If a cricket chirps in a can,

Can anyone hear it?

If you thought kibble was problematic, my furry friend, you ain't seen nuthin' yet!

Ms. X, your intrepid writer, enquired in a health food store once "Why is it impossible to buy a can of dog food with actual animal fat in it, and without carrageenan?"  For a response she got... you guessed it... crickets chirping.

Do you know what the ingredients are in a can of cricket? Just one.  Crickets.

Do you know what the ingredients are in a can of cat food?  (No, it's not cat.)  Or a can of dog food?

Keep reading.

Ms. X doesn't want to tell people what to put in their AAFCO approved dog food, but she doesn't mind telling them what not to put in.

The list of no-no's are pretty much the same as the kibble.  No vegetable oil, no grains (no soy), no carrageenan or gums.  And then the other, lesser stuff, which in the case of canned food includes, of all things, dirt.  (That's not even in the canned cricket ingredient list).

Gaining in popularity as a health supplement, "Montmorillonite Clay" or "bentonite clay" will show up on the ingredient labels of canned pet food from time to time.  Bentonite is an aluminum silicate that will dissolve in the stomach or intestines (according to Dr. Ray Peat) thereby increasing the body's aluminum burden.

Just what little Fluffy needs.

As with the kibbles, I have a sampling of canned foods to review ingredient-wise with you.  Let's start on the cheap end, with Pedigree Choice cuts this time.  Amazon sells a case for $1.31 per 13.22 oz can.

Ingredients for the choice cuts with beef:
Sufficient water for processing, Chicken, Meat By-products, Wheat Flour, Beef, Liver, Wheat Gluten, Salt, Caramel Coloring, Sodium Tripolyphosphate, Natural Flavors, Guar Gum, Vegetable Oil (source of Linoleic Acid), Minerals (Potassium Chloride, Zinc Sulfate, Copper
Sulfate, Potassium Iodide), Sodium Alginate, Natural Smoke Flavor, Xanthan Gum, Onion Powder, Bay Leaves, Vitamins (Vitamin E, A & D3 Supplements, D-calcium Pantothenate, Thiamine Mononitrate {vitamin B1}, Biotin), Garlic Powder, Sodium Nitrite (for color retention).  

That's a lot of wheat.  And vegetable oil.  And thickeners, though guar gum may be somewhat less problematic than carrageenan or xanthan gum.

Let's move up the price curve a bit.  Canidae Grain Free Pure Elements canned dog food, $3.17 per 13 oz can (per Amazon).  Ingredients are:

Lamb, lamb broth, turkey, turkey broth, chicken, peas, sweet potatoes, suncured alfalfa, cassia gum, carrageenan, salt, guar gum, choline chloride, minerals (dicalcium phosphate, calcium carbonate, potassium chloride, zinc proteinate, iron proteinate, copper proteinate, manganese proteinate, sodium
selenite, calcium iodate), vitamins (vitamin E supplement, thiamine mononitrate, niacin supplement, calcium pantothenate, biotin, vitamin A supplement, riboflavin supplement, vitamin B12 supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride, vitamin D3 supplement, folic acid). 

Whoa!  Triple whammy on the thickeners.   Now, I realize I haven't gone into much detail about what exactly I find so objectionable in these "no-no's", other than to put lots of links up.  My goal here is to get through the problem statements and onto the solution, then we'll come back and analyze the problem in more detail.

So in the Canidae above, we see a lot of cheap protein (peas and alfalfa) and a lot, lot, lot of thickeners.   It is impossible to get away from the thickeners in canned pet food.  Even the Wysong Au Jus line, which has so few ingredients that dogfoodadvisor.com puts a disclaimer that it is a "supplement only" and "never intended to be fed as a complete and balanced canine diet", has guar gum.

Yup.. Duck Au Jus - Ingredients: Duck, Water Sufficient for Processing, Animal Plasma, Guar Gum.

Bloody thickeners Batman!

