The Happy Beast - Blog - Dog Health

cat eating meat

The Vegetarian’s Pet Food Dilemma

As our understanding of livestock animals, and the conditions in which they are “farmed,” continues to grow, more and more American’s are avoiding meat – or at least being choosier about where their meat comes from. A recent survey found that two-thirds of Americans are actively reducing their meat consumption and 75% of Americans are concerned about the welfare of farm animals raised for food. Between 2014 and 2017, the number of vegans in the United States increased by 600%

At the same time, pet ownership has steadily increased over the last few decades with approximately 85 million families including at least one pet. Dogs and cats make up the overwhelming majority of U.S. companion animals, which can lead to an ethical conundrum for the plant-based consumer who decides to welcome one of these carnivores into their home. 

Although vegan and vegetarian dog foods are available, most experts agree that dogs are healthier on a species-appropriate, meat-based diet. Eating meat is even more vital for cats and we discourage ever putting a cat on a vegetarian/vegan diet as the likelihood of chronic illness increases dramatically. This is because despite thousands of years of domestication, dogs are still biologically, domesticated wolves, and cats are nearly indistinguishable from their African wildcat ancestors. As carnivores, there are a host of essential vitamins and minerals that dogs and cats can only acquire from meat.

If you’re one of the 90% of pet owners feeding your pet kibble, this may not seem like much of a dilemma, however, even the best kibble has devastating consequences for livestock animals, the environment, and the health of our pets. 

The Problems With Kibble

was designed as a cost-effective, convenient method to make use of byproducts from the human food supply chain that would otherwise go to waste. Kibble is typically  mass-produced in factories;often with multiple brands being manufactured at the same location with nearly identical ingredients. The big pet food manufacturers then market these burnt balls of grain and meat byproducts  as a wholesome, complete diet.

Mass-produced products are inherently problematic when animal welfare and ethical sourcing are not involved, and it’s almost impossible to guarantee that the millions of farm animals turned into kibble were treated ethically and humanely. At The Happy Beast, we carry only a handful of brands of dog kibble and no cat kibble at all. Even among these few ethical companies, it is difficult,  to find detailed sourcing information. Rather, consumers are assured that ingredients are “responsibly sourced” or “farm-raised,”which are vague labels that don’t actually mean much given the lack of standardization of these terms.. 

Beyond the impact on the lives of farm animals, there is a negative environmental impact of mass-produced pet food. A 2017 study estimated that dog and cat food is responsible for up to 30% of the environmental degradation caused by animal agriculture. Additionally, it is important to consider the environmental toll of manufacturing, packaging, and transporting the 9.4 million tons of pet kibble produced in the U.S. each year. The food we select for our beloved companion animals can have a much larger carbon footprint than we ever could have imagined.

Above all, kibble just isn’t a very healthy choice for pets. Most of us would be shocked if our doctors encouraged us to eat a diet consisting strictly of a single, highly-processed food. And we’d be even more skeptical if the doctors themselves were the ones selling it. Yet this is what we’ve grown to accept as healthy and acceptable for our pets; often without a second thought. Processed pet foods have been recalled hundreds of times due to deadly aflatoxins, mold, salmonella, foreign objects, and insufficient vitamins and minerals. Because of its high carbohydrate content, low moisture, and low-quality ingredients, kibble has also been linked to obesity, diabetes, kidney disease, urinary issues, and periodontal disease. 

What should conscious consumers feed their pets?

While the question of what to feed your pet may seem complicated based on the above information, the solution is surprisingly simple: fresh foods from small companies that emphasize transparency. The idea of handling fresh meat may make many vegetarians squeamish, but the benefits for the planet, farm animals, and our pets far outweigh any personal misgivings that may come from having meat in the kitchen. 

At The Happy Beast, we’re passionate about the planet and the animals we share it with. That’s why we’re working hard to create a sustainability rating for all the products we carry. While it’s still a work in progress, there are three companies we’d like to highlight based on their commitment to sustainability and animal welfare. 

Answers Pet Food

Based out of Pennsylvania, Answers partners with small family farms that practice sustainable, rotational farming practices. All of their meat is organic, pasture-raised, and certified by the Global Animal Partnership (GAP) with some of their poultry reaching the highest standards possible. They have focused on reducing plastic in their packaging, and the paper and cardboard their food is packaged in is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. The company even raises a large percentage of its own chickens and ducks and has its own goat herd for its raw goat milk and cheese. 

