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Dogs, Cats and Other People: Diet Matters   By Matthew 'Uncle Matty' Margolis

BONES Consumable vs Recreational

Cat Nutrition 101   By Audrey Frederick

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Dogs, Cats and Other People: Diet Matters   By Matthew 'Uncle Matty' Margolis

Diet is in the news. With the enormous Menu Foods recall, dog and cat owners are rightfully on edge. Rat poison ingredients in pet food? How does that happen?
However it happened, it is an anomaly. Make sure what you're feeding your pet isn't on the recall list, www.menufoods.com/recall or 1-866-895-2708, and pay special attention to his behavior and health if there's any possibility that his food was contaminated. A trip to the vet may be an added expense, but it could also save your pet's life and put your mind at ease if there is any cause for concern.
Really, though, we should always pay careful attention to what and how much we give our pets to eat. Poisoned food is uncommon. Too much food is too common and just as likely to lead to health problems.
In January, the FDA approved the first drug to treat canine obesity: Slentrol.
According to 2002 data from the American Veterinary Medical Association, 40 percent of dogs in the United States are either overweight or obese. Slentrol, administered orally, acts as an appetite suppressant, thereby reducing food intake. Developed by Pfizer, the drug will be available for the first time this spring and is marketed toward dog owners who are frustrated by a lack of time to exercise their dog, as well as an inability to restrict food and treats.
"Lack of time" is a solvable problem: reschedule, rearrange, get up earlier, stay up later, hire or enlist help, barter with neighbors, get creative.
"Inability to restrict food," while also solvable, is less practical and more emotional. Food equals love in this case. It goes down like TLC. We give ourselves food to feel better in the moment, instead of exercise to feel better in the long-term.
There's a situation pending in Polk County, North Carolina, where Department of Child Services has given a woman an ultimatum to produce a reduction in her child's weight, or they may remove him from her care. His name is Justin. He weighs 254 pounds. He's 7. Watching the interview on CNN, it isn't hard to figure out where he gets it. Obese child, obese parent.
Whether the cause of Justin's obesity is genetics, diet, lifestyle or some combination of the three isn't for me to determine. But when it comes to the cause of canine obesity, I don't hesitate to say it boils down to diet and exercise.
It's up to you to keep your pooch trim and healthy and happy. To do so, consider your dog's breed and overall energy level.
Some dogs bask in the sun, not moving for hours. Some curl up at your feet while you read "War and Peace" in one sitting. These dogs don't require a lot of food and won't burn off excess calories.
Then there are those who run laps in the back yard. They chase birds and bark at butterflies. They swim after sticks and dogpaddle them back to land for another go at it; tear after balls and race them back to you, over and over, for hours and hours on end. They eat more because they burn more. They're high energy and require a lot of exercise.
This is where the law of "calories in, calories out" kicks in. Even active dogs plump up if calorie intake exceeds calories burned. Then exercise becomes difficult, play becomes work. If this keeps up, your active dog will no longer enjoy being active. How sad.
But even worse, remember that annoying adage: A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips? A dog's hips are susceptible to arthritis. Obesity in dogs is associated with an increased risk in serious conditions like arthritis, heart disease, respiratory conditions and cancer.
Slentrol, miracle it may seem, is likely just the smoke and mirrors that create even more and worse problems. The most common side effect of Slentrol is vomiting. Other effects I'm sure your dog will enjoy include diarrhea, lethargy and anorexia -- no wonder the weight comes off.
We share a lot in common with our canine counterparts. Just like us, diet pills don't work. Just like us, they need to be active in order to keep the weight off and the blues away. Just like us, they need regular exercise and a healthy diet to live long and well.
My advice: Stick with diet and exercise to control weight. Side effects include a happy, healthy friendship for many years to come.

Woof!
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Dog trainer Matthew "Uncle Matty" Margolis is co-author of 18 books about dogs, a behaviorist, a popular radio and television guest, and host of the PBS series "WOOF! It's a Dog's Life!" Read all of Uncle Matty's columns at the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com, and visit him at http://www.unclematty.com. Send your questions to dearuncle.gazette@unclematty.com or by mail to Uncle Matty at P.O. Box 3300, Diamond Springs, CA 95619.

