The Pet Thread

[Kyyle23]

Is carsick something smaller breeds get? Neither of our goldens have ever gotten carsick (They go apes*** over taking car rides), and none of the other dogs in my family (2 labs, golden, and a lab/shepard/mutt) have ever had this problem. But my roommate had a Whippit (sp?) and she said it would throw up every single car ride and they just got a new whippit, and apparently it threw up when they brought it home.

 

I'm glad Goldens (or maybe just ours) don't get carsick because that would be disgusting to have to deal with in a car.

 

Do you honestly think the size of the breed has anything to do with it?

 

I think it is just as random as people getting carsick. I had a malamute that got sick in cars and my basset did too. My basset just decided he was done with that on the 7 hour ride home from carbondale and would sleep the whole way.

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

Do you honestly think the size of the breed has anything to do with it?

 

I think it is just as random as people getting carsick. I had a malamute that got sick in cars and my basset did too. My basset just decided he was done with that on the 7 hour ride home from carbondale and would sleep the whole way.

 

Sure, why not? Different sized breeds live longer than others. So maybe car sickness is something that is more typical in small breeds?

[iamshack]

I have no clue. My guess is Kyle is right, and it's just random.

 

I read that when you get a new dog to take him in the car regularly so that he gets accustomed to it. Perhaps if you start them out young and get them accustomed to the motion and feel of it that they don't have a problem with it. I've never had a dog that's had a problem with it, but I've definitely heard of others that have.

[iamshack]

Here is the introduction from a paper I found about the animal feed industry, written by a Harvard law student.

 

It gives you a bit of an idea of what is going on with most commercial dog foods.

 

Link

 

Americans own more than 130 million cats and dogs and spend over $12 billion per year on commercial pet foods. The commercial pet food industry faces minimal substantive regulation, despite navigating several layers of regulation from various groups including the FDA, the American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), and state regulators. The FDA entrusts AAFCO to issue regulations governing ingredients, feeding trials, labels and nutritional claims. But AAFCO’s rules fall short of ensuring that America’s pets receive adequate nutrition, or even foods that won’t cause chronic digestive, skin, eye, and coat problems. The influence by the pet food industry over AAFCO manifests itself through AAFCO’s irrational regulations, including ingredient definitions which effectively prohibit organic chickens and vegetables, while blindly permitting thousands of euthanized cats and dogs to make their way into pet foods through the unsupervised rendering industry. Trusting, but uneducated, consumers purchase these commercial pet foods under the assumption that the FDA or some other regulatory body has ensured that the foods contain “balanced” meals, and “complete” nutrition. These consumers naively believe veterinarians that endorse and sell pet foods from their offices while neglecting to mention that these “pet doctors” are often “on the take” and can earn up to 20% of their total income from such sales. This paper will examine the ways in which inadequate regulation results in confused consumers and sick, malnourished pets. Ultimately this paper seeks to reveal that multiple parties, including consumers themselves, share the blame for the current muddled state of regulation.

[LittleHurt05]

Pooch is getting his teeth cleaned today. (Yes I am aware that the merits of this have been discussed). First time he's ever had it done in 10+ years. A bit nerve wracking since they put him under to do it, so it's similar to any kind of operation.

 

 

[iamshack]

Pooch is getting his teeth cleaned today. (Yes I am aware that the merits of this have been discussed). First time he's ever had it done in 10+ years. A bit nerve wracking since they put him under to do it, so it's similar to any kind of operation.

Good luck! I'm sure he'll do wonderfully.

[Texsox]

Here is the introduction from a paper I found about the animal feed industry, written by a Harvard law student.

 

It gives you a bit of an idea of what is going on with most commercial dog foods.

 

Link

 

Just like my eye doctor makes money when he prescribes new glasses and I buy them from him. I always assumed that the butcher and the vet each made a profit on the pet food I bought. I am certain that the American Butcher Assoc or whatever their trade group is offers advice to butchers on how to build their business by selling these products to savvy pet owners. I'm not certain the advice of a future lawyer on pet nutrition, even a Harvard educated one, is all that reliable either. Not saying he isn't correct, but I have fed my dogs and cats commercial pet food and they have lived long healthy lives.

 

As far as enjoyment, I have seen them wag their tails for fresh meat and dry, compressed, nuggets. I'm not certain I can tell the difference. My lab ate the same dry food for 7 years straight and ran to his bowl twice a day to eat it. They biggest problem I see with pet diets is how obese we allow our pets to get. Why people would take away from their pet's quality of life by keeping them so overweight baffles me.

