Sunday, April 22, 2007 , terribly early in the morning

They’ve made it to four weeks

Carlo and Bunny celebrated their four-week birthdays on Friday.  They’re a couple of odd, wee kitty cats.  Bunny weighs 1 lb., 1 oz., has perfect litterbox habits, and is generally spotless.  She will not eat any solid food and only wants to drink from a bottle.  Carlo weighs 11.6 oz. (yes, he’s that much smaller, still), has a constant case of the runs, tries to use the litterbox but gets litter all over him, and will happily chow down on a big can of cat food, no bottle needed.  Bunny wants to play with toys and wrestle, but Carlo always seems to be about one week behind her, and all he’s done so far is to poke a plastic ball around on the floor, once.  He likes to snuggle with Missy Mae and nap.  In many ways he seems developmentally delayed, yet he’s hitting most of the proper growth milestones, and doing some things (like eating solid food) even earlier than expected.  His two big problems are his size/slow physical growth, and the fact that he’s never had a healthy digestive tract.  I wish I could figure out what to do about the digestive tract issue.  So far he’s had Albon (twice), Panacur, some other dewormer whose name slips my mind, and Benebac supplements, but he’s never had a single poop in his lifetime which could be called “formed”.  Even on solid food, he just produces drips, and he has a hard time in the litterbox because he leaves little poop puddles, steps in them, gets litter stuck to his feet, yada yada yada.  His fecal matter isn’t even the right colour, because it’s stayed a mustard colour on solid food, whereas Bunny’s changes to brown when I slip mushed up food into her bottle of formula.  His small size and diarrhea can be symptoms of a portosystemic shunt, although I don’t know if the symptoms usually manifest so early in life.  I’ll definitely be on the lookout for any more symptoms, like neurological problems.

Here are pictures of the birthday kittens:

carlo_4_week_portrait

bunny_reclines

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/22 at 05:07 AM
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BOINC!

I thought I’d written about this a couple of years ago, but apparently I was mistaken.  If you’re interested in science and geeky stuff, you may want to download a program called BOINC.  BOINC allows you to donate your computer processor downtime to a number of really cool science projects.  The most famous of all is probably the SETI program, but there are also programs researching climate change, and programs analyzing proteins for medical research.  You can configure Boinc to run as often or as little as you’d like—for example, you can just have the program run while you’re sleeping if you’re worried about it affecting performance.  Go on… let your inner dweeb have some fun!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/22 at 04:20 AM
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Vet-approved homemade pet food recipes

I’d have to guess that the majority of vets are strongly opposed to the idea of pet owners making homemade pet food.  Maybe the vets don’t worry so much about dogs, but they must definitely worry about cats, because cats have such strict dietary requirements.  There are many good pet food cookbooks written by reputable folks, but if you want to really win the feeding argument with your vet, you may want to use a recipe from a source which is recommended by the American College of Veterinary Nutrition.  In the ACVN’s official statement about the pet food recall, they strongly support the idea of feeding commercial food, but in lieu of that, they suggest that pet owners consult the websites BalanceIt.com, and/or PetDiets.com.

First things first—both websites will charge you money for each recipe you want access to, and it’s not cheap.  PetDiets.com wants $50 per recipe, but all recipes are certified as complete and balanced by a veterinary nutritionist.  If you have a pet with special dietary needs, you can have a custom consultation and diet plan designed for $200.  Again, that’s not cheap, but these people are theoretically the best-trained individuals in the world on the subject of dog and cat nutrition.  Many of you may disagree with that assessment, I know… I’m just saying that on paper, you can’t argue with the statement that veterinary nutritionists know more about dog and cat nutrition than the average person.  It still doesn’t mean they know everything.  PetDiets.com does not advocate raw feeding, and I’d imagine their recipes are quite conservative, if only I could see an example of one.

The second website the ACVN recommends is BalanceIt.com, which is run by two veterinary nutritionists in Davis, CA.  They have a consumer portion of the website, and a subscribers-only section for vets to use.  The site has a neat setup—you select one protein source and one carb source from a list, , and the resulting page will give you a recipe (or more than one).  For example, I selected “ground beef” as my protein source, and then “sweet potatoes”, as my carb, then said I wanted recipes for my cat.  The next page offered me one recipe called “Beef and Sweet Potato for cats”, and the raw ingredients of the recipe were beef, sweet potato, and corn oil.  It also said the recipe would require supplements, but that I’d be given specific instructions on how to add a combination of readily available human supplements to the cat food.  I was also told I could skip the human supplements and just buy the proprietary BalanceIt Feline Supplement.  The catch here is that I can’t see the actual recipe at all, or the list of human supplements I might have to buy—if I want access to all the details, it will cost $20.  The BalanceIt supplement also costs $20, and it doesn’t say how many servings it contains.  By the way, if I go back through the “design a recipe” process for dogs, using beef and sweet potato, I’m giving a choice of four recipes to purchase.  All recipes are $20 for one, $30 for two, and three or more recipes are $12.50 each.  I give the site props for having imaginative ingredient lists… you can choose from protein sources like chicken or beef, but also cottage cheese or tofu.  For carbs, you can pick potatoes or rice, but you can also choose spaghetti or couscous.  BalanceIt promises that if your pet doesn’t like the recipe you’ve chosen, just write to them and they’ll send you a different one.  There’s a link on the site to view all the available recipes, and there are well over 100 different ones for dogs, and at least 50+ for cats.