Now the Canidae is pricey.  $3 per can may not sound so bad, but if you have your average 80 pound dog you will need to feed it 4 cans a day.  $12 a day to feed the dog.  Now if a dog eats 2-3% of his body weight in meat each day, our 80 pound dog is going to eat about 2 pounds of lamb, which Ms. X priced at the bulk goods store recently in the $4 per pound range.  Still cheaper than Canidae.   And please, the food quantity numbers are only to play the pricing games.  Ms. X is not advocating here any sort of feeding style.

Now just in case you are made of money, or you are caring for Leona Helmsley's dog (which only lived to 12, btw, despite being a small breed and having - one presumes - the most expensive food in the world), let's look at the upper echelon of canned foods.

Addiction New Zealand Venison and Apples Entrée, $4 per 13.8 oz can on Amazon.  Ingredients?

Venison, Apples, Carrots, Potatoes, Peas, Carrageenan, Cassia Gums, Dried Seaweed Meal, Taurine, Calcium Carbonate, Choline Chloride, Zinc Sulphate, Ferrous Sulphate, Vitamin E Supplement, Copper Sulphate, Manganese Sulphate, Niacin Supplement, Sodium Selenite, Thiamine Mononitrate, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin A Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement, Calcium Iodate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Folic Acid

Now I know there is probably not a dog alive that doesn't want to sink his fangs into some New Zealand deer (or bushtail, they offer that too, you know), but look at this for a second.  Just like we saw in the kibble realm, the more expensive the more it looks home made.  Deer meat, apples, carrots, potatoes and peas.  Stew's On!   Is it deer season yet?

What was that T.C. Hawley said?

The dog will thrive on any diet which will keep man healthy.

Food Fights

Before we launch ourselves into the brawl, Ms. X would like to write a public disclaimer.  She has no accredited nutritional or medical training.  Nothing she writes should be construed as advice.  So there.  You're on your own.  But you all ready knew that.  That's why you are here, right?

Never fear.  Ms. X isn't the type to rest on her own laurels anyway.  Her only job is to switch on the truthlight.

Let's focus on kibble first.  A lot of pet owners ask,  "I can buy a 50 pound bag of Ol' Roy at Walmart for 20 dollars.  Why should I buy some expensive bag of kibble that costs more than my family's food?"  "What's wrong with kibble?"

Good question.  The answer is "probably nothing".  That's right.  Millions and millions of dogs (and cats) have lived reasonably long and reasonably healthy lives on crap-in-a-bag, and some argue that pet breeding should focus on pets that thrive on "crapple".

It really is a difficult position to argue with, so Ms. X will simply say that taking that argument to its logical conclusion, the pet food corporations should also take over the breeding.  They just need to expand their feeding trials a bit, team up with the registries and viola!  You want a Hills puppy or a Purina kitten?

We're not actually too far from that, are we?

Ms. X, being of a more natural bent, would prefer to breed her own dogs (she doesn't), hunt her own meat (she doesn't), and farm her own vegetables (she tries).

So why not feed kibble?  Well, I do sometimes.  Overall though, I want better.  My requirements for store bought food are simple:  No vegetable oil.  No carrageenan or gums.  No grains.  No soy.  Easy, right?  There are a lot of little things too, but those are the things I simply won't pay for.

Let's look at kibbles available.  On the cheap end of the spectrum is the aforementioned Ol' Roy.  The ingredients are pretty benign at first glance.

 Ol' Roy Complete Nutrition (ingredient list is from dogfoodadvisor). Ground yellow corn, meat and bone meal, soybean meal, poultry by-product meal, animal fat (preserved with BHA and citric acid), corn gluten meal, natural flavor, brewers rice, salt, potassium chloride, color added (titanium dioxide, yellow #5, yellow #6, red #40, blue #2), choline chloride, zinc sulfate, vitamin E supplement, ferrous sulfate, zinc oxide, niacin, copper sulfate, vitamin A supplement, biotin, manganous oxide, calcium pantothenate, vitamin B12 supplement, thiamine mononitrate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of vitamin K activity), riboflavin supplement, sodium selenite, calcium iodate, folic acid, vitamin D3 supplement, cobalt carbonate 

Of the major "no-no's", soybean meal is the obvious. Soybeans are awful in 99% of formations.  Bone meal is sometimes high in heavy metal contaminants. BHA - love the animal fat, but not fond of the carcinogenic preservative.  Corn gluten meal - corn is a grain, corn gluten meal, like the soybean meal, is a cheap low-quality protein.    And then there are the added colors.  Red #40 alone is notorious.

