Normally I love a good thick steak very rare or maybe a well prepared Steak Tartar and wash it down with a little bottle of Bling H20. But there are times that nibbling on a delightfully cool, and delicious bite of a perfect gelatin is what is called for, especially after a long walk in the park on a typically hot steamy day in Texas.
Gayle and Chef Mimi do make a wonderful gelatin called Red Beefy Hearts. They use a special beef broth and pureed roasted red peppers with a special herb blend. They use a heart shaped cutter to make perfect little hearts. It’s really quite lovely. This is a three paw review… Picture blow:
Top Dog Food Critic in the country. He is starting his own blog section. He will be writing about his dining experiences. This Canine has an amazing palate.
Mister Casper should be blogging soon……
Stinky Dog: Digestive Problems in Canines
by Gayle Pruitt CN
Did your best furry buddy ever have gas or should I say ‘flatulence’ (a much nicer term), or diarrhea or vomiting? That could mean that your cute little doggie ate something dead like a yummy rat, bird or a little bug. But it could also indicate a digestive disorder that might be more alarming. Dogs can have IBS (Irritable bowel syndrome), colitis, even a peptic ulcer just like humans. These disorders can result from many different causes so if your Fido is experiencing any signs like gas, vomiting, diarrhea, or loss of appetite, then it’s always best to take him/her to the Veterinarian to be checked out.
There are a few things you can do that may prevent some of these issues from even manifesting. First, feed him good human grade quality food. I don’t mean human food as in fast junk food! I mean really good high grade meat, fresh vegetables and a little fruit. And you can get a good digestive enzyme from your Veterinarian. Mix the proper amount in with their food along with a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. This will help do some of the heavy work of breaking down the food.
Friendly bacteria – probiotics – are a critical ingredient for keeping you and your canine kid’s immune system strong, healthy, and absorbing nutrients properly. The best probiotic I have ever found for humans or for dogs is Dr. Ohhira’s Probiotics. If your dog is like my two hungry hounds all you would have to do is pitch the capsule to them and they would gobble it up. If yours is a little more finicky then open up the capsule, push out the good tasting paste and either place it in their food or just in their mouth. Dr. Ohhira’s tastes great, plus it’s even good for their gums (your gums too!).
Stress is a main factor causing dogs and humans to start having digestive issues. Why not have a little Bach or Chopin playing in the background? Classical music has been shown to soothe animals and humans alike, especially Bach. Once the stress level goes down and your dog is eating right and his flora is flourishing, it’s time to think about your dog living a long and healthy happy life. One way to help ensure that your little guy lives as long as he is supposed to is with the Gift of Life supplement. It’s delicious and it brings out the puppy in your dog at any age.
Just remember – if your dog is stinky and hasn’t been near a skunk or there are no rotten eggs around then you may need to check with the Vet. Start feeding him/her high quality food, use digestive enzymes and give Dr. Ohhira’s Probiotics - the very best for dog or human!
Article submitted by Gayle Pruitt, CN.
For questions about Probiotics and the Dr. Ohhira Probiotic Supplements email Gayle at gayle@drohhiraprobiotics.com or call 800-605-5032 Ext. 3.
Keeping You and Your Furry Buddy Healthy, Happy and Enjoying Life.
Keep your weight and your dog’s weight under control. Obesity in you and in your dog is a prescription for trouble. When overweight, both humans and dogs are more at risk for many lifestyle illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, and even certain cancers. Being overweight is also hard on your joints, messes up your hormones and depletes your energy. So exercise, and eat the right foods to be able to enjoy life to its fullest.
When you exercise, it doesn’t take long before you and your dog feel the benefits. The right kind of exercise strengthens the heart and lungs, builds muscle, and helps rid the body of toxins including the bad estrogens that can cause trouble. Exercise increases circulation which brings more oxygen to the cells and tissues. Increased activity burns calories which in turn burns fat and you lose weight. But that’s not all! For a big bonus, exercise affects the brain in many different, positive ways; it helps with perception, memory, judgment, and reasoning. It lifts your mood, and eases your pain.
When you and your dog buddy have more energy and are excited about life, you burn calories. When you burn calories, you burn fat.
Next in the equation is water. Remember, pure water for you and your dog keeps the toxins away. Please don’t let your best buddy drink from puddles on the street. It’s not just the bacteria that are the problem. Lead, arsenic and other poisons could be out on the road. They are all carcinogenic. Change your dog’s water at least once a day. Get a good water filter. The money spent is well worth it in the savings on your veterinarian and doctor bills.
