The Happy Beast - Blog - Diet & Digestive Health

Helping Pets with Digestive Problems | The Happy Beast
Chelsea Niekelski

Helping Pets with Digestive Problems

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Many pets will likely suffer from one type of digestive problem or another in their lifetimes. The symptoms may be mild, including bad breath, excessive gas, a rumbling tummy; or more severe, including chronic diarrhea, constipation, vomiting, or mucus or blood in the stool.

The causes of digestive problems include food sensitivities and allergies, low-quality or species-inappropriate diets, overeating, stress, and ingestion of contaminated water or “found” foods (i.e. from the trash or picked up from the ground.) They can also be a side effect of another health condition, medication, or a result of parasites or bad bacteria in the digestive tract.

If your animal is suffering from chronic or acute digestive problems, including colitis, parasitic infection, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), irritable bowel disease (IBD), or bacterial infection, be sure to consult with your vet. Often treating pets with digestive problems can be done through diet and inexpensive supplements.

Other things you can do to help pets with digestive problems:

  • Feed more fresh, less processed, species-appropriate foods.
    Highly-processed foods like conventional kibble (i.e. “dry food”) are harder for the body to digest. Replace some or all of your animal’s food with dehydrated, freeze-dried, or raw food. (We like Grandma Lucy’s, Sojo’s, Primal, Steve’s Real Food and SmallBatch.) Less-processed foods are more digestible and easier on the digestive tract.
  • Eliminate foods commonly associated with food allergies or food sensitivities.
    Choose foods that do not include “filler” ingredients like corn, wheat, soy, and animal by-products. Moving to higher-quality foods that don’t contain those ingredients often relieve many digestive issues. Some animals have reactions to other ingredients and will benefit from a limited-ingredient diet. Complete and balanced raw foods with simple ingredient profiles are ideal for experimenting with and eliminating potential food-allergens.
  • Add prebiotics, probiotics, and digestive enzymes.
    Digestion requires a lot of the body’s energy. (Think of how tired you feel after a big meal!) Adding enzymes found in fresh foods, raw goat’s milk, raw bones, and supplements (like InClover’s Optagest) can support the digestive system by helping to break down foods. Prebiotics and probiotics work in the intestine and improve efficient digestion. Read our blog post about “Digestive Enzymes for Pets” for more info.
  • Control portions and meal times.
    Many animals can also have upset stomachs from from overeating. (Again, think of how you feel when you eat too much!) Measure out how much food your animal gets at each meal and decrease those portions on days when your dog gets a bone or a lot of treats. Be cautious about feeding your animal too close to playtime/exercise, especially if you have a large-breed dog, in order to avoid bloat.
  • Make a meat stock.
    Adding a meat stock to your animal’s diet can help “seal” the gut. NOTE: Meat stock is different from a bone broth. Bone broth is cooked longer, resulting in high levels of glutamates. Bone broth has numerous health benefits for animals and people who have healthy intestines, but can worsen symptoms in a compromised digestive system.

    • Meat Stock
      • Ingredients:
        • 1 whole chicken or 2-3 lbs. chicken quarters or bone-in cuts, or
        • 2-3 lbs. beef or lamb knuckles, marrow bones or ribs
        • 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
        • Water
      • Instructions:
        • Place meats (still with the bone in) into a crockpot/slow-cooker with apple cider vinegar. Add enough water to cover meat.
        • Cook on high for 1 hour, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 3 hours.
        • Remove meat and strain broth through a colander or cheesecloth.
        • Add ¼- 1 cup of broth to your animal’s meal or serve separately.
        • The meat can also be deboned and consumed and the bones can be used to make a bone broth.
    • Bone Broth
      • Ingredients:
        • The bones you just cooked!
        • Water
      • Instructions:
        • Place bones back into a crockpot/slow-cooker. Add new/fresh water; enough to cover the bones.
        • Cook on low temperature for 12-24 hours.
        • NOTE: Bone broth should be reserved for animal and human members of the family not suffering from colitis, IBS or IBD.
Kick Ash: Is a Low-Ash Diet Right for Your Pet? | The Happy Beast
Natalie Soonthornswad

Kick Ash: Is a Low-Ash Diet Right for Your Pet?

