With so many options on the shelf in the pet food aisle, it’s hard to know what food to buy your dog. Sometimes it feels like ‘any old one will do, right?’ But you can ensure that you are taking care of your dog by knowing a few key things about reading the labels.
The Association of American Feed Control Officials (aafco.org) and Canine Nutrition Expert Subcommittee set intake recommendations for an array of proteins, fat, minerals, fat-soluble vitamins and water-soluble vitamins. They serve as nutritional guidelines for both growing puppies and mature dogs.
Still, you should ask breeders, or dog professionals what they have to say about feeding your particular dog. Every breed is different and has its own unique needs. A Pomeranian won’t need as much as a Labrador! Not every dog needs the same proportion of nutritional components either
You know what they say about too much of a good thing… Did you know dog foods today face the problem of overnutrition? It used to be that certain dog foods weren’t delivering proper nutrition, leaving dogs inexplicably unhealthy. Now your dog food might simply have too much packed in it. Both can be harmful to your pet.
Any “complete and balanced” labeled dog food had to meet AAFCO guidelines in order to be sold as such. This could have been accomplished in one of two ways: a nutrient profile, broken down and evaluated, or a feeding trial. AAFCO also regulates that dog food is manufactured in safe and sanitary conditions then labeled truthfully. AAFCO’s seal is definitely one thing you can look for when deciding on dog food.
Most professionals recommend feeding your dog a combination of wet and dry foods. Supplement three-quarters high quality dry food with a quarter meat-rich wet, they say. Whole meat and meat meal, potatoes, real vegetables, and whole grains, like barley and rice, are beacons of goodness on a label, while corn, wheat, soy, glutens and meat byproducts might make you think twice about quality. Be wary of the preservatives BHT, BHA and ethoxyquin. Tocopherol and ascorbate (vitamins E and C) make for natural, healthier preservatives.
Australian veterinarian Ian Billinghurst, who suggests dogs eat 2% of their body weight per day, supports a raw foods diet for dogs. It simulates the diet of a dog living in the wild…a whole fish is a delicious treat, or a whole raw chicken with some carrots. (Note: When a dogs chews a bone it should be raw, because cooked bones can splinter and lacerate the dogs’ stomach.) Food prepared for this diet is available freeze-dried, frozen, canned, and dry, so it’s not like you need to put a raw chicken on a plate for your canine friend every day. (Check it out at barfworld.com.)
Ultimately, whatever you choose has to be approved by your dog. If something doesn’t sit right, you’ll be left with an antsy dog scratching at the front door. When that happens be prepared with biodegradable dog poop bags, dog waste bags, poop bags like those available at www.911savebeans.com.
Fido and Wishbone might come sit at your feet during dinner, drooling over what you and your family are chowing down on. You might be tempted to toss your pup a scrap of meat, and little Johnny might sneak down his veggies. Instead of scraping dishes, maybe you plop them on the floor and let the pooch lick them clean. ‘Better than a dishwasher!’ you might exclaim.
But the truth is people need be very careful about what they feed their dogs. Many seemingly harmless foods can be deadly, or gravely serious, to the average dog’s liver, kidneys, or heart. When Spot looks at you with those heart-wrenching, tacitly begging, eyes, it can be hard to resist! (Does the term “puppy dog eyes” mean anything to you?) But loving your pets means knowing what’s good for them, and doing what’s right, even if that means playing the tough parent sometimes.
Chocolate is at the top of the list to withhold. Caffeine and bromethalin, both present in chocolate, are toxic to your dog. The darker the chocolate, the more concentrated the poison. Don’t forget, caffeine is in coffee, tea, and cocoa as well, so they’re on the list to avoid too. Watch for signs of staggering and labored breathing, followed by a fast heartbeat or palpitations, and stomach pain and vomiting. Severe chocolate poisoning ends in seizure, coma, or the death of your dearly beloved.
Tomatoes, mushrooms, onion, and garlic are all on the off list. That awesome pizza you ordered Friday night is NOT sharable… unless you’re prepared to subject your pooch to liver and kidney damage (from the mushrooms,) tremors and heart arrhythmia (from the tomato,) and red blood cell damage (from the seasonings)—just a sampling of the effects these foods can cause.