Well, maybe for a little more money, we can do better.

For a "middle of the road" kibble, let's look at something we have all heard of.  If you own a TV, you have seen the commercials for Blue Buffalo.  They advertise constantly, claim they are better than other leading dog foods, and believe it or not, the advertising works!  Internet forums are full of people who have "made the switch".  So why not Ms. X?  Well, here are the Blue Buffalo ingredients.

Life Protection Formula Lamb & Brown Rice Recipe for Adult Dogs

Deboned Lamb,   Oatmeal,   Whole Ground Barley,   Turkey Meal,   Whole Ground Brown Rice,   Peas,  Tomato Pomace (source of Lycopene),   Flaxseed (source of Omega 3 and 6 Fatty Acids),   Natural Flavor,   Canola Oil (preserved with Mixed Tocopherols),   Alfalfa Meal,   Whole Potatoes,  Sunflower Oil (source of Omega 6 Fatty Acids),   Whole Carrots,   Whole Sweet Potatoes,   Blueberries,   Cranberries,   Apples,   Blackberries,   Pomegranate,   Spinach,   Pumpkin,   Barley Grass,   Dried Parsley,   Garlic,   Dried Kelp,   Yucca Schidigera Extract,   L-Carnitine,   L-Lysine,   Glucosamine Hydrochloride,   Turmeric,   Dried Chicory Root,   Oil of Rosemary,   Beta Carotene,   Calcium Carbonate,   Dicalcium Phosphate,   Vitamin A Supplement,   Thiamine Mononitrate (Vitamin B1),   Riboflavin (Vitamin B2),   Niacin (Vitamin B3),   d-Calcium Pantothenate (Vitamin B5),   Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6),   Biotin (Vitamin B7),   Folic Acid (Vitamin B9),  Vitamin B12 Supplement,   Calcium Ascorbate (source of Vitamin C),   Vitamin D3 Supplement,   Vitamin E Supplement,   Iron Amino Acid Chelate,   Zinc Amino Acid Chelate,   Manganese Amino Acid Chelate,   Copper Amino Acid Chelate,   Choline Chloride,   Sodium Selenite,   Calcium Iodate,   Salt,   Caramel,  Potassium Chloride,   Dried Yeast (source of Saccharomyces cerevisiae),   Dried Lactobacillus acidophilus fermentation product,   Dried Bacillus subtilis fermentation product,   Dried Enterococcus faecium fermentation product

Wait a sec.  Where is the animal fat?  Instead, we get Flaxseed, Canola and Sunflower oils.  Yuck.   The lamb and turkey meal are okay, though I'm not so thrilled with the cheap pea protein.  Then there is a long list of "so what's?". There is nothing wrong with dogs eating fruit or berries or parsley, but are they so critical they need to be embedded in Fido's daily rations?  There also is the requisite Alfalfa meal and Dried Kelp.  What is the fascination with alfalfa meal?  People love feeding it to carnivores.  It figured prominently in the early days of raw diet formulations.  Turns out it is another cheap and plentiful low-quality protein.  Then there is the kelp.  In other words, supplemental iodine.  A topic in and of itself.