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If you have a cat or dog with kidney or urinary tract issues or a large breed puppy, it may have been recommended that your animal be fed a low-ash diet or foods that are low in ash content. But what exactly is ash?

Ash refers to the inorganic matter or mineral content left over after the organic matter of a food is burned off. We often think of ash as a “bad” component of food, however it is just a general term referring to the collection of minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, etc. that are in some pet foods.

Excess ash content can be the result of using meat meals, especially “meat-by-product” meals, which contain higher amounts of tendons and bones. These foods have higher levels of calcium and phosphorous. A note of caution with large breed puppies is that excess calcium and phosphorous can contribute to irregular or rapid growth that may negatively affect their bones and joints.

In the past, it was also theorized that feeding a low-ash diet reduced the risk of the creation of bladder stones. However, recent studies have shown that the most effective way to reduce the incidence of urinary tract infections (UTIs) is to feed a high-moisture diet. Additionally, reducing stress is an important factor when treating UTIs; especially for cats.

In animals showing signs of compromised kidney function, it is important to pay attention to the ash content, and more specifically the phosphorous levels. It is important to prevent excess phosphorous intake because it may lead to an imbalance of calcium/phosphorous. Calcium is then drawn from the bones and deposited into other tissues and organs, which can cause damage over the long term. The best way to avoid excess phosphorus is to avoid foods that contain “meat meals” because these products contain higher amounts of connective tissue and bone, and thus higher values of calcium and phosphorus.

In summary, ash in itself isn’t bad, but for certain pets, you may want to pay closer attention to those values and consider a low-ash diet. However, the best way to ensure that your animal’s intake of ash is well balanced is simply to include high-quality meat sources and moisture in her diet. The best way to do this is by including raw, canned, dehydrated, freeze-dried, and air-dried foods, which are free of “meat-meals” and “meat by-products.”

Ideal Products

Tiki and Weruva are great about listing their mineral content for each food. Tiki even has a chart of the Veterinary recommendations for animals with renal disease and urinary stones: http://www.petropics.com/petropics-nutrition-facts/

Meet Mr. Kitty, our newest foster cat at The Happy Beast
Chelsea Niekelski

Our Newest Foster Cat – The Fantastic Mr. Kitty

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Look who moved in with us! This kitty was set to be euthanized, but he’s getting a second chance with us as our newest foster cat! He’s very hungry and his fur is a little patchy, but our vet friends at Lafayette Companion Animal Hospital checked him out, ran his blood work, and we think that with a good diet and some TLC he’s going to be just fine. He weighed in at 5.5lb when he arrived at Humane Society of Boulder Valley on September 18 and as of October 6, he’s already up to 8.4lb! Read on for his full story or stop by the store to meet this sweet boy – and maybe help us come with a name. 😉

Before he came to The Happy Beast, Mr. Kitty had been living as a stray under a porch. He was relying on the family there for meals, but once they saw that he was competing with raccoons for food, they decided the living situation was no longer safe for him. They took him to Humane Society of Boulder Valley where he stayed for a week. The shelter determined that he may have hyperthyroidism and therefore would not be adoptable. The family who turned him in were notified that they had 48 hours to pick him up before he was euthanized. They reached out to our neighbors, Lafayette Companion Animal Hospital, who asked us if we would foster him. On September 24, he moved in with us as our newest foster cat.

A couple of days later, Dr. Kugler at Lafayette Companion checked him out and ran his blood work. His white blood cell count was slightly elevated and he has some tartar on his teeth, but the great news was that he does not have hyperthyroidism as the shelter suspected. With a relatively clean bill of health, it was time to put a new feeding plan into action.

