malsam

as far as I noe, there are no vaccines that can actually "last" you 3 years or 1 year. Vaccines are not medication that resides in your dog's body. Vaccines are just meagre dozes of viruses going into the dog to "wake up" the defenses inside their them. I dun do vaccination yearly myself so I'm not really sure what vets have nowadays.

There are a 1 year or a 3 year protocol, having the latter to address issues from vacinosis. If you are afraid that your dog is not protected against any kind of illnesses, simply do the titer test before u decide to jab or not. Results have shown in the US that 3 years per jab is more reasonable, considering the huge amount of jabs they had already taken in their early years. Some would last you 5 years and some last a lifetime!

hi,

has anyone try this product before?

http://www.healthydog.co.nz

A friend of mine stay in UK, she told me alot of dogs owners there flown this product over. The website states their client get dramatic results.

I see. Well, since all the publications I've read don't mention this, and you won't reference your statements, I'll just have to not take your word for it.

I can say that none of the veterinary textbooks I've read (quite a few) and none of the peer reviewed papers I've read (quite a few) have mentioned anything to do with the idea that mixing different types of food is "bad" or "inefficient", despite them being very thorough in discussing other areas of canine nutrition and digestion. Rather strange that they'd leave it out if there was any information out there...

I have, however, seen many wacky and unsubstantiated websites make similar claims about not mixing food types (for both dogs and humans), but as I'm sure you know, you can't believe everything you read on the web.

Yea, no web info...mostly from formal publication and life trials. I dun limit myself to only english media publication, so the things I've read may sound pretty "confusing" to others. Knowledge and discoveries are found and practice all over the world. I try to read as widely as I can....unless of those that I cannot read. Try getting this book :

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Paws-Five-Direc...9805&sr=8-1

Then you probably have an idea of many school of thoughts are there in veterinary science.

Ah, so what you meant to say was that vets never used to take canine or feline nutritional classes in their studies, but now they do take them.

Sadly I think that vet might be one of the few, if not the only vet that has that. I will be seeing him again this coming saturday, I'll probably ask him about this topic and see what does his course covered and about this topic too. I know holistic vets will talk about that, the rest will just tell you they have no formal references like what you have just mentioned.

I don't think it's optimal. I don't think it's suboptimal. I don't think there's any very significant difference, since there's no physiological reason for there to be a significant difference.

Until tested, the idea that there is any difference in the dog's efficiency of digestion when you mix foods in dogs, when other species cope with this just fine, and where there is no known physiological mechanism for this inefficiency to occur, is just a hypothesis, and IMO should not be presented as fact.

I see, at least I know whats the view of vets now.

The word you want to use is ADAPT not evolve.

Yea, slipped off my mind.

So you do mean the human body has evolved to process artifical preservatives in modern food?

Sorry, this is totally untrue.

Modern artifical preservatives have been with us for an extremely short time - less than 50 years in main stream use. This is two generations in human terms and there is absolutely no way humans have evolved to process artifical preservatives in two generations. Absolutely untrue. And what about people in "primitive" societies who are lucky enough not to have a maccas just around the corner - I assume they have evolved along with us despite their lack of need to do so?

If you mean that the human body has evolved to consume the modern processed foods, then I totally disagree

Sorry if I sound confusing to you on this point. It will depends on how you draw the timeline for the word "evolved". What I mean is basically from Point A to Point B, whereby Point A is what humans originally eats when still living in the wild. And point B is current. Lets assume humans and animals eg, crocodiles both live in the wild in Point A. Humans maybe eating fruits and berries, meat etc. Crocodiles eat raw meat. In point B i.e current time, humans are eating burgers, drinking coke, smoking cigarettes while crocodiles still eat....only raw meat. What I intend to say is that humans are able to create different forms of food type and can survive on them...while animals and dogs alike, are not so well adapted to our food that we created over time.

Beer is not a modern creation - it has been around for an extremely long time. Yes, methods have changed and not for the better but the actual fermentation process is extremely old.

As for "feeling OK" after drinking Coke, Maccas or any of the other modern preservative packed food - er, no I don't think so. MOST people are actually very badly affected by such things but don't realise how badly it is affecting their wellbeing until they stop eating or drinking highly processed/preservative packed foods & drinks

Yes we can eat and drink the stuff but it's not what we have evolved to eat/drink.

Again I apologize for the misleading word....beer and coke is something that we do not natively have in our diet....i.e in timeline point A.

Dogs can "survive" on all the same stuff as we can, but it's no better for them than it is for us.

Yes, thats exactly what I want to say....animals who live with us have to get used to the food and environment we have access to and not what they do best in. We are very much constraint on what we can get and what we think is best for them.

