
She published a book in 1997 about her findings:
Food Pets Die For: Shocking Facts About Pet Food.
(There's an updated version available now)
To quote from her book:
“In my opinion, when we purchase these bags and cans of commercial food, we are in most cases purchasing garbage. Unequivocally, I cannot state that all pet food falls into this category, but I have yet to find one that I could, in all good conscience, feed my dog or cats. Pet food labels can be deceiving. They only provide half the story. The other half of the story is hidden behind obscure ingredients listed on the labels. Bit by bit, over seven years, I have been able to unearth information about what is contained in most commercial pet food. At first I was shocked, but my shock turned to anger when I realized how little the consumer is told about the actual contents of the pet food."
Her book didn't make it to the best seller's list and didn't get a lot of press. So the average person never got a glimpse of the pet food industry beyond the cute commercials.
With commercial pet
food, there are multiple issues:
1. Quantity, quality and
digestibility of protein
2. Quantity and quality of grains
and carbohydrates
3. Artificial colors, artificial flavors
and artificial preservatives, to name a few…
- BHA is suspected to cause hyperactivity, liver damage and stomach cancer.
- BHT is suspected to cause liver damage and thyroid and bladder cancer.
- Ethoxyquin is linked to autoimmune diseases.
- Propyl gallate linked to liver disease
- Propylene glycol destroys red blood cells. Cats may become addicted to food with it.
- Sodium nitrate is carcinogenic
- Excessive fluoride is linked to osteosarcoma (bone cancer)
- Artificial colors Red #2, #40, Violet #1, Blue #2, Yellow #5, #6 are linked to cancer, epilepsy, birth defects and skin lesions.
- Artificial flavors are linked to nervousness, behavioral problems and allergic reactions.
This has been going on for sometime, never breaking into headline news until the Pet Food Recall in 2007.
To start, most people are unaware that many brands out-source their manufacturing.
One company - Menu Foods - manufactures over 150 brands of pet food. (Or at least they did in 2006).
Brands such as: Nestlé Purina, Hills Pet Nutrition, Royal Canin, Diamond Pet Foods, Health Diet Gourmet, Natural Balance, Natural Life, Nutro, Nutriplan, Pet Pride… well known and healthy sounding brands.
The brand sometimes creates the recipe, sometimes uses a recipe from the manufacturer. The manufacturer takes care of getting the ingredients, making the food, packaging it and shipping it.
It was pet foods manufactured by Menu Foods that killed THOUSANDS of pets and sickened and shortened the life of tens of thousands more.
Melamine is a
non-protein nitrogen fertilizer. It's also a component of plastic
materials. Cyanuric Acid is used as a chlorine stabilizer. The
combination of Melamine and Cyanuric Acid forms melamine cyanurate
crystals which is what damaged the kidneys of tens of thousands of
cats and dogs.
(More about why Melamine was in the food further
on).
How does this happen?
There really aren't many laws when it comes to the safety of pet food. And even less enforcement.
Until 1974 NRC - National Research Council of Academy of Sciences - set nutritional standards for pet food. The pet food industry created AAFCO - the American Association of Feed Control Officials.
AAFCO is currently the only organization that certifies pet food. It's a private advisory board which includes some government agencies and a number of pet food manufacturers. It has no enforcement authority. And the standards aren't particularly high, hence, pet food that kills pets.
Initially they adapted
NRC standards which required feeding trials. However, feeding trials
are expensive and time consuming.
In the 1990's they replaced the
NRC developed standards with their own… which did away with feeding
trials requiring only chemical analysis to meet “Nutrient
Profiles”.
Feeding trials involve feeding the food to actual pets in a controlled study.
Chemical analysis is a bit like: if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck - it must be a duck. It doesn't address in any way palatability, digestibility and biological availability of nutrients.
Melamine and Cyanuric Acid are high in nitrogen - as is protein. By adding them to lower grade protein “meal”, the chemical analysis indicates high protein content (it looks like a duck).
The label says “high
protein” and you think of human grade meat.
Unfortunately it's
far from it.
It's not human grade. It's not even meat. The high
nitrogen result in a chemical analysis simply makes it appear to be
meat.
Oh, and the recall - it was voluntary. No laws requiring it.
Nearly 3 weeks passed between the first report of cat illness and when Menu Foods reported the problem to the FDA and started the recall.
Animal food in the United States is regulated (sort of) by the FDA via the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM), under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. The CVM regulates animal feed products including medicated feed, food additives and animal drugs… primarily livestock stuff.
The FDA “partners” with AAFCO to satisfy it's mandate for pet food. Basically, they outsource the mandate. And there are no statutory requirements for pet food manufacturers.
Statutory requirements for pet food manufacturers were only at the State level. Some additional legislation was passed after public outcry demanded Congressional hearings. Manufacturers are now required to immediately notify the FDA of contamination.
