Tag Archive for: cat health

Picky cat holding nose
Natalie Soonthornswad

Kibble Transition Guide for Picky Cats

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As everyone who knows me knows, I always encourage people to get their cats off of kibble and onto a high moisture, high protein, low-carb canned or (ideally) raw food diet. Our kibble transition guide is great place to start. 

Convincing some cats to give up their “sugar” addiction isn’t always the easiest transition. For those cats that are giving you a run for your money, here is a step-by-step guide to getting your picky, kibble-addicted cat on the road to a healthier and happier life. Remember patience and persistence are the keys to success!

First, let’s reiterate the importance of getting your cat off of kibble.

  • Too low in moisture.
    can lead to kidney and urinary tract issues.
  • Too low in animal protein.
    Animal proteins provide the full spectrum of amino acids, including Taurine, which a cat needs, whereas plant-based proteins such as peas and potatoes do not. Peas and potatoes are the most common “binder” found in grain-free kibble, and can make up as much as 44% of the total kibble diet!
  • Too high in Carbohydrates.  
    All kibble, even “grain-free,” contains an average of 25% carbohydrate (a cat’s natural diet is generally less than 2%). This excess amount of carbohydrates promotes obesity because it is higher in sugar and causes cats to overeat. Cats tend to overeat kibble because the carbohydrates in it do not trigger satiety like fats and proteins do.

 

Kibble Transition Guide

  • Step 1: Eliminate “free-feeding” (leaving out kibble). Cats will be more inclined to try something new if they are hungry. The most difficult part of transitioning away from free-feeding is often that we humans feel bad taking away their “choice” to eat. However, keep in mind that a cat can easily go 8-12 hours without food, just be sure to leave out water.
  • Step 2: Once your cat has not had any food for 8 hours, offer a “stinky” can of cat food, such as B.F.F. Tuna or Weruva Paw Lickin’ Chicken.

If your cat eats the canned food…

  • Step 3: Feed your cat canned food 2x/day, always aiming to expand their palate by introducing new proteins and different textures. Don’t get discouraged if all your cat wants to eat is tuna. Eventually your cat will try and like different proteins, but you must be persistent.
  • Step 4: When offering new foods, leave new food out for up to 30 minutes and if untouched, place their “old” food next to it or in the same bowl.
  • Step 5: Incorporate freeze-dried treats or foods into the diet. Freeze-dried foods have a very distinct odor, flavor and texture which can be very alluring especially when enticing a cat to try something new.

If your cat won’t eat the canned food…

  • Step 3: Try sprinkling freeze dried food into the cat’s kibble. Or alternatively, you can try sprinkling a little bit of the cat’s kibble on top of the canned food.
  • Step 4: With each feeding, decrease the amount of kibble and increase the amount of freeze-dried or canned food. Remember that because kibble is so high in carbs the cat becomes “addicted” to the sound, smell and texture and the longer the cat goes from having kibble the easier the process will get.
  • Step 5: Once the kibble has been eliminated for 4 weeks, try introducing raw food

Why switch to raw from canned? Raw is less processed and therefore more digestible, and surprisingly can be less expensive than doing canned foods.

  • Step 6: Because raw food does not have a strong smell, using a little bit of canned or freeze-dried on top of the raw is a great way to entice your cat to try something new. Also be sure to add a bit of warm water to the raw as cats like their food at room temperature.

If your cat does not like the raw, continue serving 1 tsp of raw next to the cat’s current food, either in a separate dish or next to it in the same bowl. Some cats are very suspicious of new things, and this allows your cat to become familiar with the new food and begin to associate the raw with meal time.

Good luck and happy feeding!

If you want to tell us how your cat’s transition to raw food is going, send a us an email at eat@thehappybeast.com, find us on Facebook, or stop by the store. 

 

Digestive Enzymes for Pets | The Happy Beast
Chelsea Niekelski

Digestive Enzymes for Pets

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What are digestive enzymes? Enzymes are responsible for making the chemical reactions in our body faster and more efficient. Digestive enzymes aid the body by breaking down proteins from food into amino acids which can be absorbed and utilized. Enzymes facilitate proper absorption of foods.

Digestive enzymes are found in raw foods. They are what cause foods to break down and decay. For example, bananas contain the enzyme, amylase. Amylase breaks down raw starch into sugar, which is why green bananas become softer and sweeter as they sit on the counter. All raw foods contain the right amount of the specific enzyme required to break the proteins they are made of.