The quality of the air that we breathe is also very important. The air in the parks and in the backyard is great, but stay away from walking close to the highway. The toxins in the air from cars and trucks and could cause some issues. The air in our home needs to be as pure as possible, so nix those toxic cleaning chemicals. Get an air purifier. If you can’t afford a good air purifier then invest in some plants that also take many toxins out of the air and will help with allergies too.
Next, use natural products for you and your dog. There are so many wonderful natural flea and tick powders, shampoos, and sprays that do not have side effects. There is no reason now to use harsh chemicals on yourself or your canine kids. Same goes for lawn products. You don’t need to use toxic chemicals in your yard and landscaping. There are many natural alternatives that do a wonderful job.
Keep your life and your dog’s life as simple as possible. Try to delete as much stress out of your life as you can. There could be people in your life that are toxic. Stay away from them. Life is too precious and too short; you must make smart choices. You will never be able to change toxic people. They are who they are and if they want to change – great, but you can’t do it for them. That’s not your job. Your job is for you to be happy and healthy and make a happy healthy life for your dog.
One more little thing before we get to the fun stuff – food! Ask yourself do I run to the doctor every time I get the sniffles and ask for a medication? If you do, you are contributing to the toxic impact on your life. Our immune system can handle most of our issues. Of course, when you do get sick by all means go to your doctor. And if your dog is really sick, go to the veterinarian. But if you don’t have to have drugs, don’t press your doctor or the veterinarian into giving you or your dog one. If the doctor does prescribe a drug, it doesn’t hurt to ask your doctor what the side-effects are and how necessary is that drug. Remember every single drug has a side-effect and the more drugs you take the more side-effects you will have and the more drugs will be prescribed to take care of the side-effects. What a vicious circle!
And now for the best part – food. Food for you and your dog needs to be as clean as possible. By that I mean buy organic and/or locally grown meat and eggs. Find pasture fed or, at the very least, antibiotic and hormone free. Buy organic vegetables and fruits to help keep toxic chemicals and pesticides to a minimum. Also, you and your little furry guy needs to be able to digest all that good food so a digestive enzyme and some friendly bacteria is always a good choice.
Have fun, eat healthy and have a great life!
http://drohhiraprobiotics.com
800-605-5032
Mimi is ready for her lunch
When thinking about your best buddy’s health, digestion is the first thing to consider. Their ability to digest and absorb what they eat is the critical first step to nutrition and health.
Health begins in the gut. Your dog has a short digestive system, so it only takes about 8 to 9 hours for food to go from teeth and tongue to tail.
But before his food ever goes into his greedy little mouth he has to smell it and he must like the smell. Dogs can out-sniff you a million to one. No kidding, a dog literally has between 120 million to more than a whopping 220 million scent cells, depending on the breed. As mere humans, we have only about 5 million scent cells. And these canine super sniffers can store smells in their brains like we store data on a computer. Their heightened sense of smell helps with their more limited sense of taste. Our canine buddies have only about 1,700 taste buds enabling them to taste sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. We humans have about 9,000.
It seems the stronger the smell, the better dogs like it. Commercial dog food companies have understood this and have taken advantage by spraying fat smells and smoky scents directly onto kibbles, tricking dogs and dog parents. If you knew what some of these kibbles were made from, you probably would not buy them for your pet. And without the fat smell and added scents, your dog probably would not eat them.
Unlike humans who savor a good steak by chewing it thoroughly, when dogs think something smells good and tastes good, they tear it apart and swallow it in as few bites as possible. Their incisors teeth cut the meat, and the back molars crush. Canines do not chew their food, like humans, because their jaws never go sideways they only move up and down.
The saliva in a dog’s mouth does not have any enzymes that help break down food. But do have an enzyme in their mouth known as lysozyme. Lysozyme kills bad bacteria. That’s why our sweet little angles can eat something rotten off the street not get sick.
Strong enzymes and stomach acids in the canine stomach digest raw chunks of meat and bones, turning food into chyme (a semi liquid mass of partially digested food.) The chyme passes from the stomach through the pyloric sphincter into the duodenum, where it then is passed on to the small intestines. There, the food is broken down even further so that it can be absorbed into the intestine wall and into the blood stream, feeding the nutrients to the body. By the time the chyme arrives in the large intestines, most of the nutrients have been absorbed and the waste is then eliminated.