Smallbatch Pet Food

As their name suggests, Smallbatch makes their food in small batches in Portland, OR. Smallbatch also strives to source its ingredients from local farmers who practice good stewardship of their animals, land, and environment. Many of these animals are also certified humanely raised by GAP. Organic produce means that synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides don’t make their way into the environment, or your pet. Smallbatch also offers their food in lightly cooked preformed sliders for dogs, which can minimize handling for the truly squeamish vegetarian. 

Anderson’s Pet Food

Anderson’s is a local Colorado company and sources all of its ingredients from Colorado, which immediately lowers its environmental impact. With a focus on novel proteins like bison and elk, all of Anderson’s livestock are pasture-raised and live their lives in a stress-free environment in the Rocky Mountains. Produce is also locally sourced and non-GMO. Every part of the animal is used so Anderson’s also offers healthy, natural chews like antlers, marrow bones, and tendons. 

There are many other small, local companies working hard to create healthy, sustainable food with the welfare of  animals in mind, but these are three of our favorites. For the welfare of farm animals, the environment, and our pets, fresh food from small producers will always be a better solution than mass-produced kibble.

Further Reading

Check out more of our blogs or stop by the store to find the best food for your pet.

  1. Meat & The Environment: Beef
  2. Understanding Puppy Food
  3. Overweight and Obese Cats – Why You Should Act Now
  4. From Kibble to Raw: A Feline Food Journey
  5. Simple Diet Solutions for Anti-Inflammation
  6. How to Decipher Pet Food Labels & Misleading Marketing
  7. Retrain the Cat Brain: Solutions for Eliminating Kibble
  8. Feline Nutrition with Veterinarian Dr. Angie Krause

Probiotics vs. Prebiotics for Dogs & Cats

Dogs and cats can sometimes struggle with health issues, and the most prevalent one we encounter is gastrointestinal or stomach problems. From protein allergies to irritable bowel disease, there are several solutions you can use to help alleviate the symptoms of stomach upsets in dogs and cats. In this post, I’ll be talking about probiotics and prebiotics, what the differences are, and the benefits of each for your animal. If you’re looking for more help or other solutions for chronic bowel problems, please visit us at the store or read our other blog posts on similar topics, which you can find at the end of this post.

One of solutions or tools you can use to help your animal with upset stomach are probiotics. Probiotics are healthy, beneficial bacteria that are part of a complex ecosystem that resides in our pet’s gut. In this ecosystem, a lack of good bacteria can result in poor digestion and nutrient absorption, which can result in a spider-web of other symptoms such as skin and coat issues, bad breath, or persistent, loose stool. This complex ecosystem of bacteria can be thrown off by balance by a variety of factors, including your pet’s genes, environmental factors, or medicines like antibiotics. Some dogs or cats with IBS or IBD (irritable bowl syndrome or irritable bowel disease) need an extra boost of these beneficial bacteria to help stabilize them during certain periods when they’re showing symptoms.

Adding probiotics to the food of a dog or cat with a chronic issue will help alleviate these symptoms and improve the overall gastrointestinal (GI) health of your animal. Probiotics can be found in the form of powders or naturally in raw foods such as goat’s milk. We carry both forms at The Happy Beast, and are happy to talk through the benefits of specific brands. We typically recommend probiotics for people having an active or acute problem or symptom with their animal.

Compared to probiotics, prebiotics are the foods that probiotic bacteria feed on in the gut to reproduce and thrive. Many brands of pet food supplement their products with prebiotics, such as chicory root, which helps with digestion, but you can find a variety of supplements to give your animal that provide an overall boost to improve digestion and absorption of nutrients.

Digestive enzymes are also a great addition to a supplement regimen and are often found alongside prebiotics. Adding digestive enzymes can help your animal’s body more easily digest its meals, boost absorption, and improve their stools. This allows your animal to gain more nutrients from every meals. Here at The Happy Beast, we carry a variety of prebiotic and enzyme powders that are fast and easy to add to your daily feeding, including InClover’s Optagest, Honest Kitchen’s Perfect Form, and Super Snout’s GI Balance powder.