Washroom - I assume you mean toilet to poop? It totally depends on the education of the doctor and the diet of the person. Once every second day is considered perfectly normal in some circles (high protein low carb people). Toilet to pee, well that one would depend on how much you drink, the temperature and whether or not you have had kids :rolleyes:

haha...yea, I agree with that. A lot depends on the food and how efficient you are in digesting them. I'm not so sure about pooing every other day I guess like what you mention, doctors, food intake, your working schedule, stress, age etc will all play a part. And the ideal number of times to poo will depend on which school of education your doctors and yourself are from. We are crystal on that.

Quotes from a pet food company don't count as a real reference as far as I'm concerned.

However there is a lot of good information available on basic physiology, the mechanics of digestion, etc, out there in peer reviewed literature and veterinary or medical textbooks. These are not sponsored by any pet food company. So since you are discussing physiology and digestion, it should be easy for you to provide references to back up what you are saying.

Indeed there is...which is why I am pointing this out. You can just check on any good books on canine nutrition and veterinary medical journals or simply google them and read from reputable sources you should be able to get that idea. Many years back when I first started reading all these canine nutritional works, canine food only revolves introduction of great ingredients telling you which are the super foods, what food gives the dog this and what food gives you that. Very rarely you see works published telling you the synergy of food, the efficiency of food types and how digestible they are. It is only through recent years or probably in this decade, many starts to take a good look at the digestion health...which is why all the probiotics, yoghurt, lassi or kefir are flooding the shelves now. It is not what you eat that matters...its what you can digest that counts.

A recent news published (sori i dun remember the source coz I saw it off TV) stating a village in Japan produce a lot of villagers that live pass a hundred years old. Scientist went into research trying to find out why are they able to do that because the food they eat are nothing special. The only difference is all of them are of organic nature with no chemicals.

Sorry I'm too lazy to dig out formal publications to quote them here.... and its more of a collection and self complied knowledge that we read and experience through trials and feedbacks from people who keep dogs over the years.

Strange, because I'm at vet school now, and I distinctly remember the lectures, exams, and field trip we had for canine & feline nutrition last year... you can't believe everything people tell you. Vets certainly do attend nutritional classes.

haha yea...the people that told me are vets that are already in practice for many years. Universities are including them now because this issue is severe enough for gurus in veterinary science to address the problem directly. And that is how the vet I mention previously got a diploma in clinical nutrition in vet science. Else why would he still be interested to get 1 if its already covered in his undergraduate course?

Not to mention the fact we also attend several years worth of physiology classes, in which we learn about things like digestion, and we also take biochemistry classes, where we learn about what happens to the food once it is digested. We don't graduate as specialists in canine nutrition by any stretch, but whoever told you we don't attend nutrition classes at all is lying to you.

Hmm...so you mean your school already conducted experiments in the lab to prove that it can be optimal to mix different food states like canned, raw and HCF together and it don't matter or affect the dogs digestion system and nutritional intake at all?

Can you please provide a reference for that, since it sounds like hokum to me. People survive in an artificial environment and on a processed food diet, but I have never seen evidence that we thrive in one, let alone that we thrive better than other animals.

Ops, I guess I mislead that one also...I didn't meant to say that humans will "thrive" in the environment we created, I meant to say that we are adapting ok in the world we are living now unlike animals that will go extinct, get deformed if you change their native habitat. Lets just say humans are highly adapted or versatile to change. Again whether its optimal or not is debatable...as humans are still trying to create an ideal world for all of us to "thrive" in. But generally speaking if human populations are growing and mortality rate is low, life expectancy is high, its is already reference to say that we seems to be doing ok now.

Our species has simply not had long enough to significantly evolve to suit a diet based on processed foods, any more than dogs have. That's why people whose lifestyle mimicks our ancestral lifestyle (lots of exercise, lots of fresh vegetables and fruit, little sugar, few processed foods) tend to have lower death rates from cancer, heart disease, etc than people with a "modern" lifestyle who don't exercise much and eat eat a diet comprised mainly of processed, fatty, artificial foods.

Yes indeed...and to complicate things more, how you define quality of life again varies from people to people. An environment without dogs to me is stressful, but some people are more stressed when dogs are around them

Can you reference your source, please?

Academically, you cannot, because every pet food companies will published their own research advocating their food is the best. Logically and on clinical trials, it does. Just quote an eg from kibble companies. When you switch from kibble A to B, Kibble B company will advice you against changing everything at once. You are suppose to change them slowly over a few days. So looking at this statement, one would already understand how it will affect the digestion system when you just switch food that are prepared differently. Not to mention we are talking about changing the chemical state of the food given i.e cooked versus raw versus canned!