What about a "natural" higher end kibble (that doesn't advertise in PrimeTime), for example?  Organix, by Castor and Pollux has a grain free formula that is just the thing.  Organix Grain-Free Adult Dog Food:

Organic Chicken, Poultry Meal, Organic Tapioca, Organic Peas, Organic Soybean Meal, Organic Potato, Dried Egg Product, Salmon Meal, Poultry Fat (Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols and Citric Acid), Organic Chicken Liver, Natural Chicken Flavor, Organic Flaxseed, Salt, Minerals (Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite), Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Vitamins  (Vitamin E Supplement, L-Ascorbyl-2 Polyphosphate, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium
Pantothenate, Niacin, Riboflavin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Biotin, Thiamine Mononitrate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Folic Acid, Vitamin D3 Supplement), Yeast Culture (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), Dried Enterococcus faecium Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus acidophilus
Fermentation Product, Dried Aspergillus Niger Fermentation Extract, Dried Trichoderma longibrachiatum Fermentation Extract, Dried Bacillus subtilis Fermentation Solubles, Rosemary Extract.

There's that soybean meal again, just like Ol' Roy, though this time it is organic.  Doesn't matter.  Organic soybeans are still soybeans.  The cheap protein "peas" crops up again, as well as salmon meal and flaxseed.

Salmon meal has a lot of problems.  There is the high omega 3 content; if they are farmed salmon there are concerns about high levels of toxins; if they are wild caught, well, there is the whole Fukushima polluting the Pacific problem.

And why tapioca meal?  All this, by the way, is up to $4 per pound.

This stuff is close to the upper end of the standard cooked kibble pricing, but not the upper end of dog food pricing.  Not by a long shot.  The absolute upper echelons of kibbles is reserved for a class called "freeze dried".

Fifteen years ago, the only easily available freeze dried food was Abady, a sort of hippy holdover.  Fifteen years ago, the cats didn't really like Abady.  They had no appreciation for how expensive it was.

These days, at almost $8 per pound, Honest Kitchen has one of the most expensive freeze dried foods on the market.

It has:

Dehydrated free-range chicken, organic flaxseed, potatoes, celery, sweet potatoes, apples, alfalfa, organic kelp, honey, pumpkin, green beans, cabbage, bananas, papayas, basil, garlic, rosemary, tricalcium phosphate, choline chloride, zinc amino acid chelate, vitamin D3 supplement, vitamin E supplement, potassium iodide, potassium chloride, iron amino acid chelate, copper amino acid chelate.

Pretty simple, huh?  Almost throw that together in the kitchen yourself.  As long as you have the requisite flaxseed and kelp on hand, that is.  Who decided flaxseed was essential for dogs anyway?  I think it is part of that whole "Essential Fatty Acid" fad.  And just because the government forces iodine supplementation doesn't mean we have to mix kelp into our homemade dog food.  But I digress.

Flaxseed, kelp (and bananas and celery) aren't the only objectionable quirks to this freeze dried food.  Freeze dried food is very susceptible to lipid oxidation.

It is interesting though, is it not, that the closer the ingredient list gets to something you could easily make in your kitchen, the more expensive it becomes?  So why not throw together an oxidized mess of chicken and bananas in your kitchen?  Fear.  What if it's not BALANCED!

Remember T. C. Hawley:

The dog will thrive on any diet which will keep man healthy.

Feeding the Beast

The arrival of a new pup or kitten sparks a flurry of research, how to train the new pet?  where should it sleep?  and most importantly, what should it eat?  

A mere 10 years ago, or maybe 15 now, raw feeders were a fringe group and corn meal was the prominent ingredient in all kibble.   Now, feeding a raw diet is widely accepted and for those who won't, there is a rainbow of kibble options in all levels of grain, gluten free, and grain free, organic, holistic etc. etc..  Recipes for raw diets or even cooked homemade diets are plentiful.   Science Diet's share of shelf space in the pet supply store has dwindled considerably.

Vets are getting in on the act, following the famous footsteps of Ian Billinghurst, the Australian veterinarian who brought the BARF acronym into the mainstream.  There is constant chatter and worry among owners about a "balanced" diet and IS their furry baby getting enough cranberries and fish oil?

Times have changed.  But like the old adage, the more things change, the more they stay the same.   15 years ago Ms. X took a deep breath and plunged into raw food.   She tracked down a early copy of Pottengers' Cats (which hadn't been reprinted then).  She studied Billinghursts' Grow Your Pup With Bones and meticulously followed the Feline Future's recipe for raw cat food.   She worried about the dreaded bacterial infections from raw meat, would the bones puncture their intestines? And was she giving them enough fish oil?

