Leaving your dog for the weekend is one thing, but an oversees vacation is something else!

Takin’ Off Without Tessie

With the excitement of planning a trip to Greece in November came the unexpected anxiety of leaving Tessie. We’d been away from her since she arrived in March, but this is the longest – and the first time she’d be at someone else’s house. The good news was this “someone” was my lovely and loving in-laws who would give her the very best care.

The worries ran through my mind: What if she thinks we abandoned her? What if she acts out and chews up my in-laws’ couch? What if she gets off her leash and runs off in unfamiliar, wooded land?

She has never been destructive – except for the time she (gasp!) rifled through a bag of laundry – so I did my best to set aside my fears. However three nights before our departure, Tessie woke us up in the middle of the night – a behavior reserved for the two times she had urinary tract infection several months back. I mentally prepared myself to take her to the vet the following day and hoped my in-laws wouldn’t mind creatively tricking Tessie into take her medication.

But the next day – and night – she was fine. Nothing out of the ordinary. Great, an isolated incident. Expect for the night before our trip when she woke us up yet again. She whined, then ran around the backyard like a lunatic. This is when I realized she also had anxiety, triggered by our suitcases. What terrible people we are to put our dog through such trauma, I thought, without a hint of sarcasm.

After reassuring her we’d be back and reminding her that Grammy and Grampy would take great care of her (can you tell we don’t have kids?), we dropped her off. Well, my husband did. I was too chicken to go, so I loaded her in the car and cried as I waved good-bye.

Comforted by the fact that my in-laws are amazing, I got into vacation mode. We arrived at the airport and it was almost comical how many dogs we saw pre-flight! Like a cruel, cosmic joke. All the people who loved their dogs enough to travel with them.

And of course, during our stay in Greece, we saw many dogs, including Diva and Giselle, my cousins’ fabulous Poodles. I couldn’t help but think of my sweet girl who’s wondering when or if we’ll ever be back. Grammy and Grampy’s daily updates and photos reassured us that she was doing just fine.

When we returned, 10 days later, we debated on whether or not to surprise Tessie at my in-laws’, but I was too worried she would combust from excitement. So my mother-in-law dropped her off at our house, and she bounded into our backyard where we were waiting for her. Whining with delight, she crowded us hoping for scratchies and rubbies, which we were happy to give her. She stayed close by for the next couple of days, thrilled we were home.

Not to say that she had a terrible time with Grammy and Grampy. She had an excellent report – she loved sitting in the sun porch where she could look out the windows laying down, she slept through the night just fine and she really bonded with my father-in-law whom she barked at a couple of times previously (and Tessie is not a barker).

Aside from her eating a plant leaf and vomiting it up, which we learned about a month later (thankfully), her stay went smoothly.  

This was a relief, but hearing how much my in-laws enjoyed having her is such a joy. They loved her company, especially after the loss of their beloved cat Pookie, and Tessie’s low-maintenance demeanor wasn’t too much of an imposition. She has since had a weekend stay with them, and it’s safe to say the feeling is mutual.

While we can’t take credit for Tessie’s incredible manners and laid-back energy, weare very proud parents. She received exclusive invitations from both sides of our family to attend our Christmas gatherings. This was our first one with Tessie, and I am truly grateful we spent it with such a special little girl.

Maria Poulos Pimentel is a New Jersey transplant now settled in New England.   Maria works in marketing and publicity by day and snuggles with her sweet collie/shepherd/husky Tessie by night. She was a reluctant dog owner at first, but she's quickly learning the ropes and discovering all the joys of doggie parenting. Maria will be sharing more of her adventures in dog love with PawsGo.  Tessie was adopted from Odie's Place in Massachusetts --

http://www.odiesplace.org/

http://pawsgo.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-husband-and-wife-honor-their-beloved.html

 

 

 

Has Your Dog's Diet Evolved?

The History of Dog Food – Has Your Dog’s Diet Evolved?

By Dr. Janice Elenbaas

 

 

People and dogs have been intertwined throughout history. Some say the relationship goes back 15,000 years, while others say even longer. Dogs have been eating our table scraps for millennia. So how did the current trend of feeding dry kibble come to be?

The first recorded book on farming was written over 2,000 years ago by the Romans. The first recipe for dog food was barley bread soaked in milk and added to sheep bones.

During the Middle Ages, royalty had cooks to prepare stews of grains, vegetables, and meat mixed with the hearts, livers, and lungs of whatever livestock was available. In the 1800’s, the Empress of China fed her Pekinese shark fins, quail breasts, and antelope milk. But common folk fed their dogs whatever they ate. Their dogs were lucky to have crusts of bread, bones, potatoes, cabbage and other leftovers.

Socio-economic status throughout history has always had an impact on the way we eat and feed our family. The Industrial Revolution in the mid 1800’s brought the growth of the middle class. Now there was more money and with more money came more pets. In 1895, veterinary medicine came to be.