Another reference would be to call up kibble companies that do not produce BARF products whether is it advisable to mix their food with raw and also ask commercial BARF producers the same question. Some will tell you canned and kibble can be mixed...because the companies sell both. Commercial BARF like Dr B patties will tell you the difference in the food content will trigger a very different digestion environment to be cultivated in the body. At least that is what my friends told me when they ask their suppliers or any other commercial raw products they are feeding.

Well I absolutely no idea about any of that . I was just trying to make life interesting for the dogs. I wonder how many vets know this?

You can still stick to 1 type of food and varies them for nutritional varieties. When I am feeding kibbles, I will get all the different favours that the same kibble brand have. And I do not give them the same formula eg. chicken everyday. I will give varieties such as monday chicken, tuesday beef, wednesday mutton....you get the idea.

Dogs are not humans....they do not need the kind of varieties that humans fancies like sashimi (raw), roast duck (cooked), pickles (canned) in one single meal.

Well, if there was actually any good evidence in favour of the information, they'd probably be more likely to teach it to vets...

I was told vets do not attend nutritional classes....Idk but there is only 1 vet in the country I stay that actually attended a course in clinical nutrition for canines.

Neither humans nor dogs have had time to evolve to thrive on a diet of processed foods. Both humans and dogs can generally live on processed foods, but it's not optimal for humans any more than it is for dogs.

Indeed its a known fact that humans can adapt much much better in an artificial environment (be it air, food, environment etc) and no other animals can do it as well as us. The natural world is cruel...and every living organisms are trying to survive under efficient conditions and so do dogs. Humans create our environment, which make us feel complacent, greedy and ultimately wasteful.

Dogs (and people, and other animals) do develop slightly different microflora in their guts when fed different diets, but I have seen no reputable evidence to indicate that dogs can't adapt to efficiently digesting a mixed diet, just like we do. Feeding one food only for a long time then making a sudden switch to another can sometimes cause temportary digestive upsets (in dogs and in people), but regularly rotating foods is different. It's not like you only have one type of bacteria growing in your guts, or can make only one type of digestive enzyme at once!

Medically speaking, if you use alot of different types of food, be it within a day or a week or whatever frequency you would term it as "regular", you will experience your dog having all sorts of different poo type. Any good doctors will tell you that the poo of a patient can tell you a lot about their health. To give you an eg, when I feed kibbles on the 1st meal and HCF on the 2nd meal, my dogs will have very soft poo with a very pungent smell. That kind of poo does not belongs to a healthy and efficient dog.

Having said that, an inefficient digestion systems does not mean your dog is going to die in that sense. It just builds up a lot of behaviour and health problems which the owner will faced if you have that dog long enough. I can feed my kids fast food everyday...and they will still grow up to be healthy boys and girls and probably fertile man and woman. It will take some times before issues arises as they aged....and that is the thing that will worry dog owners (parents).

As for animals getting "fussy" when they are fed different foods, I personally give my dogs and cats different foods on a regular basis, and they seem to enjoy the variety, and are all very healthy and happy. However if giving variety was making them fussy, I wouldn't do it. They might enjoy the variety, but they don't need it. And I doubt they'd miss it too much once they got used to eating the same thing every day.

Indeed dogs do not need the variety for the taste. They need variety for the nutrition in that sense. And when I say variety, as mentioned above, I mean varieties in terms of different types of ingredients...not the chemical state of food like cooked, raw, canned etc. If you varies your ingredients, not only they get a balanced diet, they will be anticipating different favours everyday since they only get to taste it like once or twice in a week.

I am assuming that by "chemical processed food" you mean the differences between carbohydrates, proteins and fats? If so, would it not be simpler to say humans are omnivores and dogs are carnivores?

haha, I'm not going make a stand on the topic of whether are dogs carnivores or not and my bad for using that phrase - "chemical processed food"..... I should have it written as "food that are chemically processed". Which I meant by foods having chemicals which can be used as artificial preservatives, in the extraction method, to blend with other ingredients etc.

If you mean that the human body has evolved to consume the modern processed foods, then I totally disagree

I dunno why you would disagree with this unless you have seen kangaroos or wombats (or any animals) are like us, feeling ok after drinking coca cola or beer.

Obviously you are not someone who follows a low carb high protein diet...........

lol....no, my diet is more of one that matches my blood group.