 

I do like the idea of a fresh diet, and if my circumstances change and a dog fits into my life again, I may just go that route.

[iamshack]

Just like my eye doctor makes money when he prescribes new glasses and I buy them from him. I always assumed that the butcher and the vet each made a profit on the pet food I bought. I am certain that the American Butcher Assoc or whatever their trade group is offers advice to butchers on how to build their business by selling these products to savvy pet owners. I'm not certain the advice of a future lawyer on pet nutrition, even a Harvard educated one, is all that reliable either. Not saying he isn't correct, but I have fed my dogs and cats commercial pet food and they have lived long healthy lives.

 

As far as enjoyment, I have seen them wag their tails for fresh meat and dry, compressed, nuggets. I'm not certain I can tell the difference. My lab ate the same dry food for 7 years straight and ran to his bowl twice a day to eat it. They biggest problem I see with pet diets is how obese we allow our pets to get. Why people would take away from their pet's quality of life by keeping them so overweight baffles me.

 

I do like the idea of a fresh diet, and if my circumstances change and a dog fits into my life again, I may just go that route.

Hah...come on, Tex...you're just looking for a fight here...

 

Edit: BTW, the obesity stems from the fact that people feed their dogs as they would people...two or three times a day or free feeding...dogs evolved to eat very large meals once a day or less, due to the scarcity of prey and the competition for food. Thus, they can eat up to 8% of their body weight at one time, but this can take 24 hours to digest. They can then go days, even a week or more without food without suffering from exhaustion or any other form of energy depletion.

 

People need to feed with THAT in mind instead of how their 6 year old kid eats.

Edited February 9, 2012 by iamshack

[LittleHurt05]

Good luck! I'm sure he'll do wonderfully.

 

We actually tried to have it done 2-3 weeks ago. A few hours after I dropped him off, they called that he had thrown up and they didn't want to risk putting him under just in case he was sick so I picked him up. It was probably him getting nervous as he has major separation anxiety, but now I think he's just a wise old man who knew how to get out of it, lol.

[Texsox]

Hah...come on, Tex...you're just looking for a fight here...

 

Edit: BTW, the obesity stems from the fact that people feed their dogs as they would people...two or three times a day or free feeding...dogs evolved to eat very large meals once a day or less, due to the scarcity of prey and the competition for food. Thus, they can eat up to 8% of their body weight at one time, but this can take 24 hours to digest. They can then go days, even a week or more without food without suffering from exhaustion or any other form of energy depletion.

 

People need to feed with THAT in mind instead of how their 6 year old kid eats.

 

No fight from me. I believe there can be some very good commercial pet foods, and have years of experience feeding them to my pets allows me to be comfortable with that opinion. You are very successful with a raw diet, and I may give that a try.

 

And I agree, my parents are a prime example. They dog eats too much three times a day and if their cat does not eat as soon as the food is put out, it is picked up and something else is fed to him. The poor dog is only seven years old and can't walk down stairs. When I show them the recommended portion per day, it is less than they feed the dog at one of the three feedings.

 

I do agree with the doggie spa when they go out of town, with the special race car bed (ramp leading into it) and a 15 minute walk through the woods near the kennel spa.

[iamshack]

No fight from me. I believe there can be some very good commercial pet foods, and have years of experience feeding them to my pets allows me to be comfortable with that opinion. You are very successful with a raw diet, and I may give that a try.

 

And I agree, my parents are a prime example. They dog eats too much three times a day and if their cat does not eat as soon as the food is put out, it is picked up and something else is fed to him. The poor dog is only seven years old and can't walk down stairs. When I show them the recommended portion per day, it is less than they feed the dog at one of the three feedings.

 

I do agree with the doggie spa when they go out of town, with the special race car bed (ramp leading into it) and a 15 minute walk through the woods near the kennel spa.

What do you define as success in regards to this experience? That your dog didn't die?

 

Edit: I am not trying to be a smartass.

Edited February 9, 2012 by iamshack

[Texsox]

Overall health, how long he lived, no major health issues. Looking around at field trial competitions and comparing him to others of his same breed. I have no reliable way to know if he enjoyed his diet. He wagged his tail when it was time to eat and seemed to like the food. But just like it is probably wrong to feed a dog like a human, it may be wrong to believe an animal tastes food like a human. As I watch them sniffing the crotch of another dog, I wonder what their taste buds are like

 

As I think about a raw diet and how it basically tries to match what a dog would naturally eat, are you concerned about the dog not eating the prime pieces? In the wild, a dog would have had the tasty back strap as well as the neck. It seems that you would need to feed a balance of all the cuts or am I missing something?

