Lucky Dog Blog

Simba's a Lucky Dog

Simba from popdogblog sent us a BIG thank you for sending him some Lucky Dog Biscuits. SUPER CUTE, check it out! I LOVE the middle picture, it's all blurry like he's dying to find out what in the nice box!

Food for Thought - Cat food recipe (chicken)

Last post, we got ready for the mental toughness you may need to covert your cat to a homemade food. Remember, you'll need patience, tricks and the homemade food on hand.

Below is a homemade chicken recipe. Give it a shot, it's super SUPER easy and the cool thing about cats is they're a lot smaller so less food goes a long way.

I chopped up all of the ingredients in this recipe because I know it's what Calico likes. If you have a grinder handy, you can grind too..or just purchase ground meats.

Cat Food Recipe #1 - Chicken

1.5 kg fresh boneless skinless chicken thighs, drumsticks or breast meat

150g chicken liver

300g chicken heart

150g chicken gizzards (stomachs)

2 eggs

Calcium supplement or eggshells from the eggs

1-2 cups Water

cold water fish oil

6 tsp psyllium husks (optional)

 

Muscle meat - Muscle meat makes up most of the meal. Cats are true carnivores; they require and thrive on meat.

Liver - If you can't find liver, you can substitute with 40,000 IU of Vitamin A and 1600 IU of Vitamin D but chicken liver is usually available and a much better source of vitamins. Vitamin A is required for vision and growth and well as the immune system. Vitamin D helps keeps the other minerals in check as well as used in muscles, blood and the nervous system.

Gizzards - or chicken stomachs are another source of muscle meat like the thighs and the heart but they contain high amounts of selenium which has antioxidant properties.

Heart - Heart contains higher amounts of taurine than muscle or other organ meat. Taurine is an amino acid (a protein building block) required by all cats because the cannot manufacture it themselves, which make is an essential amino acid.  The eyes, heart, digestion and reproduction systems all rely on taurine. If you cannot find chicken heart, you can substitute with 3000g of powered taurine (you can find this at the health food store).

Eggs - A great source of calcium if you use the shells but also contains good fats and additional proteins.

Calcium - in this recipe, the calcium comes from the egg shells like in the dog food recipes. You need 800mg - 1000mg of Calcium per pound of food cooked. This is approximately a 4.5 pound recipe, therefore you need 3600 - 4500mg of calcium. Large egg shells have approximately 2000mg of calcium. You can either add 2 large dried and ground eggshells, which equal to 2 tsps of dried ground eggshells. OR you can purchase bone meal or calcium supplements, crush and add to the mix. If you are purchasing calcium supplements, avoid those with Vitamin D.

Water - Water is the single most important necessary for sustaining life functions. Cats will consume more water from eating a moist diet vs. eating a dry kibble and drinking water.

Cold water fish oil - Wanna see your cats coat sparkle? You're off to a great start with this food but fish oil will take it over the top. Fish oil contains fatty acids which will make your cats coat be-u-tiful! Fatty acids also help pump up the immune system and are good for the heart.

Psyllium husks - If you cat has been fed a low quality commercial dry diet it's whole life, it may require extra fibre until it adapts to a grain free diet.

Chop all meat ingredients into small bite sized pieces (cat bite, not your bite) and place into a casserole dish. Add eggs, calcium, psyllium, water and mix.

***DO NOT ADD THE FISH OIL YET. Follow the directions on the package and add the fish oil to each meal when served. The fatty acids in fish oil are very fragile and are best kept cold until use on each meal.

Bake at 350 for 90 minutes. Cool and mix well so no fat is pooling. When cooled package into 5 small tupperware containers if feeding one cat. Store more food in less containers if you are feeding more than one cat. Put one container in the fridge and the rest in the freezer.

Feeding - Vets will recommend that when switching foods to blend them over 3-4 days, increasing the amount of new food and decreasing the amount of the old food as the days go on. This may be necessary for cats that have always been on the same kibble or type of food for years. You'll likely find in the future that you'll be able to switch up your cat's food without incidence but for now, blend the foods for 3-4 days. You may be doing this anyway if your cat has trouble transitioning to wet food.

Cats require 2-3 oz of food per day. Here is a picture 1.5 oz of food just to give you an idea of how much to feed if you're feeding your cat twice a day.

So there you have it...good good food for your cat.

Enjoy!