When talking about digestion we can’t leave out friendly bacteria. They are a big part of the equation. Our dogs need to have a garden of friendly flora in their little guts to insure they are healthy. These friendly little bacteria support the immune system, help protect against food allergies, and may help with eliminating joint pain. They also may prevent ear infections, and itchy skin usually caused by yeast. They can also improve digestion and help normalize bowel movements. These friendly bacteria have about a thousand other tasks they perform in the body from building “B†vitamins to protecting against bad bacteria. I use Dr. Ohhira’s probiotics for my Canine kids. They are a little expensive but well worth it for my little treasures.
To have a healthy, happy furry companion, feed him/her a balanced diet, with fresh and high quality human grade food. Use plenty of good protein (grass- -fed if possible), fresh vegetables, and some fruit.
According to the 2005 Perdue Cancer Center studies of invasive urinary bladder cancer (invasive urothelial carcinoma or InvUC) in dogs, the findings were that “…reduction in InvUC risk is attributed to ingestion of vegetables. In fact, dogs in the study who consumed vegetables at least 3 times per week had a 70 percent reduction in bladder cancer risk.â€Â The vegetables with the most reduction were green leafy, yellow and orange vegetables.
But our canine kids need to be able to digest those meats and vegetables. Because of the canine’s short digestive system, puree any raw vegetables that you feed them to help break the food down.
Herbs are another much overlooked ingredient that helps with digestion and a myriad of other uses. Three herbs that are inexpensive and excellent for digestion are fennel, ginger, and turmeric. Just a pinch is all that is needed for these super stars.
Fennel seeds, bulbs and leaves -Fennel is good for digestion, reducing gas and bloating and has been used for infant’s colic and for pain. Place the seeds in a coffee grinder and grind them into a fine powder or puree in a food processor with other vegetables. The fennel bulb may be used raw or lightly braised and the raw leaves can be pureed in the food processor.
Ginger – use either dried ground or the fresh roots.  Finely mince or puree the raw root. Ginger is known for its digestive properties, for nausea and inflammation.
Turmeric -aids in digestion and acts as an anti-inflammatory. Used for pain, arthritis, and to help protect the liver. Turmeric is called the poor man’s saffron because it turns food a beautiful orange or yellow.
A good digestive enzyme especially designed for dogs is another way to help insure your dog’s ability to digest his food.
If your dog’s digestion is healthy then you have a healthy dog.
Always consult your veterinarian before changing your dog’s diet.
I know, I know. You are going to think I’ve gone over to la la land for giving caviar to dogs. But before you send for the men in the little white coats let me tell you some of the health benefits of caviar, especially the Wild Salmon Roe (always use wild salmon roe for your canines). According to researchers at the University of AlmerÃa (UAL) in Spain…
“We have classified these eggs as unequivocal sources of Omega 3, and have proven that this appears at high concentrations in all the species studiesâ€, says José Luis Guil Guerrero, director of this study and a researcher in the Food Technology Department of the UAL. “Omega 3 fatty acids are present in all fish roe, but especially in the eggs of Atlantic bonito (Sarda sarda), mackerel (Scomber scombrus), squid (Loligo vulgaris), cuttlefish (Sepia sp.), lumpsucker (Cyclopterus lumpus), hake (Merluccius merluccius) and salmon (Salmo salar). More than 30% of the fatty acids found in these eggs were EPA and DHA. Small consumption of lumpsucker, hake or salmon roe satisfies the human body’s Omega 3 essential fatty acid requirements, because of its levels of EPA and DHA.†–  European Journal of Lipid Science and Technology, December 2009.â€
A few of the Benefits :Â
1. Helps protect the brain and damage from strokes
2. Because of the salmon roe’s phosphatidylcholine, it is beneficial in chronic liver disease.
3. The high lysine in caviar, when combined with certain drugs, has the ability to cause a cancer cell to destroy itself. Some doctors even recommend eating caviar after major Surgery and chemo treatment.
And it is sooo good!
As a matter of fact, the reason there is only one Wild Salmon Roe Egg in the picture is because Mimi, Casper, and I decided we would just take a bite or two to test the recipe, and then the eggs just disappeared.
Here is a simple but delicious recipe for ….