As you keep yourself healthy with fruit, restrain from sharing grapes and raisins, due to the potential for acute renal failure, and avocados, which cause fluid buildup in your dog’s organs. Certain fruit pits and seeds contain cyanide, a pretty well known poison. If you’re planning on sharing pears, plums, peaches, apricots or apples, just remember your dog always doesn’t spit out seeds and pits like you do.
The artificial sweetener xylitol is a more modern killer to be wary of. Dogs experience a dramatic drop in blood sugar, leading to depression, loss of motor skills, seizures, or liver failure.
Beware of macadamia nuts, walnuts, nutmeg, excess salt, animal fat, and fried foods. From paralysis to pancreatitis, these all hold the power to harm.
Many of these foods have a direct effect on a dog’s stomach and digestive system. Diarrhea and upset digestion are unfortunate, but common side effects. If your dog should accidentally consume any of these foods, be prepared with biodegradable dog waste bags, dog poop bags, doggie poop bags like those found at www.911savebeans.com.
 Many people think to themselves that if dog poop is natural, why should they worry about cleaning it up? Would you ask that question pertaining to a newborn baby or small child? No, you would know that you must clean it up. Fecal matter is not sanitary, and that holds true for canine excrement.
What’s in dog poop that makes it dangerous? What comes out of your dog’s end is a combination of organic matter, laden with nutrients, including phosphorus and nitrogen, bacteria and parasites. The disease causing capability of these bacteria and parasites is vast.
Campylobacteriosis is one such bacterial infection. It leads to diarrhea in humans, with the potential for subsequent pain, dehydration, and rash. Giardiasis, an infection of the small intestine, is another. The most commonly spread disease that comes to humans through dog feces is salmonellosis (salmonella) characterized by fever, headache, muscle ache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and a host of other symptoms. Dogs also intrinsically carry fecal coliform bacteria, the headliner of these being E. coli, a notorious agent of illness.
Among the uninvited parasitic problems transferred to humans is toxocarisis, roundworms that cause rashes, coughs, fevers, or even loss of vision.
Another avenue to disease is flies. Wherever dog poop lies exposed, you can expect to see lots of flies…that will then land on your food, your furniture, your body, you name it!
When dog poop gets washed into streams, lakes, and rivers, it decomposes as it naturally would. The problem is that the process uses oxygen, vital to fish and certain aquatic plant life, and converts the inherent nitrogen into ammonia. Loss of oxygen plus excess toxin is a formula for dead fish. Algae, essentially aquatic weeds, thrive in this environment, leaving an unbalanced and unhealthy ecosystem. Water may take on a murky look, a green hue, and exude an unpleasant, phosphorescent odor. In certain places, the effect of dog droppings on the water has forced beaches to close. The increased bacteria count kept people out of the water.
While it may not be the worst toxin found in your watershed, nor is it likely the most widespread pollutant, it’s a smaller problem that can cause big issues in your local water quality. One of the worst places to leave dog poop is next to a storm drain thinking it’ll be washed away and taken care of. The next rain comes and you will have polluted your own water supply.
The problem can be controlled with responsible dog owners. Past studies, as reported in USA Today, have estimated that 40% of Americans don’t pick up their dog poop. American Pet Products Manufacturers Association 2009-2010 National Pet Owners Survey, as reported by the Human Society of the United States, says there are 77.5 million owned dogs in the US. Forty percent of the waste produced by 77.5 million dogs amounts to a lot of pollution and many taxed ecosystems. Use doggie bags, dog poop bags, biodegradable dog poop bags those found at www.911savebeans.com. Bury the poop bags, or dispose of them in a legal container or sewage system.
 The life of an urban doglover is not always easy. Living in ahigh rise, or cramped in a small apartment, having little to no backyard, and asidewalk for a front yard doesn’t exactly spell out the storybook environmentfor raising canines. But dog loversare dog lovers and they will not be deterred: they make do.