Bonnie

Ace likes our biscuits

This means absolutely nothing to people who live outside of Winnipeg but Hot 103's Ace Burpee has tasted our biscuits.  In a direct quote, "I've eaten many a dog biscuit in my day, and these are tops!!!" (yes he used that many exclamation marks.)  Ace has ROCK STAR status here in the 'peg.  The dude is everywhere.  And tons of people listen to his morning show.  You can too if you go here. 

So it all started with a note from Kal saying that Dan heard Ace talking about the Wal-Mart pet recall.  I didn't hear it because I was out rowing and it really isn't recommended to have eletronics in the boat.  Sorry Ace.  Safety first.  So I dropped off some samples for Ace and Chrissy to try and he did.  His dog Penny also loves the biscuits which is actually MORE important than Ace liking them.

Next step - getting Oprah to try them.

That was the boost I needed today for that final push to the long weekend. 

I believe you will be hearing more from Bonnie today on cat food so stay tuned.

mavis

Cat food - prep yourself

We've had several requests since this blog started to post information on making a homemade cat food. Homemade cat food may take a lot of work but if you're willing to take the time, it's very rewarding and piece of mind.

I'm not a fan of cat food kibble. Cats are strict carnivores which means they require meat to survive. All meat contains a high percent moisture where kibble has a very low moisture content, often less than 10%. Cats will drink water if fed a dry diet but it is less water than would be consumed if they were fed a wet diet. When you look at how common kidney and bladder conditions are in cats, wet food is good consideration to help prevent these heath issues.

There are excellent wet cat foods on the market, ones you can be sure do not contain any crazy plastic ingredients. Talk to your local holistic pet food store and have them review your options. Canned food is still fairly heat treated to be canned so making own food is also a good choice.

We were feeding Calico, our little domesticated lion, a diet of mixed canned foods until recently when we started to make her food at home. We initially transitioned her from canned to home cooked and in the next few months will transition her again to raw.

Making food for cats is a bit of a tricky proposition. In fact, there are cats that won't touch moist food with a 10 foot paw. Sounds crazy but when you've been eating the equivelent of deep fried food soaked in animal digest for your whole life, switching to a healthy moist alternative would be hard for anycat. There is a very good possibility you could create this fantastic quisine for your beloved cat to have them turn their nose up and walk away. To reduce the risk of a bad start, you have to do a little homework.

First, determine the following with some sampling..

1. Does your cat have a preference for dark or light meat if your cooking chicken?
2. Does your cat like salmon? Rabbit? Any other meats?
   
3. Does your cat need to have the meat ground or will he eat it if it's cut into small chunks?
4. Will your cat eat a semi moist food or does it have to be very moist?
5. Will your cat eat moist food at all?
6. Will your cat eat cooked or raw or both?

Cats are finicky about everything; who they spend time with, where they pee, where they sleep, and most of all, they're CRAZY finicky about their food. It could be the moisture, the aroma, temperature, meat type, you watching them eat..you get the picture.

Because of this you may have to try different gimmicks to get your cat to try a new, home made moist food. See below if you cat is having issues transitioning to a new food. Keep in mind this could take a very VERY long time but it's worth getting your cat off a diet of exclusively crack kibble and add real foods (Again, not all kibbles are horrendous but there is plenty of literature supporting the theory that cats far benefit from a wet diet vs a dry kibble diet.) You'll need a batch of homemade food on hand and a whole lotta patience!

Second, try some tricks..

1. Stop free feeding kibble and establish a twice a day feeding time to get hunger on your side.
2. Try warming the homemade food
3. Mix a teeny weeny bit of homemade food with the dry food. Be persistent. Even if they eat around it, put it there for every meal, slowly increasing the amount.

Tomorrow I'll post the recipe and why we add what we add and why we don't add what we don't add.

Good Luck!
Bonnie

And the Winner for Week 13 of the Lucky Dog photo contest IS...

Boomer Brown!!
Name: Boomer (Also known as Boomy, Boom Boom, and Boomaloomadingdong)

Location: California, however he is getting very tired of the traffic and smog. His dream is to one day move to live with his Auntie Maile where he can roam the wide open spaces of Texas. He wants to wear rattleskin boots and chaps and a bolo tie, and feels that California is cramping his Cowdog style.

Special Talents: He is very charmingly charming and can make even the biggest dog-hater want to kidnap His Cuteness forever.

Check out that picture submitted by his superstar talented Aunt Maile of Relish Portrait Studio! It looks like it should be an 8 x 10 foot painting on the wall is some crazy mansion next to the queen and your rich Great Great Aunt Bea. Or, like Maile says, he just needs a smoking jacket to complete the look. FU-
NNY!

