Here's Houndbytes again - My Dog Food Newsletter for You

A peek at this issue

Find out why I was away for one year
Share Your Experience With Other Dog Lovers
New on BestDogFoodGuide.com
Popular Articles
Featured Article: 'Contaminations in food'
Soon on BestDogFoodGuide.com

I Owe You an Apology

This month it has exactly been one year since the last issue of HoundBytes was sent. And for that, dear dog lover, I owe you an apology.

It has been a rough year for me. Got a new job and started working overtime on a permanent basis. That's not healthy I can tell you, nor fun, and on top of that: I didn't have time to continue my dog food research project! As I also developed repetitive strain injury (in both arms and wrists) I could not touch a computer for months. This has been a year of personal growth. Learning that I too have limits. Sifting through things I want to get done and set priorities once over I made a decision that changed my life.

A few months ago I started working as a freelancer, working on projects from home which saves a lot of travel time. I'm now building websites for others and helping small companies to make effective use of the internet and I'm applying what I've learned by building Best Dog Food Guide. It's major change for me and I'm learning every day! Now I can plan the time to work on my website. The repetitive strain injury is still a nag but it's improving every month now.

So as of this month, I'm dedicating time to you and feeding you updates about canine nutrition and other health aspects. I'm happy that HoundBytes is alive again :-) and I hope you are too.

Share Your Experience With Other Dog Lovers

You can interact with other visitors on Best Dog Food Guide when you share your experience or comment on the stories told by other dog owners.

Do you have experience in dealing with an allergic dog?

• Share your dog allergy story and/or provide others with helpful tips on how to cope with an allergic pooch.

I'm looking forward to reading your stories. Let's learn from each other.

New on Best-Dog-Food-Guide.com

• Evolutionary dog food
  I got inspiration to write an article about evolutionary dog food by seeing dog food with buffalo meat. The types of dog food I'm mentioning on this new page are grain-free and contain no corn or soy. Should your dog be allergic to chicken meat or grains, then you could try feeding him a dog food with a 'strange' meat source. Otherwise refer to the pages about dog food allergy and learn about

  hydrolyzed dog food and elimination diets .

• Bloat in dogs
  The inspirational source for this article is my own dog Kensho. Kensho is a Japanese Akita and has the rather peculiar habit of actually chewing his food. He thus eats slowly and careful. At the bottom of this page you'll see a movie of him. But before you get there you'll learn about bloat, the symptoms, causes (as far as we know), cures and prevention. Hopefully your dog never experiences this as bloat, or gastric dilatation and torsion, is an acute medical emergency that's often fatal.

Popular Articles

1. Best Dog Food
2. Dog Food Manufacturers
3. Dog Food Allergies
4. Kidney Disease Dog Food
5. Natural Dog Food

Featured Article: Food Contaminations

How to boost protein content in food and make more profits?

The more protein present, the higher the market price.

Outsourcing to China seems to be the answer. They apparently are very knowledgeable and creative in finding cheap protein sources. As you probably know, meat is the most expensive ingredient in dog food.

Remember the nationwide recall of contaminated pet food in March 2007? Many dogs and cats died of kidney failure after eating melamine-contaminated pet food.

Melamine is a nitrogen-rich compound and when added to milk powder (for instance), the protein amounts measured in standard protein assays are inflated. Melamine is used to produce plastics and has nothing to do with being nutritious in the first place. In fact, it appeared to be toxic as hell!

Since then, melamine continues to be found in milk and other foods such as rice protein concentrate and corn gluten.

Several baby’s in Asia died of acute kidney failure only one year after the same unscrupulous practice killed dogs and cats. More advanced protein assays differentiate between real protein and melamine, so switch to leather waste instead?

Now leather scraps have been found in batches of dairy products produced in Zhejiang, China. An anonymous letter was sent in to China’s quality watchdog, upon which 5 out of 8 batches were tested positive for this contamination.

It’s a real protein for sure, but it has nothing to do with producing nutritious food. Adding hydrolyzed leather protein to food will boost protein content but this powder is toxic and hazardous to one’s health. As the source of the protein was dirty hydrolyzed leather waste, it also contained potassium dichromate and sodium dichromate.

As this is a real protein, in contrast to melamine, it is more difficult to detect.

False advertising and use of potentially dangerous ingredients

Last month I received an email from a Chinese guy. His family owns a business that manufactures ingredients for dog food and dog treats. He exposed their American client that allegedly ordered them to irradiate all chicken meat and, for financial reasons, use only 65% chicken and the remainder should be: non-fowl filler including melamine, peanuts, bone fragment powder etc. Furthermore, he reported that the advertising and label listed use of vitamins and herbs though these were not inside the package (the costs would be too high, he explained).

Reason for his sudden openness is that their contract was recently terminated after four years. He considers this an unfair blow to their business after following exact instructions by the owner and founder.

I have not published the mail and the company names he sent me because I cannot verify his accusations. I’ve asked him to sent me a copy of the order in which the American company specifies which ingredients to use. Also, I’ve asked him why he thought it was OK to put toxic ingredients in food as long as he got paid to do that.

No answer up until today.

We must all make a living and earn money, but this should not be accomplished by putting other people and animals at risk. The Chinese government has their own method of dealing with dissidents. Recently two man were sentenced to death because of their involvement in the melamine-tainted milk scandal that sickened 294000 infants and killed six others. Nevertheless, the leather protein incident is yet another embarrassing failure for China’s product safety system.

The FDA now has three food safety offices in China to inspect food and liaise with Chinese officials.

Good food requires good ingredients and the absence of toxic compounds. There is no shortcut!!

• Would you pay more for local grown dog food ingredients?

• Why is pentobarbital found in dog food?

Soon on Best-Dog-Food-Guide.com

As I always tell people 'I'm not a vet' and when your dog has a problem you should consult a veterinarian. Even if I was a vet, I cannot judge your dog's health by mail without seeing him - and I won't even try, sorry. I have studied (human) health sciences and completed a course in dog and cat nutrition. So what I'm going to write next on my website is an article about choosing the best vet for your furry friend.

Related article:

• Dog Health Checklist

Paws up,
Barbara

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