Then the furry babies grew up, the fur-less babies arrived and after a few years Ms. X switched the furred portion of the household back to crap-in-a-bag or "crapple" as it is called these days.  The pets grew and lived and died and the cycle has begun again.

And once again, Ms. X is asking (and answering) the question, what should they eat?

We'll talk about this in detail over the next several posts, but for now I'll leave you with this quote, by T.C. Hawley, the famous Rhodesian Ridgeback breeder. 

The dog will thrive on any diet which will keep man healthy.

How to make a dog insulin resistant

Overfeeding kibble is a good place to start.

Blog Hyperlipid recently reported on a study done with dogs in an attempt to prove that saturated fat causes insulin resistance.

The goal of the study seemed noble enough:

the development of peripheral and hepatic insulin resistance relative to one another in the context of obesity-associated insulin resistance is not well understood. To examine this phenomena, we used the moderate fat-fed dog model, which has been shown to develop both subcutaneous and visceral adiposity and severe insulin resistance.

and the authors concluded:

Our results indicate that a diet enriched with a moderate amount of fat results in the development of both subcutaneous and visceral adiposity, hyperinsulinemia, and a modest degree of peripheral insulin resistance.

How did they achieve these results? To quote Peter (of Hyperlipid)

Cr@p in a bag: Total calories 3,885kcal/d

For "less cr@p in a bag but plus 2g/kg bacon grease": more like 3,945kcal/d


This is for a 27kg dog sitting in a cage.

Go on, read that again; 3,945kcal/d. I'm not joking.

The real trick of course, is to blame the subsequent insulin resistance on saturated fat.

Peter writes:

So this is another study where the introduction and discussion are utterly divorced from the methods and the results (and from reality). It's worth just flicking through the methods and, in your mind's eye, look at how much money was used on these dogs. A clinical MRI was around about £1000 a shot in the UK Home Counties in 2009.

This study was funded in the US of course, guess we all look forward to such sterling research with our tarp funds.

Where's PETA when you need them?

Get Happy?

Humanity and Pets Partnered Through the Years (HAPPY) is a nauseatingly titled bill making its way through the halls of CONgress. Is that how they're burning through our money, making aides come up with cute names (and sappy acronyms) they can all sign on and say "hey! look how much we love pets!"

According to WashingtonWatch.com, "H.R. 3501 would amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow a deduction for pet care expenses."

Evidently the text of the bill has not been released yet, so the details are completely unknown. At face value, I tend to support anything that puts limits on how much of my money they steal. But a bill like this could easily turn into something that expands the pet health insurance industry, or uses the "companion animal" language and further undermines our property rights with pets. The more I think of it, the less optimistic I am. I mean, what is the motivation for a bill like this? The government desperately needs all the tax money it can get. Sure, there are a lot of pet owners, but they spend a lot of money on pet health care, and the tax loss could be significant. Would it really buy that much favoritism with the pet owner voting blocs? Somehow I don't think so. So what's the motivation? Any good ideas?

Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Nutritional Heresy

Tonight, I watched that great documentary "Fathead", by Tom Naughton. In the back, in the extended interviews section, Dr. Al Sears talks about the relationship of grains to heart disease, and he tells a great story.

It seems back in the 60's, they were trying to prove that fat caused heart disease. So they fed dogs just tons of saturated fat, but none of the dogs got heart disease! So the researchers concluded that dogs just could not get heart disease, so they abandoned their study of dogs, and turned to rabbits.

Well, guess what happened. They fed rabbits saturated fat (not a nutrient you commonly get from grass) and those rabbits developed heart disease in a matter of weeks.

"Eureka!" The researchers cried. And they concluded that saturated fat caused heart disease in mammals (humans, rabbits etc.) Except dogs. Dogs just didn't get heart disease.

Dogs, just don't get heart disease. Right.

Heart disease is a huge medical industry for dogs these days. Weight loss is a huge problem too. What's the connection? Same one humans suffer from, Carbohydrates.