 

The dogs we have today do not exist in nature as their breed. These have been manufactured to human specifications to be pets. I doubt a wild pack of Peekapoos would do very well hunting game. So I can see where a man made diet could benefit a man made dog. But as I mentioned before, your experiences with a raw diet has me interested.

[G&T]

Overall health, how long he lived, no major health issues. Looking around at field trial competitions and comparing him to others of his same breed. I have no reliable way to know if he enjoyed his diet. He wagged his tail when it was time to eat and seemed to like the food. But just like it is probably wrong to feed a dog like a human, it may be wrong to believe an animal tastes food like a human. As I watch them sniffing the crotch of another dog, I wonder what their taste buds are like

 

I want to know what dogs taste too. I've read they don't have many taste buds so they don't really notice that they eat the same thing all the time, but our sense of taste is connected to scent as well. And dogs smell everything. So I'm of the mind that variety is somewhat important. My dog loves apples and cheese.

[Steve9347]

I want to know what dogs taste too. I've read they don't have many taste buds so they don't really notice that they eat the same thing all the time, but our sense of taste is connected to scent as well. And dogs smell everything. So I'm of the mind that variety is somewhat important. My dog loves apples and cheese.

Dogs will eat anything. They eat their own s*** for crying out loud.

[iamshack]

Dogs will eat anything. They eat their own s*** for crying out loud.

A lot of time, their is unused protein in feces. Wolves will eat it in the wild quite often.

 

[Steve9347]

A lot of time, their is unused protein in feces. Wolves will eat it in the wild quite often.

Fantastic story.

[Iwritecode]

Man, come on, this is a thread for talking about our "animal friends". I have two awesome cats. AWESOME. If you don't like your cats, that's your problem, but saying "f*** cats" is bulls*** in my opinion. So f you and your s***ty dog.

 

Cats aren't for everyone and some cats can be real s***heads. I have four and had 3 others that died already. I've grown up with them my whole life and they've all been vastly different.

 

We have one now that's just about the perfect cat. He's very clean, very mellow, very out-going and very lovable. My girls could pick him up and hold him all day long and he'd be perfectly content.

 

[iamshack]

Overall health, how long he lived, no major health issues. Looking around at field trial competitions and comparing him to others of his same breed. I have no reliable way to know if he enjoyed his diet. He wagged his tail when it was time to eat and seemed to like the food. But just like it is probably wrong to feed a dog like a human, it may be wrong to believe an animal tastes food like a human. As I watch them sniffing the crotch of another dog, I wonder what their taste buds are like

 

As I think about a raw diet and how it basically tries to match what a dog would naturally eat, are you concerned about the dog not eating the prime pieces? In the wild, a dog would have had the tasty back strap as well as the neck. It seems that you would need to feed a balance of all the cuts or am I missing something?

 

The dogs we have today do not exist in nature as their breed. These have been manufactured to human specifications to be pets. I doubt a wild pack of Peekapoos would do very well hunting game. So I can see where a man made diet could benefit a man made dog. But as I mentioned before, your experiences with a raw diet has me interested.

It's difficult to measure against other dogs because you're just measuring against other dogs eating the same thing, for the most part. Just in the last two decades or so are US animal owners beginning to go back to a raw diet in any numbers. Don't get me wrong...I am not saying a dog cannot live a happy life eating kibble. Just as humans can be happy without ever eating an ideal diet. However, if you don't know what you are looking for, or if you don't have a dog on an ideal diet to compare your dog against, it is really difficult to understand what you are missing. Dogs on an ideal raw diet will have almost pristine white teeth and no bad breath. They'll have beautiful shiny, healthy coats and have far less skin allergies. They'll have bright eyes. They'll have an ideal weight and have lean, strong muscles. They have more energy and at a more advanced age. They produce less waste because they are digesting more of their food. They also LOVE eating.