THE PLAN: Gain Weight & Improve Immune System Health

  • Diet: High-quality canned cat food and raw goat’s milk
    • Mr. Kitty is hungry and eats almost anything we offer to him. We’re selecting high protein foods with as few carbs as possible. He loves Tiki Cat, Mauri, and ZiwiPeak and Big Bark raw goat’s milk provides probiotics and additional fats.
  • Supplements: Optagest Prebiotic & Digestive Enzymes
    • We sprinkle InClover’s Optagest over Mr. Kitty’s food to boost his digestive health and support his immune system. The powder is odorless and tasteless.
  • Lifestyle: Mr. Kitty is hanging out in our office on soft beds and a cat tree. We leave the door open (and shut it when over-enthusiastic dogs come into the store) so he can come out into the store when he feels comfortable. He’s getting frequent visits from new friends, including a few animal communicators and energy healers (and Loki, of course). All that love is definitely pulling him out of his shell!
The Benefits of Pet Food Rotation | The Happy Beast
Chelsea Niekelski

Ending the Monotony Meal Plan: The Benefits of Pet Food Rotation

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At The Happy Beast, we believe that there are significant benefits from pet food rotation. In fact, we think it’s a big pet food myth that animals should eat the same formula of the same brand of food for their whole lives. While this is a great marketing ploy for the pet food companies (who don’t want you to feed anything but their brand of food) it is not in the best interest of your animal’s health and well-being. For one thing, eating the same thing over and over is boring… just imagine eating one kind of cuisine for every meal for the rest of your life! Even more importantly, from a health perspective, a monotonous diet can have negative effects on your animal for the following reasons:  

  1. Although pet foods are formulated to be “balanced and complete,” it’s unlikely that one food will meet all of an animal’s nutrient requirements over a long period of time.
  2. Feeding one food may cause your animal to develop an intolerance or allergy to the ingredients in that food.
  3. The digestive system of an animal that has only had to process one kind of food will be weaker and less tolerant to changes and natural aging.

The good news is that there are many ways to incorporate pet food rotation into your animal’s diet:

  1. Even if you like feeding a specific brand, choose a different recipe or protein source each time you buy a bag, box, or can of food. Most companies offer several formulas. If you usually feed a chicken recipe, try bison or fish.
  2. If you normally feed dry food or kibble, supplement with another, less processed food. Raw, dehydrated, freeze-dried, and canned foods can all make great mix-ins.
  3. Add fresh food. “Table scraps” aren’t necessarily bad as long as you’re not feeding them during a meal at the table! Just limit what “people food” you share with your animals to healthy foods like lean meats, salmon skins, yogurt, and cooked vegetables. Although small fish bones are fine, you should not typically feed larger “table scrap” bones because they have been cooked. In comparison to raw bones, cooked bones can more easily splinter and cause a choking risk. 

If your animal has a very sensitive digestive system or has been eating the same food for a very long time:

  1. Add in new foods very slowly.
  2. Supplement the diet with a prebiotic, probiotic, or digestive enzyme. (We like Optagest or raw goat milk.)

Chicken, turkey, lamb, and beef are often used in pet foods, but new protein sources are making their way into the market. “Novel proteins” is an industry term for meats not commonly found in pet foods. We commonly recommend novel protein diets for animals with food sensitivities or allergies, but healthy animals can benefit from these meats as well. Try including goat, rabbit, venison, alligator, or kangaroo in your animal’s next pet food rotation!

 

If variety isn’t the spice of life, is it catnip?

The Truth About Grain-Free Pet Food | The Happy Beast
Natalie Soonthornswad

Flimflam Food: The Truth About Grain-Free Pet Food

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Grain-free pet food is one of the fastest growing areas of the pet food industry. Even major commercial brands such as Purina and Science Diet now have grain-free pet food options for cats and dogs. Due to clever marketing, “grain-free” has become synonymous with premium quality and the assumption is that it is a more biologically-appropriate food for both cats and dogs.

