pigging out
September 28th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Whilst we were holidaying on Dartmoor this summer, Slate disappeared over a wall on a walk and didn’t come back to her recall whistle.
This was very unusual behaviour because she has an excellent recall. So, worried, Adam ran to see what had happened. There stood Slate, her head buried in a pig trough full of pasta and potato peelings and who knows what else.
We put this down to a one-off thing. After all, it’s not very often you come across troughs full of pasta in the countryside. At least, not where we live. Maybe it is a west-country thing.
Then, yesterday, I was walking them both and had just reached the car. Grey got in the car, but Slate wasn’t with her. I looked around, and there was Slate, munching on a discarded water melon! I called her, only to be ignored again. Honestly, do dogs even like water melon?? I ran to her and dragged her away, none too pleased.
At this point I concluded that we needed to do some advanced recall practice, away from food. And what better place to start than with their own food bowls? So, that day I prepared some tasty treats by way of chopped ‘frikatellen’ (which is like small hamburger patties). I gave the dogs their food as usual. And then I sat a couple of metres away and called them to me for the frikatellen. That was the plan, anyway.
What happened was that Grey responded by eating faster. I think the thought process went something like ‘I really want that frikatellen, but I also want this food, so I have to eat this food as fast as possible, so I can get to the frikatellen before it disappears’. The concept of her food remaining in the bowl for her to return to, didn’t seem to have occurred to her. Perhaps that reasoning is too abstract for dogs?
That, or it could have been a mild indication of food-guarding. (Often, the first sign that a dog is worried you are a threat to its food, is that it eats faster. It is worried you are going to take its food away.) Attempts to approach and lure Grey away from her food bowl failed – if I put the frikatellen on the floor right by her bowl, she would snatch it and go back to her bowl. But if I tried to put it on her nose and to get her to follow it away from her bowl, she just ignored me and kept eating fast.
Slate. Now, Slate was slightly more worrying. At first things went better than with Grey. She came when called, the first few times. Then she seemed to reason that a whole bowl of food outweighed a small treat. (There have been several experiments done, examining whether or not dogs are aware of number or quantity and the conclusion is that they are.) So she then decided to keep eating her food and to get round to me when she’d finished it. I approached closer, to see if I could lure her away. When the treat was on offer, she would take it and go back to eating, but only if the treat was so close she could almost inhale it at the same time as her food. In the process of putting the treat on her nose to get her attention, I was putting my hand in her food bowl. At some point in this process she growled at me.
We did exercises to prevent food-guarding with both of them, when they were puppies. But we have been a bit slack on the maintenance side of things. So it looks like we need a recap now. So the recall-training is on hold and I’m using the very excellent ‘Mine: A Practical Guide to Resource Guarding in Dogs‘ by Jean Donaldson, to address the food-guarding.
The first stage of this is an empty bowl and me delivering the food, by approaching the bowl and dropping the food in. Gradually this moves onto holding my hand in the bowl and dispensing kibble; to touching the bowl with one hand and delivering the treat with the other; to picking the bowl up halfway and dropping the treats in, and putting it down again. Neither of them guard an empty bowl, but the purpose of this is to condition them to believe that hands come to give, not to take away. Therefore they are not a threat and don’t need to be guarded against. We move onto stages with food in the bowl next…
senior dog foods
September 21st, 2011 § 2 Comments
My lovely miniature Weimaraner, Slate, will be 7 years old next month.
I can see the age in her changing eye colours: As a puppy, she had the deepest blue eyes. These became greeny-grey colour, then yellow, and they are now becoming the beautiful deep golden colour of the older Weimaraner.
Obviously I want her to live as long as possible, and so I’m beginning to consider foods for older dogs: There are many studies which clearly demonstrate that food and certain nutrients have a beneficial and protective effect on elderly people, so it makes sense to me that they also do, for dogs.
However, most ‘senior’ dog foods are simply lighter in calories and/or protein content than the ‘adult’ version of the same food and don’t contain any extra beneficial nutrients.
Take James Wellbeloved… Their Senior foods are called ‘Senior/Light’, as if the dietary needs of the older dog and the overweight dog, are identical and interchangeable. The first two ingredients in their Senior Lamb & Rice and in their Senior Fish & Rice are: ’Rice, Ground Whole Barley’. The first two in their Senior Turkey & Rice are: ’Rice, Oats’. In their Senior Duck & Rice, we get ‘Rice, duck meal’ – hurrah, finally a meat source within the first two ingredients of the food.