 

As for your question about a balance of cuts...yes and no. We do not know the optimum diet for humans, let alone dogs. We just know that we require certain nutrients (and in certain combinations, these nutrients react differently to one another) in order to live optimally healthy lives. The best way to achieve this is just to eat as much variety as possible. If we eat a little bit of everything, we increase our chances of getting all the things we need to be optimally healthy. Therefore, you want to feed your dog a wide variety of proteins, and thus, a wide variety of meat sources. Whether this is beef, chicken, turkey, rabbit, tripe, etc., it just depends on what you have available to you as well as what the best sources of proteins are. Red meat is usually better than pork, as well as poultry, but fish is excellent. Green tripe is probably the optimal protein source, and if you had to choose but one source of protein, this would be what you would want to choose, but variation is always a good idea. However, what humans think of as great "cuts" of meat are not really what is important for a dog. In fact, the dog will choose the parts that are the most nutritious for him, which oftentimes are the guts (intestines or stomach) of an animal.

 

The dog as we know it today is absolutely different than wolves were in the wild, and even different than the first domesticated dogs. But what people don't realize is that commercial dog food (kibble) is a relatively new creation. It's really only been around since about WWI in the US...if you consider that dogs have been around for tens of thousands of years, it takes a bit longer than a few generations to change their evolutionary design....humans are still struggling to adapt from "primal" eating habits that occurred a far longer time ago than that.

[iamshack]

Fantastic story.

They are animals. Their main goal is to survive most efficiently. They don't have Wal-Mart or Whole Foods.

 

 

[Harry Chappas]

Was driving through Lemont the other morning and saw a wolf on the railroad tracks it looked badass...

[iamshack]

I want to know what dogs taste too. I've read they don't have many taste buds so they don't really notice that they eat the same thing all the time, but our sense of taste is connected to scent as well. And dogs smell everything. So I'm of the mind that variety is somewhat important. My dog loves apples and cheese.

Dogs don't really chew their food, so their taste buds don't really serve as much of a purpose. Dogs use scent to determine whether they want to eat something most of the time. It's actually been proven (or being shown, as we speak) that dogs can smell cancer cells and therefore detect cancer before any of our best medical equipment.

[Steve9347]

 

My boys, Gary & James.

[Soxbadger]

For the question about bringing home a dog to cats, you may want to seclude the dog and let the cats smell around etc. There are different articles online, but since the cat is the "resident" you probably shouldnt be restricting its movement.

[Texsox]

It's difficult to measure against other dogs because you're just measuring against other dogs eating the same thing, for the most part. Just in the last two decades or so are US animal owners beginning to go back to a raw diet in any numbers. Don't get me wrong...I am not saying a dog cannot live a happy life eating kibble. Just as humans can be happy without ever eating an ideal diet. However, if you don't know what you are looking for, or if you don't have a dog on an ideal diet to compare your dog against, it is really difficult to understand what you are missing. Dogs on an ideal raw diet will have almost pristine white teeth and no bad breath. They'll have beautiful shiny, healthy coats and have far less skin allergies. They'll have bright eyes. They'll have an ideal weight and have lean, strong muscles. They have more energy and at a more advanced age. They produce less waste because they are digesting more of their food. They also LOVE eating.

 

As for your question about a balance of cuts...yes and no. We do not know the optimum diet for humans, let alone dogs. We just know that we require certain nutrients (and in certain combinations, these nutrients react differently to one another) in order to live optimally healthy lives. The best way to achieve this is just to eat as much variety as possible. If we eat a little bit of everything, we increase our chances of getting all the things we need to be optimally healthy. Therefore, you want to feed your dog a wide variety of proteins, and thus, a wide variety of meat sources. Whether this is beef, chicken, turkey, rabbit, tripe, etc., it just depends on what you have available to you as well as what the best sources of proteins are. Red meat is usually better than pork, as well as poultry, but fish is excellent. Green tripe is probably the optimal protein source, and if you had to choose but one source of protein, this would be what you would want to choose, but variation is always a good idea. However, what humans think of as great "cuts" of meat are not really what is important for a dog. In fact, the dog will choose the parts that are the most nutritious for him, which oftentimes are the guts (intestines or stomach) of an animal.

 

The dog as we know it today is absolutely different than wolves were in the wild, and even different than the first domesticated dogs. But what people don't realize is that commercial dog food (kibble) is a relatively new creation. It's really only been around since about WWI in the US...if you consider that dogs have been around for tens of thousands of years, it takes a bit longer than a few generations to change their evolutionary design....humans are still struggling to adapt from "primal" eating habits that occurred a far longer time ago than that.

 

That sure does describe my dog.

[bigruss]

 

My boys, Gary & James.

They look like they cause trouble, but in a hysterical way.