Many city dwellers settle for smaller dogs, like Chihuahua and Shih Tzu, bred for small spaces and indoorliving, but not everyone. Some stand bytheir stolid breed, keeping retrievers and greyhounds. All of these owners across the board dealwith the issues of owning a pet in an urban environment.
Urban dogs rarelyhave the spacious yards of suburban and country dogs, for one. Much like humans, dogs need exercise and they need to socialize. They need a spacious open area to run andplay. Sometimes all it takes to change apoorly behaved dog is time rompingin the great outdoors. Interaction withother dogs teaches pets socialskills, which can also modify their behavior as they relate to those of theirown species. Instead of opening a doorfor the dog to run outside, cityowners may have the added difficulty of getting the pet down the elevator, orout the three doors to get outside.
Perhaps the most unglamorous aspect of having a dog in acity is dealing with the dog’s waste. The more dogsone has, the trickier—and messier—it can get. It’s never exactly been pretty stooping down to scoop up dog poop especially when you have threedogs, and you’re surrounded by fastmoving people as far as the eye can see.
But the fact remains that city dog owners must take care to clean up after their dogs’ droppings. Most cities in the U.S. have strict rules andregulations for cleaning up after pets. The good news is it doesn’t have to be that difficult.
Carrying around dog poopbags is a simple way to make life easier. A roll of these poop bagslooks similar to a roll of produce bags at the supermarket, but these thin yetsturdy bags are sized for the material at hand. A variety of biodegradable dog poop bagsare on the market, providing an environmentally conscious way of handling thesituation. Both the bag and its contentsdecompose into the organic components from whence they came. Pet owners can throw a roll into poop bags, or pocket, or for addedconvenience, put them in a dispenser.
To purchase biodegradabledog poop bags go to www.911savebeans.com. These bags are available in many colors, andmade to fit most poop bags dispenses currently on the market. Look for deals on free shipping.
It is a green era. People today are more conscious than ever before about their impact on the environment. Things like ‘carbon footprint’ and ‘fossil fuel emissions’ are a part of the mass population’s vocabulary. More cities and towns are recycling metals, papers, and plastics. Bike lanes are more prevalent. More consumers are reusing shopping bags for everything from groceries to shoes. In general, people are much more aware that the waste they produce will end up dumped in a landfill.
Increasingly today, companies are finding creative ways of keeping Planet Earth healthy. Biodegradable products are formulated with the ability to decompose right back into the natural materials they came from. This ideal of the green era extends into the pet industry, in the form of a biodegradable dog poop bag.
When you take an environmentally conscious population and add a biodegradable dog waste bag, the result is an environmentally friendly generation of dog walkers.
Instead of using a plastic shopping bag or a Ziploc to clean up after their dogs, these dog-walkers use a biodegradable dog waste bag. The bags are small enough to never be without, and large enough to take care of a pet’s elimination needs. The bags are designed to break down when exposed to air, sunlight, water, or a combination of all factors for an extended period of time. In other words, tie up the bag, toss it in the compost pile and be done with it. Nature will do its work.
Biodegradable bags have been around for years, emerging as a solution for the excess of plastic bags used in consumer-driven society. They were first created out of resins and heavy metals, in conjunction with starches from plants, then reformulated some years later to utilize biodegradable polymers, or polylactic acid, with the starches. The idea for biodegradable doggie bags was born of this search to use fewer plastic shopping bags.
In the past, local governments have asked pet owners to double plastic bag their dogs’ waste, so as to keep wastebaskets hygienic and natural resources uncontaminated. Therein lies a quick formula for creating a mass of plastic waste that will take up room in a landfill. The plastic also traps in organic animal waste that would normally be taken care of in a natural process of decomposition. Replacing the bag—or double bag—with biodegradable ones provides a hygienic, non-pollutant solution that keeps an eye out for the future.
Biodegradable doggie bags are available in many colors, from pink to black, and all the rainbow hues in between. Purchase in small quantities or in bulk. To join in cleaning up dog poop in an environmentally responsible manner, visit www.911savebeans.com and place your order.
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