Why is this important? Cooking destroys the enzymes that are required to break food down, so when we eat cooked food our bodies have to source enzymes from an internal supply. If the body is focused on producing enzymes for digestion, less energy is allotted to the metabolic enzymes used in organ, muscle and cell function.

Efficient and complete digestion is essential to good health. When the digestive system is functioning well, the rest of the body is prepared to maintain good health and fight disease. Digestive enzymes can take the body from merely surviving to truly thriving. This is especially important in animals with allergies, compromised immune systems, IBD, IBS, and pancreatitis. Symptoms of an enzyme deficiency can include bloating, gas, irritability and fatigue.

How should this affect your choices for pet food?

  1. Feed raw. Any food that hasn’t been cooked over 118 degrees will retain its required enzymes. Choose a frozen, dehydrated and freeze-dried raw food that is complete and balanced. See some of the foods we recommend here.
  2. Supplement with a digestive enzyme. Choose a plant-sourced enzyme as they survive under more diverse conditions. Avoid enzymes called “animal pancreas extracts” which may not survive the acidic environment on the digestive tract. We like InClover’s Optagest.
  3. Choose raw treats like frozen marrow bones and raw goat milk. These treats contain live enzymes to support the digestive tract and overall good health and your animals will love them!
  4. Read our blog post on “Helping Pets with Digestive Problems“ for more info and recommendations.
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.

Dog Exercise New Year's Resolutions | The Happy Beast
Chelsea Niekelski

3 Super Simple New Year’s Resolutions for You and Your Dog

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Sticking to resolutions can be hard, but everything’s easier with a buddy. This year, let’s make New Year’s resolutions for you and your dog! Here are three easy ideas for you and your pup to do together.

  1. Exercise
    You don’t have to join a gym or start training for a marathon. To get started, take your dog for a walk around the block. Getting out for a ten minute walk promotes healthy blood flow, allows you to soak up Vitamin D from the sun and helps boost your mood, altogether protecting his you from stress and disease. Your dog will benefit from the mental stimulation provided by the ever-changing smells in the environment and the relationship-building power of leashed walking. (Read more here!)
  2. Eat Fresh Food
    YOU: Grab a salad for lunch or replace your afternoon sugar snack with an apple.YOUR DOG: Add a little life to your dog’s food! Dogs fed mostly kibble miss out on all the awesome nutrients and enzymes found in fresh foods. Adding a dehydrated food like Sojos or The Honest Kitchen is an easy way to provide the benefits of home cooking without having to do all the work.
  3. Take a Fish Oil Supplement
    Omega 3s reduce inflammation, joint pain and promote healthy skin, fur and hair! This one’s easy. Keep your dog’s fish oil next to yours, and when you take two, he takes one (or two if he’s a big guy.) I’ve been giving my dog the awesome Omega 3 supplement from InClover called Glow. She LOVES these little treats, and reminds me to give her one every day.

Happy New Year’s to all you happy beasts and good luck with those resolutions!

Kitten in a litter box reviewing different types of cat litter.
Kitten in a litter box reviewing different types of cat litter.
Kitten in a litter box reviewing different types of cat litter.

The Scoop on Cat Litter

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The most widely used cat litter brands are made of bentonite clay, but many cats and owners (including yours truly) prefer a litter made from pine, corn or wheat. Be sure to research your particular brand, but the points outlined below are true of most products. Experiment with different styles of litter until you find one that both you and your cat prefer.

Pine (Nat’s preferred litter!)
We like “Feline Fresh”

  • Non-tracking and non-dusting
  • Made of reclaimed pine wood from sustainable forestry products, in a zero-waste production facility
  • 100% renewable and biodegradable
  • No Chemicals or Additives

Corn
We like “Integrity Corn & Pine Blend” and “World’s Best Cat Litter”

  • Lower tracking than clay litter, with a texture that most cats prefer
  • High absorbency and odor control
  • Superior clumping for easy cleanup
  • Free of chemical fragrances

Wheat
We like “Swheat Scoop”

  • Low tracking
  • Odor control from natural wheat enzymes
  • Clumping
  • Chemical and Clay free

Clay
We like “Dr. Elsey’s Precious Cat” and “Integrity”

  • Most common due to it’s superior clumping ability and odor control
  • Suitable for sifting/mechanical litter boxes
  • Texture preferred by most cats

Cons of clay litters:

  • More dust and tracking than other types of litters.
  • Cats with respiratory issues, such as asthma may benefit from a non-dusting litter.