But the turning point for our dependency on dry dog food came from a different professional, an electrician from Cincinnati, named James Spratt. His travels, selling lightning rods, often took him to the docks of London.

 

 

There, he watched sailors tossing leftover ‘ship’s biscuits’ to the local dogs. These biscuits, made from flour, salt, and water, needed no refrigeration and were the staple of the crew’s diet during long sea voyages.

Spratt made a few variations to the sailor’s biscuits and created his own dog biscuits. His recipe used wheat flour, beetroot, and vegetables mixed with beef blood. He named his creation ‘Spratt’s Patent Meal Fabrine Dog Cakes’ in 1860. He took it to the United States 10 years later and the American pet food industry was born.

This man was an entrepreneur with vision. He hired a young British salesman named Charles Crufts. Crufts went on to organize the canine dog show for the 1878 World’s Fair in Paris. His involvement with the Allied Terrier Dog Club of Westminster in 1886 inspired the largest pet show in the world, the Crufts Dog Show. Charles Crufts never had a dog, only cats!

As with most popular ideas, other folks copied Spratt’s cookies. 1908 saw the first bone shaped biscuit and the first kibble dog food created by F.H. Benner. Benner sold his company 30 years later, in 1931, to Nabisco and they renamed his cookies Milk Bones. Now dog food was in grocery stores!

The 1930’s seemed to be the golden age of processed dog food. Ken-L-Ration brought the first canned horse meat option. They sponsored a popular radio show, The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin. 50,000 horses a year were slaughtered for the production of dog food. By 1941, 90% of dog food was canned.

The 40’s also saw a dramatic change in the American diet. Feeding the troops during WWII was a priority. A stable shelf life for food and portability became crucial. Products like Spam were popular and the start of the processed food revolution began.

But the war also meant rationing both of meat and tin. Canned dog food sales fell. Companies like Ralston Purina borrowed technology from their cereal division to puff up dry kibble to keep it crisper and make it more palatable. Dogs seemed to like the change and so did consumers.

The post war economic boom saw an increase in home sales and a move to the suburbs. Supermarkets were now filled with processed and fast foods. There was now an abundance of agricultural scraps from slaughterhouses, grain mills, and processing plants. Pet food companies saw opportunities. They now had a way of capitalizing on the waste products of the human processed food industry. People wanted convenience in the foods they ate and the foods they fed their dogs. Kibble fit right into that trend, it was cheap and easily available.

By 1964, the newly created Pet Food Institute went on a mission to stop people from feeding their dogs table scraps. They funded ‘reports’ explaining the dangers of table scraps and encouraging the use of packaged dog food as the more responsible choice. During the next 10 years the industry grew to include 1,500 brands of dog food. The major players were all processed food companies: Mars, Nestle, Colgate-Palmolive, Proctor and Gamble, and Delmont.

Today, there are over 80 million dogs in the United States. Pet food is an 11.5 billion dollar industry. Kibble is still the way most people feed their dogs, but times are changing. Processed foods for human consumption are being questioned as 68% of Americans are overweight (CDC – 2010). 53% of dogs in this country are also overweight or obese. Obese people and dogs are prone to many ailments such as arthritis, diabetes, increase blood pressure, heart and respiratory diseases, ligament injury, kidney disease, cancer, and decreased life expectancy. In the case of dogs, life expectancy in overweight dogs decreases by 2.5 years.

America’s dog owners are worried about what to feed their best friends. According to Psychology Today, 81% of people consider their dogs members of the family. 4,150 dogs and cats died due to melamine contaminated pet food in 2007. The Canine Cancer Research Foundation states that cancer rates in dogs have gone up dramatically in the last 10 years and now one in two dogs will be diagnosed with the disease

Author and respected leader in pet nutrition, Dr. Donald Strombeck, DVM, PhD, shows concern, “Why are so many pets getting cancers, renal failures, hepatic diseases, multitudes of skin and coat problems? Diseases and illnesses we simply shouldn’t be seeing. Illness and poor nutrition affect each other.”

The awareness of the connection between health and our diet is driving a dramatic rise in sales of organic foods and beverages. Over the last 10 years the industry has grown from $1 Billion in 1990 to $26.7 Billion in 2010 (Organic Trade association – www.ota.com). It is not surprising to see the popularity of a diet rich in natural, whole foods for our dogs, growing too.

 

Our dogs need us in every way. We are responsible for the quality of their lives. They have lived with us for thousands of years. Over time we have seen how our attitudes, customs, and knowledge about food have evolved. Today our dogs’ health issues are mirroring our own conditions. Economics and convenience still play a major role in how we feed our families. Let’s hope that the next decade reflects our growing awareness of the benefits of fresh food, fresh air, and clean water – our health, our dogs’ health, and the health of the planet depend on it.

 

With four years of nutritional training and twenty years as a Doctor of Chiropractic for both humans and animals Dr. Janice Elenbaas is the founder and owner of Lucky Dog Cuisine.

http://luckydogcuisine.com/about-dr-elenbaas/