Congratulations Boomer! Please forward us your address so we can send you your Lucky Dog Biscuits.

****To submit your favorite dog picture to the weekly Lucky Dog photo contest, please send your photos with a bio to service@luckydogbiscuits.com and put "photo contest"in the subject. Winners are announced weekly. Check out the nominees so far in the "Lucky Nominees" photo album. GOOD LUCK!

Dogbook

Here's a lighter topic for a Friday.  Dogbook! 

I was listening to the late night news and this came up.  Everyone has probably heard about the crazy world of Facebook.  If you haven't or aren't on it, it is incredibly addictive world-wide social utility (the novelty eventually wears off).  You can find friends that you haven't seen since grade school, share pictures and cast Harry Potter spells.  Basically, lots of things to keep you from doing the stuff that you are supposed to be doing.  Anyway, now your dogs and cats (through Catbook) can be a part of the phenomena.  Of course I had to check it out right away and get Cooper's picture up.  Curly isn't much of a networker so I've left him out.  I don't think he minds.

It's really just another application that you add to your own Facebook page, which means now marketers can collect information on you and your pet.  Brilliant!  The application was created by a 21 year old Concordia University student.  Since the launch of Dogbook on June 6,  as of this morning the site has 425,718 dogs signed up and is getting about 1500 new users a day.  The commercial reason for creating Dogbook is to sell advertising space.  When you join Facebook, you probably didn't read the "fine print" otherwise known as the terms of use.  It's a long winded page written in lawyer-speak about all the stuff they are allowed to do with your information.  I never did make it through it all.  Your info is basically the price you pay to play.  Facebook Inc. can then turn around and sell services such as target marketing through flyers, asking Facebook users to participate in surveys, and other fun marketing stuff.  It's great for companies since it allows the company to pick the age range, gender, location and special interests (such as pets).  Way to go Facebook developers for figuring this stuff out.  The CEO, by the way, is 23 (that's years old). At 150,000 new users per day, I'd say you found yourself an interested market.

Anyway back to Dogbook.  When you sign your dog up, you get to specify favourite treats (yes Cooper's profile says Lucky Dog Biscuits), favourite parks and favourite activities.  You can search for new dog friends in your area, add dog friends and search by breed.  And your dog can post messages on their dog friend's wall.  Of course, it is just a great place to showcase your little fur-kid through pictures and interests. 

Check it out if you are a Facebooker. It's cute.

Have a great weekend.  We plan to hit a new dog park, make new friends (the old fashion way through bum sniffing) and enjoy the fading days of summer.

One correction to the last post

Apparently Wal-Mart did pull the products off the shelf in July when they received complaints, they just neglected to announce this to the thousands of people who already purchased the tainted product until this week.  My bad.  I don't want to misrepresent Wal-Mart's actions.  Wal-Mart is now saying you should return your treats.  'Cause I'm sure you still have those in your cupboard after a month.  One report on MSNBC has quote from Consumer Report's senior director of product safety planning stating...

"...it might not have hurt to give people an informal notice so they could choose whether to keep using the treats."

Really?  Letting people make informed decisions?  Hmph.  Not a bad concept.

Enjoy your day.  I'll keep you posted on anything else I find.

Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers

We'll be having a sale on Chicken Jerky Strips from Import-Pingyang Pet Product Co. and Chicken Jerky from Shanghai Bestro Trading in aisle five.  No wait!  Scratch that - we can't... BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN MELAMINE!! Instead we will be secretly taking them off the shelf and hope that nobody has already purchased these products, fed them to their dog, and now their dog has DIED.

So here's the story.  In July, consumers at Wal-Mart complained that their pets were getting sick from the above mentioned products. JULY!  Wal-Mart had to conduct TESTS to see what was causing the problem.  Does Wal-Mart management not watch the news?  Are they not aware that melamine has killed a bunch of pets?  Wouldn't it be prudent to remove the product on the assumption that these Chinese made products just might be tainted with melamine?  Is that such a stretch?  Instead, they make an announcement YESTERDAY, AUGUST 21st that the treats are tainted with low levels of melamine.  SHOCKER!  Come on.  And they still aren't issuing a formal recall because the melamine content was very low and they need to do more testing.  I'm sorry - I didn't realize there was an acceptable melamine content level for pet food.  Especially given the various sizes of dogs.  I'm sure a Chihuahua can handle that low level just as well as a Great Dane.  In fact, one woman claimed that her two year old Chihuahua died from eating these products.  I guess the levels weren't low enough were they Wal-Mart?