If I join the BalanceIt.com affiliate program they’ll give me a free recipe (so they say), so I hope to be able to join and to see how simple or how complicated their recipes are.  For those of us who are a bit nervous about feeding homemade for the first time, recipes from either BalanceIt.com or PetDiets.com seem reassuring.  I like that both sites are run by veterinarians, so you’ll have someone to consult with if you have questions or problems.  I do think the prices are a bit much, and I think it would be nice to offer one or two free recipes for people who don’t have $50 to toss around.  I’ve got my eye on a low-carb chicken and sweet potato recipe for cats, so if I decide to invest in it, I’ll let you know.  I just spent close to $100 at Petco, buying two weeks worth of Natural Balance cat food, so I’m not feeling wealthy enough to toss around an extra $20 today.

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Edited on 4/24 to add:  When you go to BalanceIt.com, a free recipe is available by typing the code “Wal-Mart” in the promo code box.  To take advantage of this offer, choose the link on the homepage which says, “Homemade Recipe Creator (free with PROMO code)”, in the section called “Complimentary Tools”.  Do not use the regular shopping link at the top of the page, i.e., the one which says, “I want to create a homemade recipe for my healthy adult pet.” I went through the process myself and it works perfectly.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/22 at 03:17 AM
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Friday, April 20, 2007 , the wee hours

Pet care books, on sale

I received an email from BookCloseOuts.com about some new stock they’d received, and one of the books on the list was ”The Veterinarians Guide to Natural Remedies for Cats” by Martin Zucker.  I was excited because I’ve had that title on my Amazon.com wishlist, and BookCloseOuts had it for just $4.99.  Unfortunately, by the time I clicked the link in my email, the book was already sold-out, so I guess lots of other people had the same idea.  While browsing the BCO store, I found a bunch of other “healthy pet” books, including a couple of cheap pet cookbooks, so I thought I’d post some links to them here in case any of you want to order.  Most of the books are about cats, but I tried to dig up a few books about dogs as well.  I can’t promise the books will still be in stock by the time you read this, but BCO usually lists a “quantity available” number with each title so you’ll know if you need to jump on a book quickly, or if you can wait and think about it.  Here they are in no particular order:

If you’re a cat owner and don’t own The New Natural Cat, you should snap it up for $7.99.  I’m currently using a hairball remedy oil supplement for my cats Jackson and Chelsea, and the recipe is from this book.  It also has some raw food recipes, although you should do a quick web search about them before using them, as I think some of them contain ingredients like garlic, which is now considered to be a no-no.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/20 at 02:49 AM
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Evangers

We were out running errands today, and stopped at the “fancy” pet food store.  They’ve got limited stock, unfortunately (if it was my store, I wouldn’t be wasting space on foofy pet beds and picture frames), but I decided to buy a few cans of Evanger’s food.  For the dogs I bought some cans of Hunk of Beef and Whole Chicken Thighs, and for the cats, Organic Braised Chicken, Holistic Pheasant Dinner, and Organic Turkey and Butternut Squash.  So far, I’m really, really impressed with this food!  I opened a can of “Hunk of Beef” as a supplement to the Solid Gold Holistique kibble I feed the big dogs, and it was literally a can of roast beef au jus.  It looked just like beef from a pot roast, and it smelled great.  It’s not supposed to be fed as a total diet, but it’s a great addition to kibble.  The dogs loved it (of course), but at $3.25 per can, they’re not going to get it very often.  I also opened a can of the “Organic Turkey and Butternut Squash” cat food, and it looked like standard mushy cat food.  Missy Mae seemed to really enjoy it, but ate less than usual—I wonder if it was a bit richer than she’s used to?  I liked that the food only had turkey and squash (plus vitamins) as ingredients—no fillers!  And it was all organic, too.

Evanger’s is a small company in Chicago, and they manufacture their food at their own facilities.  You get what you pay for, and if you can afford it, all their food seems to be excellent.