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BONES Consumable vs Recreational
Consumable bones are those that are soft enough to easily crunch down and swallow, often offering a fair amount of meat, fat, & more. These types of meals are the most beneficial because of the complete gastrointestinal exercise, and the nutritional content they offer. Examples are chicken carcasses taken from the human food industry after select cuts of meat are removed, ostrich & turkey necks, poultry wings & wingtips, and lamb, goat & venison neck and rib bones.
Recreational bones are those that are quite large & hard-often joint or leg bones, and considered something to spend time on rather than consuming quickly. Ideally given to dogs who are calm and not prone to cracking teeth on larger, harder bones. If provided with scraps of meat, fat & marrow still attached, they can provide good exercise, and are excellent given after a meal when the natural instinct is to lie down and relax with "desert". Large herbivores such as cattle, musk ox & bison, and adult goat, sheep & deer are examples.

Raw Meaty Bones - RMBs - are any item that has both meat and EDIBLE bone. Some examples of RMBs are chicken leg quarters, backs, necks, wings, turkey necks, fish, rabbit, ostrich neck, beef neck bones, pork neck bones, duck, pheasant, ox tails ... and so on.
Leg bones of large animals - like deer or cows - are NOT RMBs. These are recreational bones. Most dogs cannot actually consume the bone in a leg bone of a cow. The bone is much too hard (it was meant to carry the weight of the cow). Even beef knuckle bones - a softer bone - are recreational. They take too long to consume to be considered part of a meal.
Muscle Meat - basically this is any meat without bones. Boneless Chicken breasts, ground beef, turkey breast, beef or bison steaks, beef heart (it really is a muscle and not an organ), pork butt, lamb, deer meat, etc. Any boneless meat.
Organ Meats - the basic organs meats are the liver, kidneys and brains of the animal. These should be fed in small amounts - especially the liver - as they are very rich and can cause stomach upset in some dogs.
Recreational Bones are any bones that are NOT consumable. Giving your dog a raw beef marrow bone to gnaw on all day is fine - but do not consider it part of their diet.
Beef leg bones, marrow bones, soup bones, knuckle bones - these are all common names of recreational bones. These bones are too hard for most dogs to consume.
A Raw Meaty Bone - one that is part of a dogs diet - should be no problem for your dog to consume within a minute or two (depending on the type and size).
One thing to watch out for with beef marrow bones is the marrow. Marrow is VERY rich. It can cause major stomach upsets in some dogs. You can use a long spoon to scoop out most of the marrow before giving to your dog if you think it may cause a problem.

More info @ http://www.rawdogranch.com/rawdiet.htm

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Cat Nutrition 101
By Audrey Frederick

This recent epidemic of contaminated pet food has made me think of putting all my cats on a homemade diet.

Smokey, the youngest of my cats, is on a semi-homemade diet due to his in-born dislike of commercial cat food.

The commercial food the others eat, luckily has not been the tainted variety.

As a result of this thought, I decided to do a bit of research once more, on cat nutrition and what a cat needs in its diet.

The results I found have led me to believe I will leave well enough alone; and proceed to feed my cats as I have been traditionally doing with good results.

Some of the interesting things I have found are, what is good for us humans, is not necessarily good for cats. The internal workings or if you will the evolutionary pathway that the cat has followed through time, is totally different from ours.

Cats were created as hunters and not vegetable eaters. Cats are true carnivores.

Granted there are some cats that will eat some corn, a piece of cantaloupe or other fruit or vegetable, but they cannot survive on them. You will never see a lion or a tiger munching in a wheat or cornfield.

In the entire millions of years of evolution, none of the feline species have ever found it necessary to develop the ability to metabolize and synthesize vegetable matter.

They are meat eaters and cannot survive without meat in their diets.

However, the domestic cat due to the lack of places to hunt and a total change in lifestyle has become dependent on their humans, as a food source and are committed to a life of prepared foods.