And rabbits are a great model for human cholesterol and saturated fat processing, right? Rabbits are notorious for having bodies low in saturated fat. And their natural diets are, of course, fat free. They are strict herbivores. They even have a disease named after them, Rabbit Starvation. It's what happens when you eat a high protein low fat diet. In short, you get sick and die.

I'm quite sure any of my readers are smart enough to figure out that perhaps, rabbits were an inaccurate human model when it comes to dietary fats.

Speaking of fat dogs, our second topic for nutritional heresy: Spaying Makes Your Dog Fat.

Gary Taubes (of Good Calorie, Bad Calorie and "What if it's all been a big fat lie" fame) explains this phenomenon at this lecture (beginning about 38:00, but you should watch the whole thing).

Removing the estrogen makes the animal accumulate fat in its fat tissues. Because the fat is going into the tissues, there is an energy deficit elsewhere in the body so the dog has to eat more. If it can't eat more (and many owners try to reduce food intake after spaying) then the metabolism and energy expenditure will just slow down.

In short, you feed your dog a certain quantity, lets say 1 cup of food per day, and the dog maintains a normal weight. Then you spay the dog. After the surgery you continue to feed your dog one cup of food per day, but now your dog will get fat.

In short, your dog isn't getting fat after spaying because it is overeating. It gets fat after spaying because you made it get fat.

Pet owners are lied to about this one on a regular basis. Ms. X has a mission to shine the truthlight on false teachings, and the myth that spaying (or neutering) won't make your dog fat is just that. A myth.

Website after website blames the owner when a dog that has been fixed gets fat. I'm willing to blame owners for lots of things, like not training their dog and then turning it into a shelter because it misbehaves.

But I like to assume that pet owners are intelligent and responsible, and can handle the truth about spaying and neutering. I like to enable them to make the best decisions for them and their pets.

The truth is the best medicine.

More Than You Knew

about fluoride, that is.

It seems there is a degree of concern about the level of fluoride in dog food.

We already know that our furry friends (unless they sate their thirst with Perrier)are exposed to fluoride in their drinking water, as are we all, and there is reasonable question as to it's influence on the incidences of osteosarcoma, especially in dogs neutered while they are still growing.

Now, it seems that even Beverly Hills puppies can't escape fluoride by just hitting the bottle.

Together with drinking water from the tap that has been fluoridated, some puppies may be exposed at five-times the safe limit, according to Environmental Working Group -- though it must be said that the safe limits were not designed specifically for dogs
Read more.

EWG recommends choosing dog food brands free of bone meal and meat by product ingredients like chicken by-product meal, poultry by-product meal, chicken meal and beef meal.
Read more: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/dog-food-fluoride-47063002#ixzz0KFn66YSb&C

I don't entirely agree with the schools of thought that shun "by-products" and "meal", offal and bones are quite valuable food sources for dogs. When my dog gets ahold of a living food source, the only thing she leaves is the ears. Maybe she'd even eat them, if I let them ripen for a couple days. The offal went first, and the bones weren't far behind.

However if you are raising puppies, nothing, nothing beats a raw diet. If you have a large breed, and you plan to neuter early, you might want to filter the fluoride out of the water too.

Keep pups skinny

Several years ago I read a statement to the effect that you don't accumulate fat cells as an adult, you just enlarge the ones you have. It was a statement in commentary on a website, with no supporting evidence.

It was one of those comments in passing, that rolls around in the brain as having superficial merit, and so you wait, until the evidence catches up with it, or doesn't.

In this case, the evidence did.

From the magazine "Nature":

The factors determining fat mass in adult humans are not fully understood, but increased lipid storage in already developed fat cells (adipocytes) is thought to be most important4, 5. Here we show that adipocyte number is a major determinant for the fat mass in adults. However, the number of fat cells stays constant in adulthood in lean and obese individuals, even after marked weight loss, indicating that the number of adipocytes is set during childhood and adolescence.

People find roly poly puppies irresistible. Cute little round fur balls are often proclaimed 'what a healthy looking pup'!