In summary, you can think about prebiotics as a great long-term supplement, whereas we believe probiotics are most useful in the short-term while your animal is going through a current phase of digestive upset. Dealing with digestive problems for your animal can be stressful and hard to manage, but using whole, raw foods and supplementation can ease many of the common ailments pets experience.

If you have any questions about probiotics, prebiotics, or digestive health in general, please call or visit us for a one-on-one diet consultation where we can help evaluate your pet and his or her specific needs.

Other Diet & Digestive Health blog posts from The Happy Beast

Black Lab Getting a Dog Bath - The Happy Beast

How To Help Your Dog Love Baths

Bathing and grooming a dog are important bonding and hygienic experiences for owner and pup. But for some, grooming and bathing our dogs is not always an easy task even for our water-loving friends. In the past, I’ve been lucky enough to work alongside a few wonderful groomers and have bathed countless dogs myself. Here are a few tips and tricks to help get your pup to enjoy a bath (or at least tolerate it)!

  • Start young: Dogs are creatures of patterns and habits so it should come as no surprise that if you begin doing baths regularly (every other week), especially when they are puppies, the process will become easier as they grow older. Desensitization or positive association to certain events or stimulus can act to protect your dog from becoming anxious about a bath.
  • Don’t underestimate a good treat: If possible, bring another trusted companion with you and have that person feed your dog her favorite treat and pet her if you’re dealing with high anxiety.

If you’ve adopted an older dog from a shelter with bathing anxiety, and have little to no background on her prior experience with baths, the next few solutions may prove even more helpful to you.

  • Small steps: Sometimes just the sounds, energy, placement, and surroundings of a bath can create anxiety for dogs. If you are using our tubs at The Happy Beast and have an anxious dog, I always suggest bringing in your pup to inspect the surroundings before giving her a bath. Letting your dog understand that she’s safe and there is no need for fear can sometimes be a great step to lessen anxiety.
  • Treats, treats, treats: While giving a bath, make it short and sweet. Then, over time, slowly work up to a full bath, using our blow dryer, additional brushing, etc. Sometimes small experiences increase the success of the larger experience. We want our dogs to associate the experience with either a neutral result or a positive result. A small treat provides a quick, positive stimulus for most dogs because they’re food-motivated animals.
  • Getting over the evil, loud, blow dryer: It’s also no surprise that most dogs absolutely hate the blow dryer (which is the most effective way to get all that pesky undercoat hair dry). Once again, gradual desensitization and more treats can help most dogs learn to tolerate the dryer. A few other tips:
    • When blow drying a nervous dog, always take off the nozzle on the dryer. This lowers the noise significantly and allows for a more “even” feeling on their skin, which feels more like wind than a dryer.
    • Never begin with your dog’s face or close-up. Start a few feet away from your dog with the dryer and blow directly at her midsection. As your dog becomes more comfortable, you can bring the dryer closer and move it slowly back and forth.
    • Avoid any known sensitive areas and do in small increments over time to allow your dog to get more comfortable.
  • CBD and anti-anxiety treats: For some of us dog owners, no matter how much positive reinforcement or treats we give, our dogs will still panic when it comes to baths. As someone who strongly believes in the use of CBD for anxiety (see our blog post about CBD for more information), this is an underrated tool that can help make any stressful situation safer and less stressful for you and your dog.
    • At The Happy Beast, we carry a wide variety of CBD and natural anti-anxiety treats. CBD acts as a safe way to lower the anxiety response and allow the bath experience to be less stressful. Always give your dog the recommended dose for her specific weight and what the situation calls for. Administer the dose about an hour before you come in for a bath.

To summarize, baths are an important part of upkeep for your dog’s skin and coat and helps reduce excess hair and dander around your home. Although all dogs react, interact, and learn differently, I hope some of these suggestions help guide you to an easier and more fun experience bathing your dog.

Have any questions? Feel free to call, email, or stop by the store to try out our self-serve dog wash. We provide the tubs, shampoo, conditioner, towels, blow dryer, and treats – all for just $12. Or take advantage of discounted washes for $10 on Wash Day Wednesdays.