Many of today’s cats would not know what to do with a mouse once it was tired of playing with it. The fact that a domestic cat will not eat a mouse does not mean it has changed in structure to become an animal that will eat a “people” type diet. It means, mostly that “mom” never taught Miss or Mr. Kitty how good a mouse really tastes or actually what to do with it.

It has been proven that even though a cat has been domesticated and its appearance changed through selective breeding, the true nature of the cat as a predator still remains.

Many people advocate a raw meat diet for cats and dogs, but meat alone does not provide all the nutrients a pet needs especially cats.

My Smokey will only eat “raw beef” (not ground beef,) but small hunks preferably of London Broil. He was born with this intention in his mind.

He did not have a mother to teach him that, though I have been accused of it. He was found by my neighbor’s dog in a compost pile with another kitten (3 legged) that died. Smokey was approximately the size of a teaspoon and may have been a day or two old.

I hand raised him with difficulty, but never offered him, as he grew raw meat of any kind, but somehow as he grew and I tried to stop bottle feeding him, he would not eat kitten food or anything else I put before him.

He had a “I will starve attitude” rather than touch that stuff.

Through trial and error, conferences with the vet, trying to feed him cooked chicken, beef or pork with no results. I finally tried a piece of raw beef and that was what he wanted. Now raw beef alone will not keep a cat alive as I soon found out.

With little help from my vet and again almost losing Smokey due to the improper diet, I hit upon a recipe that has saved his life.

At 6 years old he is still bottle fed once a day, a vitamin supplement I have made up through the years, that is doing him very well. He is a 14-pound cat that has beautiful fur and is a great hunter. He can’t climb like other cats due to hind leg problems, but he does everything else a cat can do.

Why did I go off on this tangent, I am not certain, except to prove a point that nutrition is very important in a cat’s life.

Going back to preparing homemade meals for cats I realized from my research that unless you are truly committed; and have plenty of spare time, it is very hard to do, if you are going to do it correctly.

Most of the recipes I found call for grinding up the raw meat and bones. Most people use whole chickens and other birds (quail, game hens, turkey) and even deer or lamb.

They then add liver, hearts, kidneys, gizzards, egg yolks and a very few veggies such as pumpkin, squash, celery and/or broccoli and cauliflower along with adding chicken broth.

And if that was not enough, then you had to figure out the correct amount of supplements to add, not too much and not too little, as a cat needs certain supplements to survive.

It seems that eating that friendly little mouse is the “perfect meal.”

If you can do all of this, I certainly agree that this is the perfect way to feed your cat. But only if you have all the right ingredients in the proper proportions and according to my research that is extremely hard to do.

If the truth were known, I doubt if anyone knows the real combination of supplements that would create the “perfect mouse” as food for a cat.

There are recipes on the Internet by people who are devoted to their cats and are willing to cook.

There are also places on the Internet to buy specially prepared food for your cat such as www.carefreepet.com that offer holistic and natural pet foods and supplies.

This is a scary time we are in with all the recalls and finding time to cook for your pet maybe at a premium for you.

My plan however is, to continually try to buy the best cat food (wet and dry) that I can find. I will take the time to see which ingredients are listed first. You want to see protein listed at the top of the list and the grains, if any at the very bottom. Avoid any food that has grains listed first. Look for the AAFCO approval, which gives you some knowledge that the food has the basic nutrients in it.

Learn that “premium” does not always mean the best, it is just a word.

Cats do not need carbohydrates they need protein, which comes from poultry, fish, beef, or other meats.

Dry food is mostly carbohydrates and should not make up a cat’s entire diet.

Do not offer your cat raw fish because many fish contain thaiminase, which will break down the thiamin in a cat’s body and cause a deficiency in some cats. Also raw tuna may contain mercury.

Offer raw meat in small chunks as a treat, however if you cat is not used to eating raw meat, offer a cooked piece as a treat.

In general buy the best you can afford and most of all play with your cat. That is the best treat you can give it.