(Same goes for children too.)

But the life time of problems (Hip Dysplasia, anyone?) that obesity brings with it, are anything but healthy.

More finger pointing at fluoride.

I shared the link between fluoride and osteosarcomas a couple years ago.

New research has shown a greater level of fluoride in patients with osteosarcomas.

The latest cancer study indicates blood fluoride levels were significantly higher in patients with osteosarcoma than in control groups, according to research published in Biological Trace Element Research (April 2009).

Osteosarcoma occurs mostly in children and young adults. According to the study, status of fluoride levels in the serum of osteosarcoma is still not clear. Other reports have also indicated that there is a link between fluoride exposure and osteosarcoma.

“The more studies that we have which talk about osteosarcoma with fluoride, the more the scientific community will take notice and eventually blind politicians will do the same,” said Paul Beeber, president of the New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation.

The government is still supporting the forced fluoridation of its citizens.

"government officials cite scientific studies that prove fewer cavities and no serious risk."

But the barricades are weakening.

A 2007 recommendation from the American Dental Association urged parents not to use fluoridated tap water to mix infant formula. Researchers say the amount of fluoride in safe tap water is still too much for an infant when ingested as the primary source of nutrition.

The establishment will admit that too much fluoride will cause pitting in the teeth (fluorosis). But so far, that is all. Damaging effects to bones, cancer, Alzheimers and mental health problems are rarely mentioned.

Maybe, just maybe, the osteosarcoma relation can push aside the shroud that conceals the danger of fluoride.

Some more links on fluoride.

Probiotics for your dog

Dr. Mercola has a great article on pet health to consider:

Dogs, cats and snakes are carnivores, with sharp, interlocking teeth designed to grasp prey.

Cats and snakes are obligate carnivores, which means they must consume a meat diet to maintain health, whereas dogs are scavenging carnivores, who, in addition to a meat based diet, can consume other types of foods without dire consequences.

What Happens if My Pet’s Gut Bacteria Gets Out of Balance?

Immune reactions provoked by an imbalance in intestinal bacteria can seriously compromise your pet’s health.

Inflammatory conditions and several types of arthritis have been linked to abnormal GI responses in both people and pets. Intestinal permeability is increased in a wide range of diseases. When excessive amounts of antigens (small reactive proteins) are absorbed, all sorts of systemic reactions can occur.

An overgrowth of bad intestinal bacteria can contain proteins that your pet’s immune system may mistake for healthy proteins, sparking an abnormal immune response.

This inflammatory cascade can create a number of symptoms and degenerative changes in your pet’s body.

In people, the link between dysbiosis and atopic dermatitis, chronic pancreatitis, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and rheumatoid arthritis has been established.

Can any of these conditions develop in your pet? Yes -- all of them.

CFLs could irritate dogs

World Net Daily reports:

Pet problems

Online, a number of consumers also complain that their pets react adversely to the new bulbs.

On the U.K. Yahoo! Answers forum, posters complained of dogs barking at the ceiling and growing agitated in rooms that use CFLs.

"When the 'low energy' lamp is on, the dogs are not very happy and will not go to the room by choice," wrote Stellar Meg. "Put the lamp back to a normal light bulb, or switch the low energy one off, the dogs are quite happy."

Florida resident Brian Hetzman told WND of similar problems with his dog.

"My wife and I put a new fluorescent bulb in our ceiling light, and our 10-year-old dog literally jumped up off the floor and starting screaming," Hetzman said. "She was moaning and growling and barking and looking up at the ceiling.

"I figured out what was happening and took the bulb out," he continued. "Then I put it back in a second later to test the theory. Again, she started making noises I've never heard her make and running around in a circle moaning and whimpering."

Popular CFLs use an electronic ballast to send a current through the gas within the bulb, which then excites the bulb's phosphor coating to produce light. The electronic ballast is supposed to be an improvement over the flickering, slow starting magnetic ballasts used in older fluorescent bulbs, but some believe the electronic technology also produces an ultrasonic noise that disturbs animals.