Lets start with what dogs and cats need nutritionally.
Then we'll discuss commercial pet food.
Then we'll discuss the homemade option…
Which isn't as difficult as many folks believe.
*****
Chapter 2:
What Dogs and Cats Need Nutritionally
When we look at pet food it's a bit odd. We've somehow accepted the premise that dogs and cats don't have much of a nutritional requirement. Essentially it's ok for them to get our garbage… to get grains that aren't human grade, to get all the parts of animals that aren't fit for human consumption.
Animals in the wild -
whether herbivore, omnivore or carnivore - all eat from their
environment.
For instance, deer are vegetarians. They eat plants.
Bears are omnivores. They eat animals and plants.
Tigers are
carnivores. They eat other animals - meat, organs, bones.
When we hold wild
animals in captivity - such as a zoo - we closely replicate their
natural diet.
So why don't we do that with our domesticated
companions?
The commercial pet food industry is largely driven by re-purposing animal and plant material not fit for human consumption. It has strayed very far from the natural diet of cats and dogs in the wild… especially cats.
Cats are strict
carnivores (“obligate carnivores”) - they need meat to
survive.
In the wild, they kill and eat small animals such as
rodents and birds. They generally eat the entire animal including
bones and organs.
Their diet needs to be high protein (minimum 29%) - low carbohydrate.
The protein needs to be animal based. Meat based protein has a complete amino acid profile… plant based protein does not. Cats can't properly metabolize plant based protein. So they get calories, but they can't break down the food and get nutrition.
Cats don't do well on a high carbohydrate diet, especially grains. Actually they don't do well on carbs period. They lack salivary amylase enzyme needed to break down the starch in carbohydrates. Carbohydrates drive up their blood sugar, stress their kidneys and urinary tract system, lead to obesity and diabetes and often create allergies.
Carbs should be limited to no more than 10% of calories, preferably 5% or less.
And yet typical commercial kibble is over 30% carbs and includes grains.
Cats require Taurine - an amino acid - which they can get primarily from meats but it should be added into food that is not fresh meat based (0.02% or higher). Taurine deficiency can lead to blindness and heart failure. (Something that was discovered in the late 1980's after decades of Taurine deficient commercial pet food led to blindness and heart disease. Unfortunately many cats suffered before this 'discovery' was made and manufacturers began adding Taurine to the food.)
Fats are important - again, animal based.
Cats need water, but they don't have a strong thirst drive. That means they're not prone to drink water from a bowl like a dog will until they're actually dehydrated.
In the wild, their “prey” can be 70% water so they get their needed moisture from their food. Canned and homemade meat-based food will supply moisture with the food. However, dry food typically has less than 10% moisture. Chronic dehydration can lead to kidney and bladder problems.
Carnivores by nature aren't grazers. Cats are more adapted to eating fresh food in one sitting. So it's better to not leave food out for them all the time. They can be fed once or twice a day.
Cats are also a bit
finicky so changing their regimen in any way is often not an easy
task. A couple tips on changing their food if they're resistant is to
mix a little new food in with their current food. Then gradually
increase the portion of the new food.
You can also trying warming
it up a little.
Dogs are omnivores (and
scavengers)… they do ok with more carbohydrates than cats.
They're
also less discriminating when it comes to “freshness”. To them, a
trashcan may be a big food bowl.
A target for dogs is 12-40% protein and 10-30% fat.
Compared to humans,
both dogs and cats have a short intestinal tract.
That means a
couple things:
- It's harder for them to digest grains. (Grains take longer to digest).
- Food doesn't stay long in their system so they're not as vulnerable to bacteria growth.
Food Groups: Protein
Meat
Dogs and cats need a good source of digestible protein. That includes muscle meat and organ meat and can include some forms of dairy and to a lesser extent plant based protein.
Common meats include
chicken, turkey, beef, lamb, pork, fish. Less common include duck,
game hen, bison, buffalo and rabbit.
They all have different
protein/fat ratios.
Chicken and turkey tend to be less expensive
per pound. Turkey is often the least expensive per gram of protein.
The most available
organ meats (liver and kidney) are chicken, turkey and beef.
It's
often not easy to find organic, but given that the liver and kidney
filter toxins it's very desirable to use organic.
Heart is high in taurine - so very good especially for cats. You can find hearts sometimes at ethnic grocery stores and at butchers. (Less taurine is in muscle meat).
Organic versus not
Conventional “factory farms” raise animals in confined, crowded spaces. This alone is stressful and weakens their immune system. Add to that, disease easily spreads in these over-crowded spaces.
To combat this consequence, the animals are given antibiotics. Animals raised for food production account for 70% of all antibiotics used in the U.S. That does not include antibiotics used when they get sick. That's only the “non-therapeutic” use such as disease prevention and growth promotion.