Those products again were:

Chicken Jerky Strips from Import-Pingyang Pet Product Co

Chicken Jerky from Shanghai Bestro Trading

Wal-Mart's "official" statement can be found here.  In my opinion, it's pretty weak.  And I tried to get onto the website for the Bestro treats.  It's been deactivated.  They have, for your convenience, translated the deactivation message into seven different languages though.  How's that for standing behind your product?  It also appear that both products are made by the same company.  And one last question - if these are 100% Chicken meat, where is the melamine coming from?  HMMM... Perhaps there's a little tainted wheat gluten in there to increase the protein content. Or maybe it is helping bind together all of the scraps of left over meat.  Who knows? 

Please throw them out if you have any of these products in your house.  Or better yet, take them back to Wal-Mart and demand that they be taken off the shelf.  I don't know if these products exist in Canada.  They probably do. 

So what is a consumer to do?

Please read your labels and make sure you know where your food and treats are coming from.  Keep your eye out for wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate.  Until regulators figure out how to prevent tainted products from hitting the shelves, you won't know the quality of ingredients being used in your pet foods and toys.  Unless the ingredients are human grade.  Then at least the ingredients have gone through some standards and testing.  This melamine thing is far from over.  As more tainted products are coming out (toothpaste, children's toys) we are finding just how lax the regulations are for Chinese made products. 

I'm sure I will have more to say about the subject tomorrow.

Thank-you

Thanks Melissa for all of your suggestions.  I think I'm going to order a case of bags since I am always going to need them.  I've also found they make handy garbage bags for the car.  People find it a little odd, and are suspicious of the contents at first, but they would KNOW if I had the real thing in there. 

In other news, it's a quiet day here in sunny Winnipeg.  That means it is time to get some Christmas planning done.  It is so hard to think about snow and presents in August but that is the time when the magic happens.  We are planning on selling our Winter Mixer again this year.  It is a SUPER CUTE gift package with it's own gift tag and contains a mix of all four FABULOUS Lucky Dog Flavours.

We had a ton of fun designing this.  We came up with a little song for the side (I think most of you will recognize the tune) and the gift tags has lots of fun reasons to give the gift of Lucky Dog.  Lots of laughing goes into the making of a new package like this.  We can get some crazy ideas - not all of them suitable for the general public.  And then the fabulous Kal - the iDEAMONSTER gets busy turning all of our crazy ideas into a work of art - yes that is art. It is truly a magical process.

(Click on the gift tag to enlarge into a readable size)

A word of warning though, we have a limited number of these in stock so if you really want them you have to get to the store early.  Once they are gone, you'll have to wait for our next creative brainwave!

Well I guess I better get busy so I can hit the dog park early today.  Curly is at the groomer getting spiffed up for a romp around the park.  Since he's at the groomer I guess Cooper gets another ride along today for deliveries.  Lucky little white dog.

Have a great Wednesday!

Mavis

Stinky Business

So I was walking Curly and Cooper this morning, poop bags in hand, and the thought occurred to me - why do they bother making scented poop bags?  It isn't as if the "spring time fresh" smell is going to cover up the odour of last night's beef and broccoli extravaganza.  NOTHING covers up that smell.  So all it really does is wreck the spring time scent for any other purpose such as air fresheners or laundry detergent.  I unfortunately made the mistake of picking up said bags because they were biodegradable only to find out they were scented.  And it wasn't even a nice scent BEFORE use.  The after use smell was horrible.

Scents just don't work so please Mr. and Ms. Poop Bag makers stop making them. I'm sure it will save you time and money by not adding the extra chemicals.  Poop stinks and there is really no pleasant way of dealing with it unless I grow six foot long arms.

I am on the lookout for some good biodegradable baggies.  One company mentioned in this great new book called Ecoholic by Adria Vasil is BioBag Canada.  The bags are compost tested and will breakdown under composting conditions in 40 days, unlike regular plastic bags which some literature says takes 100 years.  That's pretty gross for considering the waste going into the bag is naturally biodegradable.  There is also debate on some biodegradable bags that SAY they are biodegradable, but what they really do is break apart into smaller plastic pieces after being exposed to UV light for a while.  I can't remember the exact details but it wasn't my idea of biodegradable.  So I'm looking for something that has gone through some type of testing to prove the claims.  Hey, if I'm going to pay extra for bags, I want to make sure I'm getting the real deal. I haven't been able to find the BioBags yet so if anyone has an idea, or has a favourite NON-SCENTED, biodegradable bag that they like, please let me know.  My nose thanks you!

from Mavis and her poop generators