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While at the pet food store, I noticed that they stocked different varieties of Honest Kitchen.  Honest Kitchen is a raw, dehydrated “flaked” food that you reconstitute with warm water for feeding.  You can supplement the food with extra raw meat, but it can also be fed as-is.  If it’s something which interests you, the company sells samples for $1 each on their website.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/20 at 12:47 AM
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…and, some Royal Canin recalls

Royal Canin has recalled some of their dry pet food formulas because they may contain contaminated rice protein concentrate.  The recalled products are:

  • Lamb Meal & Rice Formula puppy dry dog food
  • Lamb Meal & Rice Formula adult dry dog food
  • Lamb Meal & Rice Formula adult dry dog food
  • Lamb Meal & Rice Formula senior dry dog food
  • Rice & Catfish Meal Formula adult dry dog food
  • Chicken Meal & Rice Formula senior dry dog food
  • Canine Early Cardiac EC 22 prescription dry dog food
  • Canine Skin Support SS21 prescription dry dog food
  • Feline Hypoallergenic HP23 prescription dry cat food

Keep an eye on your pet food labels for unnecessary fillers like corn gluten, wheat gluten, rice protein concentrate, and soy fillers (although there’s been no recall involving soy).  Those are the sorts of ingredients which are apt to be imported, and they’re commonly used because they’re cheap and inexpensive.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/20 at 12:09 AM
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Thursday, April 19, 2007 , mid-afternoon

Would you believe, more recalls?

Now that some rice protein imports have been confirmed to be contaminated with melamine, here’s a new addition to the pet food recall list:  Blue Buffalo Spa Select Dry Formula for Kittens (only the bags marked “Best Used By Mar. 07 08 B”).  On a related note, there have recently been pet food recalls in South Africa that I didn’t bother to mention.  Tests now show that pets in South Africa are being killed by pet food which contains corn gluten contaminated with melamine, and the corn gluten is imported from China.  So, my suggestion to everyone is to read every label of everything you feed, wet or dry, and be aware of wheat gluten, rice protein and corn gluten.  Any of those ingredients have the potential to be contaminated, and there may still be unidentified companies which received contaminated rice protein concentrate.  It will be very interesting to see which pet food manufacturers are left standing when all is said and done, because many have done irreparable damage to their reputations, imo.

This settles the issue for me—as soon as my current batch of canned cat and dog food is gone, I’m going to start cooking for my pets.  It’s going to require probably one full day each week for cooking, and we may end up needing to buy an extra refrigerator/freezer for storage (because yeah, we can afford that right now), but I won’t have to worry.  The hardest part will be figuring out what to feed my foster kittens, because I know 99% of them will go to families who buy Science Diet, et al, and just assume it’s safe.

When I post about things like this, my information comes from news sources like the Toronto Star and AP, but also from great blogs like Itchmo and PetConnection.  I normally would never want to tread on another blog’s content, but this is a situation where the information should be posted in as many places as possible!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/19 at 03:08 PM
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Tuesday, April 17, 2007 , mid-afternoon

Natural Balance expands their recall

Sad, bad news… Natural Balance has expanded their pet food recall.  The recalled products all contain an ingredient called rice protein concentrate, which has been found to contain melamine.  This ingredient is manufactured by a company in the United States, and not imported from China, so it really makes you wonder who you can trust!  All along, veterinarians investigating the melamine problem have wondered if the problem is truely with melamine, or if melamine is just a marker for something else.  Maybe finding an entirely new source of the stuff will lend extra clues to the mystery.  Sincere condolences to all the pets who died while their owners tried to avoid wheat gluten.  If you’d like to read details of the recall, the information is on the Natural Balance website.  Please note that no extra cat food products were recalled; for cats the only affected product is Venison and Green Pea dry formula.

One other interesting observation is that Natural Balance says, “The source of the melamine appears to be a rice protein concentrate, which was recently added to the dry venison formulas”.  The wheat gluten problem was a result of a new wheat gluten supplier.  Perhaps with pet food, we’ll find out that consistency is key to safety.  When manufacturers find a good supplier and a good recipe, they should just leave it alone.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/17 at 03:55 PM
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Stop me if you’ve seen this joke before

I’m sure everyone in the blogosphere has seen this photo, but it was new to me when Kim from Bark-n-Blog sent it to me in email over the weekend.  This is supposedly a photo of Hercules, an English Mastiff who weighs 283 pounds.  The email claims that Guinness recently declared Hercules, “The World’s Largest Dog”.  Sadly, the photo is just a Photoshopped masterpiece, and the dog in the picture isn’t Hercules, and the dog isn’t really that large.  It sure would be neat to own a dog that huge though, wouldn’t it?  I would perhaps fill my need to own a horse!

image

I can’t remember what website I was on recently where I saw a (real) picture of the world’s smallest horse.  It was cute, but sort of creepy.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/17 at 04:10 AM
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From the mailbag

I’m trying to tidy up my email inbox, so here are bits and pieces of information from emails I’ve been saving, and have wanted to blog about.  I hope you’ll find something of interest.