There is a nod to the needs of the Senior dog by the inclusion of chondroitin & glucosamine – however the quantity of glucosamine is 0.0275%, whilst that of chondroitin is just 0.0225%. Is that really anything at all, or are they just trying to make it look like they have made provision for older dogs? Similarly, they claim to include omega 3 and 6 – yet they also include the same amount in their Adult food, so this can hardly be said to be special provision for the older dog.
Protein levels are lower across the board, in their ‘Senior/Light’ range: Lamb & Rice is still relatively high, showing 21% lamb in the Senior/Light range, compared to 26% in the Adult. But the other varieties are generally 10% lower in protein, for the Senior/Light, than the Adult. Clearly, there is half as much meat in the Senior range – in a product like James Wellbeloved, which already didn’t have a lot of it, to start with.
Let’s have a look at another successful brand, Arden Grange. They have only one Senior food for dogs: Senior with Fresh Chicken & Rice. In itself, this lack of choice for older dogs is a little disappointing – do they expect people to feed their dog the same food every day till the day it dies, with no variation? Still, there are promisingly higher protein levels here: 22%. Not only that, but ‘Chicken Meal’ is the first (and so greatest) single ingredient. Curiously, this still compares less favourably with their Adult with Fresh Chicken and Rice, which contains 25% protein.
As far as additives for the older dog go, they have also included glucosamine and chondroitin, although it’s hard to compare these to the JWB levels because AG don’t state what %s they use. They have also included ‘MSM’, which they say is an ‘ultra pure form of sulphur, derived from pine bark’, and is supposed to assist with mental alertness and psychological ageing. And also ‘L-Carnitine’, which is an amino acid which allegedly helps to convert fat to energy and so helps your dog keeps his shape in old age and not get porky. And, omega 3 and 6.
All this sounds very promising, until you realise that (as with JWB) glucosamine and chondroitin are included in the Adult version of the food too. Similarly, MSM appears at about the same place on the ingredient list of the Adult food, so also isn’t specific to the Senior. And omega 3 & 6? Again, they are also in the Adult food, in almost identical quantities. Which leaves us with what, exactly, which is unique to the Senior food? L-Carnitine.
Conclusion? This is a better Senior food than JWB’s, but really, is this the best we can come up with? The small addition of an amino acid, which has not been proven to function as advertised?
Still reading? One more to go…
I wanted to include one of the more ‘commercial’ and mainstream foods, to finish. ProPlan has recently introduced a new version of its Senior food which contains a new formula called ‘Anti Age’. (Hmm… I smell a whiff of marketing there.) The food comes in two different flavours: Senior 7+ Sensitive Salmon with Rice and Senior 7+ Original Chicken with Rice.
Taking the Senior 7+ Chicken with Rice first, this is actually brilliantly high in protein (something which ProPlan is renowned to be, across the board), with 29% protein. Chicken is also the first (and greatest) ingredient, with the second ingredient being ‘dehydrated poultry protein’ – so the first 2 ingredients are a meat source. (Of course we could now be picky about whether they are human-grade, or whether we are talking beaks and claws with the latter.) (Although I’ve never quite understood everyone’s revulsion about the beaks and claws possibility with some foods – some BARF feeders expect dogs to eat the lot, and they would in the wild too, and Grey is only too eager to crunch any part of a rabbit’s anatomy she finds – so why are pet food critiques so anti this?) There is also maize and wheat mentioned, which can be controversial in some dog foods and have been linked to allergies in some dogs.
Turning to the Senior 7+ Sensitive Salmon with Rice: Again this is high in protein, with 28% protein. Salmon is also the first ingredient, with the second being ‘dehydrated salmon protein’ – so again, the first 2 ingredients are a meat source. (Now then, does the latter include inedible parts of the salmon, like, um, the tail and the head? If so, I don’t care.) This time, there is no wheat in the food, but there is considerable maize.