Stuffed Jeweled Eggs:
4 hard cooked eggs peeled
1 teaspoon of dried dill or 2 teaspoons of fresh dill chopped
½ tablespoon of mayonnaise
1 Tablespoon of Wild Red Salmon Roe
Slice eggs lengthwise and gently take out the yoke. Â Place in another bowl; add mayonnaise and dill and mash mixture together with a fork. Fill eggs with mixture. Divide the salmon roe into eight even amounts and top each egg.
Mimi has a little friend Bebe that she met at the Doggie Park about a year and a half ago. At that time Bebe was a fourteen year old Jack Russell. She was a little cranky and had some issues with her joints. However, Mimi saw a kindred spirit and they hit it off and became great friends.
I ask Bebe’s mom if she was on any supplements and she told me Bebe was on some really good canine vitamins. I mentioned to her that  The Gift For Life was one of the best products I had found for all dogs but especially for dogs or cats with aging conditions.
She said she would give it a try and now Bebe is running and playing at the doggie park and no one can believe she is now fifteen years young because Bebe is The Queen of the Park.
As I have mentioned before in a previous blog, my Casper had been rescued but he had been kept in a crate with about twenty-five other dogs in the same room for quite sometime. So when I adopted this sweet boy he was under stress and his hair was coming out in handfuls. Also more disturbing was his teeth. I immediately took him off all commercial dog food that had grains, corn, potatoes and started feeding him high quality human grade food with no starches. I also did some research and found a Brush-less Breathless Toothpaste and a product of enzymes, Plaque Zappers I put in the water that breaks down tarter on there teeth. This little guy now has beautiful teeth and he gets rave reviews at his annual checkups.
Casper’s Beef Recipe
Double or even triple this recipe and store in individual servings in the freezer.Â
1 lb raw roast (I use grass-fed) cut in ½ inch cubes for small to medium dogs and 1 inch cubes for larger dogs
3 small cans of sardines or 1 large can in water, rinsed of salt, drained
1 Lg carrot chopped
2 Lg collared green leaves stemmed and chopped
¼ cup frozen peas (thawed)
¼ cup parsley chopped
¼ cup of frozen cranberries (thawed)
Casper and his cute girl friend, Kayla ( he likes her more than she likes him) Bless his heart.
1 Tbl flax seed meal (I use sprouted)
1 Tbl coconut oil
1 Tsp eggshell calcium powder ( I grind the eggs shells myself)
½ Tbl of nutritional yeast
Place all ingredients, except beef, in food processor and process until blended thoroughly. Add beef and mix.
All dogs like humans are unique in their likes, dislikes and their nutritional needs so please ask you veterinarian what is best for your furry buddies.
Male brown dog ticks and non-engorged female ticks are flat and brown. Deer ticks are tiny; you can barely see them if they haven’t had their ‘drink’ yet. As the female ticks fill up on your dog’s blood they start to look like gray beans about a quarter inch long. They have four small legs on each side near their mouth. The deer tick is known to carry Lyme disease and can be harder to find than the dog tick because it is so small. We have seen both types on dogs recently. 
At the end of the year, we all take time to reflect on the things that we are thankful for and have brought us fulfillment. We spend time with family and friends and feel love and contentment; it’s a time of reflection and of course excitement for what’s to come next in our lives.
Flu season can take a toll on man’s best friend just as much as on man. And this year, for the first time, there’s a vaccination available. Should your dog get the shot?
An article posted this week by CBC titled “
There have been some new developments in Robbie’s case that have eliminated the urgent need we had for a short term foster home. His present owners are now able to keep him for a few extra weeks, buying us the time we need to bring him here. This is excellent beyond description, and lifts a huge weight from our minds.
As the information we’ve posted so far on our 
The picture at left captures a moment in which Milo and Minnie are sniffing Alyssa while she calmly watches them. Alyssa has been exposed to dogs almost from birth and in our house never reacts in any other way to their presence. We’ve never even witnessed anything more than a look of concern on her face after she’s just been startled by a dog suddenly barking nearby. Babies function on a more primal level than older humans who tend to overthink experiences and formulate responses based on what they think is going on rather than what is. Like dogs, babies respond to the world through smell, sound, sight, touch, and taste; and like dogs they can learn to react in unbalanced ways when unstable energy, either from an unbalanced human or dog, is permitted to enter the experience. 