However, it’s important to note that “grain-free pet food” does not mean “zero” carb, or even “low” carb, which is a very important distinction. Carbohydrates are an essential part of the manufacturing process of dry pet food, or kibble. Just like with baking; you have to have a flour source or binder to create kibble; whether it’s wheat, corn, potatoes, peas, etc. It is the nature of kibble and can’t be avoided.

“Grain-free” kibble only means that the carbohydrate binder of choice is something other than grain, such as potatoes, lentils, or peas. Grain-free foods can be equally high in carbohydrates when compared to their grain-based counterparts. For cats, potatoes and peas are just as inappropriate as corn, wheat, or soy.

A cat’s natural diet of rodents, rabbits, insects and birds, is about 2% carbohydrate. Dry cat food is generally 25-35% carbohydrate. Carbohydrates in such excessive percentages contributes to both obesity and diabetes, and therefore no kibble is a biologically appropriate food option for cats.

As a frame of reference, let’s take a look at how many carbs are in some of our most popular foods as well as other foods on the market:

Percentage of Carbohydrates | Sample of Brands

Cat Dry Food (Kibble)

  • Orijen dry food: 17%
  • Earthborn dry food: 18.5%
  • Acana Dry food: 27%
  • Taste of the Wild: 27%- 39%
  • Blue Buffalo Wilderness: 25-27%
  • Science Diet w/d: 30%
  • Science Diet t/d: 34.4%
  • Hill’s Ideal Balance: 35.3%

Dog Dry Food (Kibble) 

  • Orijen: 29%
  • Earthborn: 29.5%
  • Petkind: 29.5%
  • Fromm Grain-free: 35%
  • Blue Buffalo Wilderness: 30-35%
  • Taste of the Wild: 37%-46%
  • Kirkland: 45%
  • Science Diet w/d: 40.2%
  • Science Diet t/d: 51.7%

Carbohydrates are not typically listed on pet food labels, but there is a simple calculation to figure out how many carbs are in your animal’s food. Simply add all of the percentages listed, including protein, fat, fiber, moisture and ash, and subtract the total from 100. Here are a few examples:

EXAMPLE 1: Earthborn Cat Primitive

  • Crude protein – min 44%
  • Crude fat – min 20%
  • Crude fiber – min 3%
  • Moisture – max 10%
  • Ash – max 4.5%

TOTAL: 81.5%

100% – 81.5% = 18.5% CARBS!!!!

 

If you are trying to figure out how many carbs are in canned or raw food you must first convert the percentages into dry matter.

EXAMPLE 2: Earthborn Cat can Chicken Catcciatori

  • Crude protein – min 10%
  • Crude fat – min 2%
  • Crude fiber – min 1.5%
  • Ash – max 3%
  • Moisture – max 82%

Total: 98.5%
Dry matter conversion: Subtract the moisture percentage from 100 percent: 100%-82% moisture = 18% dry matter

100% – 98.5% = 1.5% / 18% = 8.3% carbs

 

EXAMPLE 3: Small Batch Raw Cat food:

  • Crude Protein (min): 15.9%
  • Crude Fat (min): 8.9%
  • Crude Fiber (max): 0.3%
  • Ash (max): 2.9%
  • Moisture (max): 71.8%

Total: 99.8%

Dry matter conversion: Subtract the moisture percentage from 100 percent: 100%-71.8% moisture = 28.2% dry matter

100% – 99.8% = 0.2% / 28.2% = 0.71% carbs

 

In summary, we feel that for a majority of dogs and all cats, protein should be the main source of dietary nutrition and calories. Incorporating less processed and lower carb food options is always encouraged, and there are a wide variety of ways to accomplish this. Feeding canned, raw, freeze-dried, and air-dried meat options are easy to incorporate, highly digestible, and very palatable – even for the pickiest of eaters.

Stop by the store to talk with us about your animal’s diet and history and we’ll help you develop a customized feeding plan to meet your needs.