The University of London's David Pye wrote in Physics World Magazine in 2007 that a tunable ultrasound detector found the low energy bulbs emitting acoustic signals audible by dogs and especially cats, but WND was unable to find any other studies confirming Pye's results.

This bears watching. CFLs are beginning to get more negative press (and not just from those of us who were worried about the mercury content from the get-go) because, well, they suck.

Here’s my sad collection of bulbs that didn’t work,” Ms. Zuercher said the other day as she pulled a cardboard box containing defunct bulbs from her laundry shelf.

One of the 16 Feit Electric bulbs the Zuerchers bought at Costco did not work at all, they said, and three others died within hours. The bulbs were supposed to burn for 10,000 hours, meaning they should have lasted for years in normal use. “It’s irritating,” Ms. Zuercher said.

. . .

Some experts who study the issue blame the government for the quality problems, saying an intensive federal push to lower the price essentially backfired by encouraging manufacturers to use cheap components.

“In the pursuit of the holy grail, we stepped on the consumer,” said Michael Siminovitch, director of a lighting center at the University of California, Davis.

Well, DUH.

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Vaccine Dangers

Vaccines are a controversial topic in humans, as well as animals. However, the animal medical profession looks a lot closer at the effectivity and potential danger of vaccines than the human medical profession. The reasons are easy to deduce. For one thing our pets traditionally have been vaccinated MUCH MUCH more than our children. Yearly boosters for everything? That provides a lot more anecdotal fodder that cries for attention.

Our children are catching up to our pets though, so it is even more important that we look very closely at the risk/benefit ratio of vaccines.

Alex Jones' PrisonPlanet site pushed awareness with this article recently:

"Why Do 160,000 Cats Each Year in the USA Develop Terminal Cancer at Their Vaccine Injection Sites"

The author sourced work by Catharine Driscoll, "Science of Vaccine Damage".

A team at Purdue University School of Veterinary Medicine conducted several studies (1,2) to determine if vaccines can cause changes in the immune system of dogs that might lead to life-threatening immune-mediated diseases. They obviously conducted this research because concern already existed. It was sponsored by the Haywood Foundation which itself was looking for evidence that such changes in the human immune system might also be vaccine induced. It found the evidence.

The vaccinated, but not the non-vaccinated, dogs in the Purdue studies developed autoantibodies to many of their own biochemicals, including fibronectin, laminin, DNA, albumin, cytochrome C, cardiolipin and collagen.

William La Rosa of the Hayward Foundation writes:

Autoimmune diseases in dogs are clinically similar to those in humans. We hope that Veterinary and Medical Schools will continue and expand these preliminary research studies. Our companion dogs are crashing all around us and maybe we are now finding one of the sources of the problems. It has been so easy to point fingers at breeders but they may not be entirely at fault. Let us continue this important researcher to help our future generations of dogs and possibly children. Yes, indiscriminate breeding can genetically predispose the dog but is the trigger mechanism indiscriminate vaccination.

I have no problem wagging the finger at breeders for health concerns, not just because of barbie inbreeding, but for general husbandry practices. Weaning carnivore pups onto rice cereal and pedialyte is supposed to result in optimal adult health? Many breeders adopt their husbandry practices from older breeders, never stopping to think about why they do what they do. A little critical reasoning capability would go a long way.

UC Davis website gives a good breakdown of vaccines for dogs (and cats) into those considered "Core" and those that are not. Core vaccines are those that cover diseases with a high mortality rate, and are generally proven to be effective. Most pet owners will opt for those at a minimum, on a minimal schedule.

Thankfully we pet owners can still make our own decisions about vaccinations. We have information available about each vaccine, its' effectiveness and the risk of the disease it covers.

Our children are another matter. As parents, we are all too often pushed by healthcare workers afraid of lawsuits and pharmaceutical manufacturers who think they can scare us into giving them money, to vaccinate and vaccinate and vaccinate without any real consideration of the risk/benefit cost.

I only hope our advances in pet vaccine knowledge will transfer to our children, and that our children vaccine hype and paranoia will not be transferred to our "companion animals".