  • There are brand new episodes of Animal Precinct airing all this week at 10pm.  I’m a day late in posting this, but each episode repeats a number of times, so you should be able to catch Monday’s episode sometime before 10pm Tuesday (or this coming weekend).  Click the Animal Precinct link above to go the broadcast schedule on the Animal Planet website.


  • The College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell has a number of very informative cat care videos on their website.  They’ll walk you through everything from Caring for Your Diabetic Cat to Taking Your Cat’s Temperature.  I had no idea these existed until Flippy stumbled across them a couple of weeks ago.  She was probably sick and tired of waiting for me to trim all our cats’ claws, so she decided to figure out how to do it herself.


  • The Animal Care Expo is being held May 9th through 12th in Dallas.  I’m very disappointed that I can’t afford to go… I’d bet the exhibit hall is full of amazing products and ideas.


  • Will any of you be in Washington, D.C., July 28th through 30th, to attend the Taking Action for Animals 2007 conference?  Could you squeeze me into your suitcase?  This conference is designed to motivate, inspire, and teach animal advocates from around the globe, and they’ve got some great guest speakers lined up.  I’d even love to have my own booth in the exhibit hall, telling people that I’m looking for a full-time job!  Hire me, hire me!  It’s very exciting that so many animal-themed events are popping up all over the country, but not one of them has been in Las Vegas.


  • August 18th, 2007 is Homeless Animals Day, sponsored by the International Society for Animal Rights.  Last year, more than 30 US states and 10 countries around the globe participated in ISAR’s National Homeless Animals’ Day by having spay and neuter events, walkathons, vigils, and other activities which drew attention to the plight of homeless animals.  If you’d like to participate this year, contact ISAR via their website link, and they’ll send you a free event planning packet.


  • Here’s the next educational project I’ve got my eye on: The Companion Animals Studies certificate program at Clayton College of Natural Health.  The full program is actually called, “Holistic Care for Companion Animals”, and teaches things like Flower Essences, Chinese Medicine, and Nutrition.  I’m not very spiritual, and I’m definitely not religious, but I think many holistic treatment methods have their roots in sound science (the science just hasn’t caught up yet!).  At the very least, I like to know as much as possible so that I have a variety of choices of action in any given pet health situation.  When I’m dealing with neonatal kittens, for example, western medicine doesn’t have much to offer besides antibiotics and dewormers.  Maybe there are other more subtle, but just as effective, treatment options to be found via alternative therapies.  If this program interests you, it costs about $1850.


  • Here’s a great opportunity for anyone with a blog:  Sign up at Dog Detective to receive lost dog alerts for your area of the country.  You can specify what types of alerts you want to receive, and how often, and then you’ll receive a notice via email whenever a dog has been reported missing near your home.  All your contact information will be kept confidential, of course, but if you often blog about a particular city (I think everyone knows I live in Las Vegas), you could repost the alert on your blog to focus extra eyes to the problem.  You can also do old-fashioned things like open your front door and look for the dog wandering down your street smile This could potentially be a great system, and the more people who sign up, the better.  I’m going to sign up as soon as I finish this entry.


  • On a similar note, you should also sign up at a new site called Lost and Pound.  This is another website designed to help owners find lost pets by sending out email alerts, but it seems as if this group might have a bit more money behind them.  Join both, it can’t hurt… and look at the photos of all the missing pets and then go give your own pets a big hug.


  • I’ve saved the most peculiar item for last.  This website offers to spin your pet hair into yarn.  With the yarn, you can knit a lovely memento of your beloved pet, I guess.  For a while I thought the site might be a spammy joke, but it’s too poorly designed to be a joke - I think the site owner is serious.  It’s an interesting idea, but the yarn isn’t very pretty to look at.  The best part of the website is the page about the legalities of the process, as I guess many site visitors thought it was somehow cruel to collect pet hair.  I don’t even have to actively collect pet hair around my house - I just turn on the ceiling fan, wait a day or so, and air currents thoughtfully form a massive pile of dog and cat hair in one convenient location (in the corner, under the table).  I won’t be taking advantage of this hair spinning service, but I’m sure someone out there is going to jump at the chance.

Thank you for helping me clean up my email.  I deleted about one hundred messages this evening, but I’m sure there will be more in there tomorrow.  Email… the gift that keeps on giving.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/17 at 02:16 AM
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