Today I’m going to share a little bit of different things with you. As you know, I’ve told you before; I belong to different dog lists or groups that send me all sorts of interesting material to write about. I also get a newsletter every day from a veterinarian on different ways to treat our pets at home. Many of these are holistic approaches to the care of our pets. Hopefully some of these things you can use or try or avoid.
It is spring time and along with the beauty of the season comes the “uglies” as well. The “uglies” that I’m talking about are bugs!! I’m talking about the ones that crawl on your dogs (ticks and fleas) and the ones that fly onto your dogs (flies, gnats, mosquitoes). I USED to use the spot on treatments like Frontline for my dogs to help with fleas and ticks. But because of all the poisons that are in these products, I’ve decided to stop using them all together. Not to mention the expense of using something that is putting poison into my dog’s system. So last year and now again this year, I’m using Lavender essential oil. I put a few drops in a spray bottle with water and everyday I spray my dogs with it. I spray their ears, their body, their bellies, their tails, their legs and feet. You must be careful however, not to get this in their eyes. Knock on wood, last year, I didn’t find any ticks on my dogs. I hope that this will be the same this year as well. I prefer to treat my dogs with natural products rather than poisons and it’s a whole lot cheaper as well.
Another product that I’ve used for the last few years and I love is the “Avon Skin So Soft” line. This product has been around for years and it comes in sprays and bath oils. Some people bathe their dog in the bath oil and others just wipe them down with it. I’ve never tried the bath oil, but I have used the spray successfully. The spray that I’ve used is “Avon Skin So Soft Bug Guard Plus Picaridin Pump Spray. For some reason, I couldn’t get this last year, so I used the Lavender Essential Oils instead. This year I will keep both of them handy. I like to spray myself with the Avon product when I take the dogs for a walk.
On to another subject that I found very disturbing. From another list that I belong to, a writer sent an e-mail warning about giving dog’s stuffed toys that are made for children. It seems that a dog died from eating stuffing in a human grade toy. The stuffing inside the toy had fire retardant all through it. When it got into the dogs digestive system, it dissolved and turned into a gooey mess and wasn’t digestible. Unfortunately the poor dog died and when an autopsy was performed they found black gook in the dog’s digestive system. I was horrified because I buy my dog’s stuffed toys from the Good Will stores all the time because it’s a whole lot cheaper to do so. After reading about this terrible tragedy, I’m rethinking about where to get my dog’s toys from.
So I encourage people to get toys made for dogs - it will just might save the dog (and money, too) in the long run. You would think if it is a problem for our dogs, what about children if they decided to eat this????
Here’s another disturbing matter. From this same dog list that sent me the e-mail about the stuffed toy someone wrote about dogs and them chewing on anything that has strings attached to it. This could mean any of those toys that have string hanging from it like those tug of war types of toys. Or it can be like in this case of the lady who wrote about it, a dog unraveling the carpet and eating the strings. It seems like when the dog went to relieve himself, the owner saw him straining and saw blood coming out of the dog. She rushed her dog to the vet who performed emergency surgery and her dog had to have at least a quarter of her intestines removed. It seems that the string wrapped itself around the dog’s intestines and stopped the blood flow. That part of the intestines dies and so can the dog. Her vet told her NEVER pull anything out of the dog as you don’t know what it is wrapped around and by pulling it, you can end up tightening the knot. The dog can die a terrible death.
Some ingredients you don’t want to see in your dog’s food are three common poisons that increase the shelf life of the dog food but not necessarily the life of your dog. Those additives are: Butylated Hydroxyanisole (BHA), Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), and Ethoxyquin (EPA regulated pesticide). A lot of time Ethoxyquin is used for fish products. I wrote an article about Ethoxyquin last year on this blog. You can check it out in the achieve section of this blog. It’s interesting to note that all of these substances are banned from human food because some of them promote kidney disease, stomach tumors, etc. If it’s not good for us, then why should we be feeding it to our dogs? Dogs get cancer (one of the top killers of dogs) just like we do and now research believes some of it it’s due to the food that we feed them and all the additives put into those foods. Become a label reader! Know what you’re putting inside your dog.
Speaking of labels, here are some ingredients to look for in your dogs food and those to avoid. Know which are good proteins and which ones that is not. The good proteins are: muscle meats, eggs and organ meats. The ones to stay away from are: wheat, corn and barley. The dog food manufacturers must have at least 9% protein in their food. This is called the Guaranteed Analysis. Otherwise, they are required to print on the label that the food is not nutritionally adequate. To cut corners, the manufacturers use wheat, corn and barley which are vegetable proteins to meet the Guaranteed Analysis requirement which keeps their profits high by not using the more expensive meats.
So there you have just a few interesting bits and pieces that I wanted to share with you today some of which can save your dog’s life.
My rating: knowing what ingredients are in the products that you use: (4), products that contain poison: (1)
No comments:
Post a Comment