Self-Serve Dog Wash | The Happy Beast
DCM Heart Disease in Dogs | The Happy Beast

What to Know about Grain-free Diets & DCM

Over the last year, and especially ramping up over the last couple of months, we have had a lot of discussions with customers regarding grain-free diets, and concerns about their potential of causing heart disease in dogs – more specifically, canine dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). We feel it is important to address this topic and review new research with an open mind by looking at all the information and facts available.

What is the issue? 

The concern being raised by some in the veterinarian community is that the legumes and/or potatoes in grain-free diets are either interfering with the absorption of taurine, or that these diets simply do not have enough taurine in them, which is leading to diet related Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM). However, not all dogs that develop DCM are taurine deficient and the causes of DCM can also be hereditary or unknown. At this time, the research is inconclusive and the information that is available is rather difficult to navigate. 

What is DCM?

Canine dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a heart disease in dogs that is characterized by weakening of the heart muscle, which leads to a decreased ability of the heart to pump, and if untreated, to cardiac failure. 

This article, “DCM in Dogs: Taurine’s Role in the Canine Diet” in Whole Dog Journal is another great resource if you’re looking for more background information.

What is Taurine? 

Taurine is an essential amino acid found in meat, fish, and in smaller concentrations in dairy products. It is an essential building block of protein. From our perspective, the current debate shouldn’t be about Grain-Free vs Grain-Based, but what happens when we feed a carbohydrate-based food? All kibble is produced with a heavy amount of carbohydrates. Making kibble is like baking –you have to have a flour source, whether that is grain, potatoes, or legumes. All companies add a synthetic vitamin and mineral pack to their kibble diets in order to compensate for the lack of fresh ingredients, especially meat, in order to meet minimum nutritional requirements. Because kibble is so heavily processed, there could be other factors affecting the levels of taurine found in the food and how it is absorbed in the body. 

What should I take away from all this? 

We feel there are valid reasons to question the nutritional completeness of all kibble formulas; not just grain-free diets. It has always been our motto to incorporate as much fresh, less-processed food into your animals’ diets as possible. 

We need to broaden our considerations when it comes to the food we traditionally feed our animals. For example, asking, “What happens when we feed our dogs one diet for most of their lives?” “Can any one brand, protein, or flavor meet the nutritional needs of every animal on an individual basis?” “If humans cannot thrive on a fortified cereal for our entire lives, why do we expect our animals to be able to?”

Long story short, we recommend: 

  • Adding fresh, unprocessed meat into the diet. Taurine is an essential amino acid derived from meat, so if the concern is that these animals are developing DCM from a taurine deficiency then we conclude that adding meat is the solution.
  • Use kibble for additional calories and a budget buffer and consider fresh food as your animal’s nutritional foundation.

Other Resources

How To Choose the Right Bone for Your Dog or Cat

We believe strongly in the benefits of chewing on bones for both cats and dogs. Your animal’s mouth is her greatest tool, so it is important to take good care of it! Chewing bones is a great way for them to exercise their jaw muscles, clean their teeth, and provide mental stimulation. (Check out our previous blog posts on the benefits of bones for dogs and cats!)

However, chewing on bones does carry risks, such as breaking a tooth and/or choking. It is important to be aware of the risks and how to safely choose a bone to maximize the benefits and reduce the potential risks.

In order to minimize the risks of chewing on bones, you should take into consideration size, density, and chewing tendencies of your animal:

  • Size: Bones should be large enough that the dog or cat cannot fit the bone entirely into their mouth. If it is too small, the animal could choke on it.
  • Density: Stronger chewers should stick to bones that are more dense or stronger, such as a shank bones, antlers, goat horn, and beef or bison femur bones. Less aggressive chewers may be safe with less dense bones such as lamb or pork bones.
  • Chewing Tendencies: Bones are intended to be gnawed on over a long period of time, not crushed and swallowed. If your dog is an aggressive chewer, and can break large pieces of bone off, then it is important to take the bone away and discard the pieces.

In addition, you should always supervise your animal when she is enjoying a bone just to make sure that she is chewing properly and there are no choking risks.

Finally, if you are ever unsure of what the right bone may be for your cat or dog, please ask us and we’ll be happy to walk you through the various options.