As for the ‘Anti Age’ formula, the website is a little heavy on the blurb and marketing and a little thin on the bare facts. I’m not sure if the Anti Age formula is in the Salmon food, as it doesn’t mention it there – but it is in the Chicken variety. They claim that Anti-Age is ‘patent pending’ and has had a paper published thereby ‘proving’ its effects. The paper is said to be:
‘Pan et al, (2010) Dietary supplementation with medium-chain TAG has long-lasting cognition-enhancing effects in aged dogs: Brit J of Nutr’
So I did a bit of Googling and found the paper. The abstract states:
The present study focused on the hypothesis that dietary supplementation with medium-chain TAG (MCT) will improve cognitive function in aged dogs by providing the brain with energy in the form of ketones. Aged Beagle dogs were subjected to a baseline battery of cognitive tests, which were used to establish cognitively equivalent control or treatment groups. The dogs in the treatment group were maintained on a diet supplemented with 5.5 % MCT. After an initial wash-in period, all the dogs were tested with a battery of cognitive test protocols, which assessed sequentially landmark discrimination learning ability, egocentric visuospatial function and attention. The groups were maintained on the diets for 8 months. The MCT-supplemented group showed significantly better performance in most of the test protocols than the control group. The group differences also varied as a function of task difficulty, with the more difficult task showing greater supplementation effects than the easier tasks. The group given the MCT supplement showed significantly elevated levels of beta-hydroxybutyrate, a ketone body. These results indicate, first, that long-term supplementation with MCT can have cognition-improving effects, and second, that MCT supplementation increases circulating levels of ketones. The results support the hypothesis that brain function of aged dogs can be improved by MCT supplementation, which provides the brain with an alternative energy source.
Who funded the study? Purina: Nestlé Purina Research, St Louis, MO 63164, USA
And so, am I any closer? Shall I believe the research funded by the manufacturers of the food itself? Shall I continue the hunt for a decent Senior food which acknowledges the unique needs of the older dog?
I think it is time for a cup of tea.
Orijen review
September 18th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
When we planned to breed Grey, we had intended to feed her Orijen during pregnancy. Orijen was the highest protein food I could find, and everything I read suggested that the higher the protein content of food during pregnancy, the better. So I got in a bag of Orijen in preparation.
When we decided not to go ahead with breeding Grey, we then had this bag to use up. So, during the summer holidays, the dogs were fed on Orijen for a while.
I know about the excellent reviews Orijen has received from many, many people. And I’ve read all the blurb on the website about it, including Orijen’s ‘white paper‘. The ingredients indeed are excellent and everything about the company seems fantastic.
Well, the only problem, is that it creates sloppy poos in both dogs. This is actually the second time we’ve tried Orijen: We also tried it a while back when it first became available in the UK. It had exactly the same results, both times.
I wondered if perhaps I was feeding too much of it, and that it was more rich than other comparable foods, and perhaps ‘over-feeding’ was causing the runny poos. So I massively reduced the quantity I was feeding – Slate was getting literally half the amount she gets of other foods. Still the poos were sloppy. Not to the degree that we had to stop using the food – they weren’t diahorrea – but they were difficult to pick up cleanly.
After Googling ‘Orijen runny’, a lot of reviews and accounts on various forums came up – all reporting similar problems. Consistently people propose ‘over-feeding’ as a reason and suggest that reducing the amount fed will help. For my dogs, this really had no effect even when I continued feeding the reduced amount for 2 weeks. Slate lost quite a bit of weight, in fact. After a month on it, I think I gave it long enough of a trial to see whether my dogs were getting used to it.
So – no more Orijen. Which is just as well, because it’s bloody expensive and Mike’s WorkingHPRs food is far more economical, produces beautiful poos and both dogs love it. I reviewed it a while back here.
back from holiday
September 10th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
We are back from our long holiday: 10 days in Jersey with family, then 10 days in Devon – mostly on Dartmoor, although also on the River Tamar.
The dogs have hardly been on lead all summer, from running on Jersey beaches through to running on Dartmoor and in woodland. All our holiday properties had direct access to either moorland or woodland, with no need for leads. Our final property had its own beautiful pond in front of it, which the dogs enjoyed swimming in daily. (Not least because it also had 3 ducks, who happily escaped easily every time Slate stalked them.)
And, although they are not allowed on the furniture at home, the dogs don’t seem to have generalised this rule to unfamiliar furniture, so they could often be found luxuriously ensconced on sofas in front of burning open fires.
They have feasted on delicious poo of all descriptions: Cow poo, horse poo, sheep poo, rabbit poo. And Grey has indulged in some parfume de fox poo dabbed around her neck as well.
Slate, meanwhile, decided it would be a good idea to roll in a rotting cow on Dartmoor. At least, that’s what I think it was, as I’ve never smelt anything quite like it. (Adam thought it was rancid milk.) We got her to swim quite a bit, to get rid of the smell, but it never quite left her until we got home yesterday and I shampooed and conditioned them both. (Also wormed them both with Panacur, so they are clean both inside and out, after all that poo-eating!)
I can’t imagine a better doggie holiday. Besides which, they were both well-behaved, and easily adjusted to the changes of property, even being happy to sleep in the sitting room and not coming to pester us in our bedroom at nights!