Try asking any doctors how much times should we go to the washroom in a day to be considered healthy. Because of the food we eat, if we do likewise as other animals, we would probably be in hospital already!

when u get the insurance for your dog, its the insurance company as well as your responsibility to find out and declared any pre-existing complications. If you have declared that, you most probably get higher premiums...and that is for the condition that the insured are more likely to get into a pre-condition.

If you have done that, then it wouldn't matter, not to mention that the pre-condition is not the cause or contributed to the death of the insured.

u can try the herm spenger curagon fur savers or chain. The material is less prone to develop allergic reaction to the dog...and they won't dis-colourise your dog coat colour as well.

From the food you are giving, I can see why your dogs are fussy eaters.

I won't feed my dogs a mixed state of food in their diet plan. i.e I won't mixed raw with cooked, commercial kibbles then canned food. The reason I wouldn't do that is because the condition of digestion will be very different for your dogs to manage these varied food.

I try not to go into too much medical explanation so for those who knows the exact process, please bear with me on the wordings.

Basically when you try to give all different chemical states of food to your dog, your dog digestion system is going to be very taxing. Say you feeding raw, the dog stomach will get used to raw state of food and develop the correct friendly bacteria and enzymes to digest that kind of food over time. When you give kibbles, it needs another environment of digestion inside the stomach. Similarly, canned, commercial raw etc will all need a digestion environment of their own.

Having said that, you may want to ask me isn't kibble, cooked and canned all the same chemical state as COOKED food while raw (DIY) and commerical raw the same? The answer is no. Because when you talking about home cooked food, you do not use a strict cooking procedure as opposed to kibbles...which uses heat too. Normal kibbles uses heat. And commercially prepared kibbles uses a cooking process very different from home cooked 1s. Hence the chemical state and content of the finished product is not the same as well. Just grab a pre-cooked chicken from supermart and compare to your freshly cooked chicken at home and taste them you know why.

Canned food again is packed with preservatives and chemicals which again have a different chemical state and content versus kibbles and HCF. Raw that you DIY and commercial ones are different too. Commercial raw will need to contain certain types of preservative be it natural or not and will generally take a longer time before it gets consumed compared to our DIY 1s we get it fresh daily and consume within a few days. Raw food contains living enzymes, so it is very chemically different from cooked ones.

Knowing all these stuffs will let you better understand why your dog is being fussy. Because their body are constantly trying to switch their optimal digestions in between raw (in the morning), cooked (in the evening), then tomorrow (canned food) followed like commercial raw?

Dogs are not humans, we have the most inefficient digestion systems and most screwed up diets in the living world. We need to eat regularly and we can ingest large amount of chemical processed food because we have evolved our body to accept all these. Dogs are like other animals too, their body do not processed food like humans. They need to be efficient because that is how they live their days in nature as an animal. They are not as highly evolved as human beings. Hence it will be very challenging for them to keep changing different states of food within a month, a week or even a day.

Humans are the most wasteful eaters in the world....we will eat stuffs that are of no health or medical benefits to us and we just let our body passed them out without getting any benefit or worst, getting harmed. Dogs will strive to develop the most efficient way of digestions in their body....which is why if you are on a DIY raw diet, you see them pooing significantly less if you just feed meat. My dogs when on raw organic meat only, gets poo like once in 2-3 days. Thats because their body will absorb whatever that they can effectively use pooing less to avoid wastages. Humans will poo everyday...because of the food we put into our mouth and the inefficient state of our digestion system which have developed to take all sorts of chemical states of the food we eat.

there is a reason why dogs eat and why poo can be eaten be it the dog eat himself or he eat others. Dogs eat back the poo because :

1. the poo is not well digested...i.e there are still stuffs inside that the dogs want as food. In the wild, dogs do that because food are competitive. So when some dogs poo out and it still contains nutrients, they will eat it back or others will.

2. your male is having digestion issues. Poo contains bacteria, and will help to break down food in the stomach when they ingest them. And a lot of these bacteria can be gotten from wastes. So if you see a dog eating poo, you are almost sure he has difficulties in digestion.

having said that, the above 2 mostly applies to dogs that eat back their own poo...coz that is exactly what a dog with digestion problems will face together.

For dogs that eat other people poos ...

3. it can suggest that your dog is not having enough food or have such good digestion systems that he is hungry very fast again...I noe that is contrary to the 1st 2 points coz your case is dog A eat dog B poo. I have reasons to suggest that the poo from your female is also not digested properly that is why the male find it interesting.

What I will do is to give both of them some yoghurt, or better still probiotics powder which you can get from health stores. Try to give them when they have empty stomach. Then feed them about an hour later. The yoghurt or the probiotics will help them both to digest better.

