For the first few months of life, your growing kitten will need a few special nutritional considerations. This guide will help you get a handle on the basics of feeding your cute little bundle of fur. While feeding a kitten may seem like a no-brainer, it’s essential that you hammer out a diet plan that…
diet
What You Need to Know About Feeding Your Puppy Properly
With so many choices in the dog food aisle, selecting the right food for your puppy can seem like a gargantuan undertaking. Here’s a guide to help you establish the perfect feeding routine for your pup. While your puppy’s eyes may say, ‘Sure, I can finish off that ice cream cone for you!’ it’s your…
What Should I Feed My Pet? Don’t Let Marketing Confuse You
Many of our clients and some veterinarians report great confusion when buying or recommending pet foods for healthy pets. The bewildering number of foods and the claims made for them can cause people’s heads to spin. Much of the confusion can be cleared up by understanding the way these products are marketed. The goal of…
Want Happier, Healthier Cats and Dogs? Use Food Puzzles
The majority of dogs and cats these days are born retired. Forget working to round up sheep or chase mice, our pets live in homes where nothing is expected of them except companionship. It may seem as if our pets have it made, but without something to do pets get bored, lonely, and destructive,…
Salmonella and Pet Food Recalls
It seems like the news is constantly full of stories about pet food recalls. Most recently, we’ve been hearing a lot about recalls due to salmonella contamination. Food recalls can occur for many reasons, including mislabeling (for example, potential allergens not listed), contaminates (particulates found in the food, which are usually tiny pieces of…
Raw Diets: Good or Bad?
A small but enthusiastic group of people have come to believe that feeding raw food to their pets is a good idea — for everyone. They argue in favor of “feeding raw” and reject “junk food” commercial diets because of the “fact” that dogs and cats evolved as carnivores eating raw foods. Proponents claim…
Pet Food Labels: What Organic, Natural, & Low-Fat Claims Really Mean
How much does a label matter? This isn’t a new question; in Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s heroine famously questions the importance of a name: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” In other words, a label is just a label and has nothing…
Keeping Your Pet at a Healthy Weight
A roly poly puppy or chubby kitten might look cute, but carrying extra fat can endanger your pet’s health. Here’s how to keep your pet’s weight in check. Why You Should Watch Your Pet’s Weight Studies indicate that nearly 50% of adult dogs and cats in the United States are overweight or obese, and…
Is Feeding ‘People’ Food to Pets Ethical?
As savvy consumers, we are aware that pet food marketers try to manipulate our emotions for their financial gain and that these marketing messages have little to do with the nutritional quality of the actual food. The rare occurrence of diet-induced nutrient deficiencies, toxicities or imbalances diagnosed in pets consuming commercial pet foods in the…
Human Foods That Are Dangerous for Dogs and Cats
What Do I Need to Know About Foods that Are Dangerous for My Pet? A number of human foods are dangerous to pets. Many of these foods may seem tasty to our pets but can prove deadly if eaten. It can be very tempting to offer pets food from the table, but pets should…
