Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July!

Elka is not a dog bothered by fireworks (she'll lie to me about having to go out so she can try to see them. Protip: we can't see them from our house), but I get that a lot of dogs are. I'm surprised Elka isn't, really. This dog used to be afraid of plastic bags, and depending, they can still make her skittery.  But she wants to watch thunderstorms and fireworks. Sure, Elka. It's just how she keeps us on our toes, with no way to tell what she'll love and what she'll hate sometimes.

Thanksgiving is coming!

This happens to me every year, perhaps because of National Novel Writing Month, but Thanksgiving has snuck right up on me!

Last year I posted about this lovely holiday play set that Target had. I don't think Target has brought it back, unfortunately, but because I've carefully guarded it, we've still got it! But, I also talked about food safety, and things like that bear repeating.

One thing that we've noticed at holiday time with Elka is that sometimes, when somebody *coughnotmecough* feeds her things like turkey skin, she has the runs after. I guess this is a good indicator that she has just enough fat in her diet, and doesn't need more of it in "lump sum" quantities. We've never given her what seems to be a massive amount of turkey skin, but we won't be doing any of that this year. Pancreatitis is one of those things you have to watch out for, and I've seen other blogs and web sites caution against loading your dog up on high fat things at any time. There are other ways to give them treats, they don't need to be greasy and fatty!

I've discovered this year that Elka really loves sweet potatoes. Mostly because every time I have sweet potato, she sings at my plate until I give her some. I tend to just bake them, with some butter or some olive oil, and find they don't really need much more than that. I didn't used to like sweet potatoes; add it to the list, I guess.

So, safe and happy holidays, folks!

FDA inspection on Diamond Pet Foods plant

So, apparently, from April 12 to April 20, there was an FDA inspection of the Diamond Pet Foods plant. April 10 is when I'd posted about their initial 2012 recall, and said that I "applaudeded" them for doing it voluntarily. With the information that I have now, including dates (and the fact that they'd had recalls in what, 2007? So, before I ever got Elka), I really think that they knew exactly what they were doing. Timing is everything, right? Well, apparently Diamond was notified as of April 2 that Salmonella had been detected in random testing of one of their foods.

May 4 is when I posted about the recall expansion (still voluntary), that included Elka's food.

And hey, you know what? Apparently the plant started operations again. On April 30.

But, here's the FDA report on the plant. Not only is there no place for employees to do basic things like wash their hands, but it also seems as though there are ingredients present that aren't actually on the ingredients lists of the dog foods produced there. Animal digest? No, I don't think Taste of the Wild has that.

So, why am I (and others) paying for premium food, if weird stuff like that is apparently included in the processing? Who's cutting the corners here? I can't help but think of a statement I made while talking about chicken jerky sickening animals: if this was baby food, people would be losing their shit. But it's only dogs, right?

Well. Handling contaminated dog food, and interacting with dogs who have consumed contaminated food can spread the infection to humans. According to the CDC, at least 14 humans have become sickened with salmonella from this food. I still haven't seen any official announcement that dogs have gotten sick, though people have been perfectly willing to snark at me in comments on other peoples' blogs about it. If it isn't reported, by you or your vet, than people don't know. I have finally seen an article about Salmonella confirmed in 2 dogs, in one of the homes in which a human had been sickened as well.



Information for Pet owners: on the CDC web site.

Happy Thanksgiving, From the Elka Almanac!

I missed out on Tasty Tuesday, and this is too many words for Wordless Wednesday but, you know? I'm probably taking Thanksgiving off. So there you have it.

Last year, Target had these lovely dog toy "bundles" that mimicked a holiday meal. I had friends in Albany pick one up for Elka, but never gave it to her, for whatever reason (okay, plush + Doberman = short lived, and it's just so cute!) But, today, I'm going to be a nerd and use it to illustrate human holiday meals and what they can mean for our dogs!

So, we have a decent and stereotypical Holiday spread here (Thanksgiving or Christmas, really), sans dessert.

Depending on what you feed your dog, you may already give her quite a lot in the way of grains, as illustrated by the dinner roll. Unless it's supposed to be a hot cross bun, in which case we do have dessert. If baking bread or rolls on Thanksgiving, make sure your dog doesn't ingest any raw yeast dough, which can expand in her stomach and cause pain and gastric distress. The potato isn't so bad, really, depending on quantity (and whether it's loaded with butter). A lot of people who feed their dogs grain free, but still go commercial, end up with a fish and potato brand.

Next we have the veggies: Corn and either broccoli or asparagus. Again, depending on what you feed your dog, she may eat a lot of corn. I mean lots and lots. In fact, if interested, you might hop over to Dog Food Analysis and check out how your dog's kibble measures up. It has its own "star" rating, but also includes why foods receive the scores that they do, and list ingredients. Corn on the cob may or may not be a choking hazard, and if you decide to give it to your dog, do so only with supervision and make sure very large pieces don't get swallowed to cause stomach upset later. Broccoli is all right, as long as it doesn't exceed 10% of your dog's daily diet; apparently there's a thing called "broccoli toxicity", with stomach upset starting at the 10% mark and the 25% mark having a possibility for fatality. That sounds pretty scary, and I'm going to try to find some peer reviewed sources to verify that at another time. Asparagus I'm less familiar with, but my understanding is that in large amounts, it can cause upset stomach (are we sensing a theme?)

And now, the star of dinner, turkey! Turkey itself is a fairly lean meat. The problem here is its "add-ons". NEVER feed your dog cooked bones, poultry or otherwise. NEVER. They have a high chance of splintering and perforating organs and other necessary things. My understanding is that folks who feed raw will give RAW, whole turkey to dogs and those bones are all right, but if you decide to feed raw, make sure to do your research and discuss with an animal nutritionist so that you know about the calcium-phosphorus ratios and all that good stuff. Turkey skin, in excess, can cause pancreatitis, the symptoms of which are things like vomiting, and in extreme severity can require hospitalization. You can read more about that here, as I'm already getting rather wordy, but feel it's important to highlight these things.

Then, dinner's over. Do you run out and play right away? Well, no. Most humans, after gorging themselves on Thanksgiving dinner, roll themselves to a chair or couch and watch football, or engage in long rambling conversations. For a dog, true exertion close to a meal can cause bloat, a swelling of the stomach caused by gas and such, that may involve torsion, and certainly involves an operation to the tune of $1500 or so, and even then, depending on how early it is caught, the chances of survival may not be so great. This is a video of a dog bloating, an Akita, not a Doberman. It's good education, on the sort of things to look for in a dog, but also pretty heartbreaking. The dog lived, so you know ahead of time. The "plate" that Elka's toy pack came on is a Frisbee (well, a Flying Disk), which I thought was very clever!

When confronted with her plate of Holiday Goodies, Elka wasn't really sure what to make of them. She was interested, certainly, but the whole package was a mystery.

Eventually, I took pity on her, and extricated the corn.

Eventually, the turkey followed suit. Elka really dug the turkey; it was interestingly shaped and textured, and the drumsticks are ropes! Elka loves ropes.

She had to make sure she wasn't missing out on anything, of course.

And, because I'm a meanie, I only let her play with them for a little while, so that they last longer than five minutes. The squeakers in them are actually rather hard (perhaps because they've cured for a year?) and don't squeak at the slightest touch, which is optimal for Elka, and poor for the survivability of the toys.

Have a safe and happy holiday, everybody!