If the male dog is still looking out for food, then it will not be point 2 but 3 instead...which means you might want to increase his food volume or simply break up into 2 so that his stomach have food to digest and he feel full all the while and not looking for more poo to eat.

But I'm more inclined towards point 1 and 2, so try the probiotic powder 1st.

If your dog just started doing all these licking suddenly, then chances are not food coz you have been feeding them the same all these while isn't it? Unless you switched to a new meal source, then you can suspect your food vendor.

Usually when my dog start licking themselves all over, I suspect my house cleanliness 1st. Because we use cleaning agents on the floor, sofa, curtains etc and our dogs touches them all the time, I have better chance over it. It might me the cleaning agent have a new formula, or simply its just not clean enough. When my parents come over and overhaul my cleaning agents to what they prefer, all my dogs start licking their paws and the belly got red....and all these do not happen over night, they happen over a period of weeks which they gradually start licking more and more.

Next I will go and check out the surrounding...like are there any construction causing pollution of any kind etc. Noise, air and water pollution can trigger allergic reaction.

Also I will check your grooming products...are they expired, high in chemical contents etc? I have experience with grooming products that when apply over time, the dog gets to itch. Things like leave-on stuffs such as conditioner, rinseless shampoo, whitening powder, creams, sprays etc all will irritate your dog over time which you do not find any problem when you just apply them.

If you suspect its food, do a elimination diet. That works every time. If its cleanliness, just use natural cleaning agent. All my human clothes, their doggie stuffs I use a eucalyptus based cleaning solution to laundry. They are mild and effective against bacteria. If its grooming products, I'll just switch to all natural organic forms.

Hope that helps.

I'm looking at a prosumer model that can video and take digital photos so that I dun have to bring along my sony handicam as well when I travel....together with a 28-300IS (or prob a wide angle zoom as well) I think I can leave home with just the 2 of them!

add a few polishing brushes like bristle brushes (diff from the goat hair type as mention above) of the type that is suitable for your dog coat also

the best cleansers I have used and tested before for dogs of all age is non-chemical, plant base organic grade type. The are very cleaning, washes easily, not a lot of foam and is very gentle to the skin and coat. The only setback is the cost.

try to use a better brush, avoid too much bathing which will just soften the coat more.

fishes are lower in protein. Especially those that are non-salt water kind are less fattening too.

cod liver is on the high side of Vit A. Be careful to remove other sources of Vit A in your other food. Else you risk high dosage of Vit A which will damage the liver.

For flax oil, a lot of us uses to bowel tolerance level. Start from 5ml and move up either by 2.5ml or 1ml. Once they have soft stool, you know its too much. Then you back track to the next higher dosage.

Having said that, in order to optimise your food nutritional sources, try to varies your sources of flax with salmon oil and other Omega 3 oils as well. Many people remember to give variety to their meat and veggi but forgotten to do it for the oils totally.

Those books you have are great as foundation textbooks. For further updates and reference, you need other books or get suggestions from good internet sources.

it really depends on which part of health you intend to see improvements in. Usually after the detox period, which can happens after a while or immediately after you switch to BARF, you should see some visual improvements like coat getting some shine, smell getting less, eye discharge lesser etc.

I was often asked by raw feeders since dogs can eat veggi then can they eat mushrooms? I google for 10 mins and can't seems to find anything that support this statement? I do know that wild mushrooms is definitely a big NO NO but what about those button mushrooms or the japanese shitaki?

the part on warm or cold water is very controversy. I have used room temperature for many years also. Warm water can create more lather, that is about the only visual effects I've seen during bathing.

sounds like an interesting product!

i saw in one of the mags suggesting yucca which will remove the odour of it as well.

that is due to excessive iodine...which most dogs are lacking unless you feed a lot of fishes. Even so, many water dogs like newfoundland, PWD and poodles thrives on an iodine rich diet if you are into breed specific diet. If your dog is on normal diet, some seaweed is beneficial.

Nevertheless, if you are already feeding, then it could be just the genes or it takes longer to fully cover them.

u can add some seaweed like kelp to improve the pigmentation.

it could be some scent also. Scratching does not means its itchy. Observe whether does he go brush himself onto your furniture, floors etc. My sammies occasionally will do that also. But its only a couple of brushes and then he is ok with it already.

If that don't work, try looking deep inside the coat and see are there any foreign objects like plant matters, ticks and this kind. Use a high velocity blower to blow in to the skin to help u.

I do see quite a few dogs also like that but usually turn black as they aged. I let my dogs wear shoes during their daily runs with me but didn't know is it due to less exposure on the ground. Thks for the sharing!