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a. How to read a pet food labelb. What Cancer-causing ingredients are allowed in pet foods?c. How are dog dietary needs different from cat dietary needs?d. What foods are poisonous to dogs and cats?e. What Evanger’s product should be recommended if your pet has diarrhea vs. constipation?f. What are the benefits of adding water to your pet’sg. Should I give my pet a variety of different flavors?h. Exactly when is it safe to exercise your pet in reference to eating?i. What are the ancillary benefits to exclusively feeding Evanger’s?A. How to read a pet food label:The pet food industry is regulated by AAFCO (the Association of American Feed Control), the FDA/CVM (Food and Drug Administration/Center for Veterinary Medicine), the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), and the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). The list of ingredients states all of the items that are contained in the food from the highest quantity listed first to the least listed last. The first ingredient is the most important one because this is what the food has most of. If the first ingredient is water, skip over to the second ingredient. It should be a good quality protein like found in all of the Evanger’s varieties. If a meat is listed then it is a muscle meat like chicken, turkey, beef, lamb or fish, the best quality proteins. The biological value of a protein determines how well the body can use it. The better the body can use a protein, the higher the biological value it will have. Protein eaten provides the body nitrogen and amino acids, the building blocks. There are 9 essential amino acids that the body cannot make itself and therefore, must be provided for in the diet. Meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy all have a high biological score. For example, eggs have a biological value of 100; beef has a biological value of 80. As far as the vegetarian diet goes, the combination of legumes and grains provide complementary proteins. In other words, separately, these ingredients may not score high because separately, each is missing an essential amino acid (legumes are missing methionine while grains are missing lysine) but together they complement each other with the end result of a good quality, high biological value protein source. B. What Cancer-causing ingredients are allowed in pet foods?BHA, BHT and ethoxyquin are all preservatives allowed in pet foods. These preservatives have also been linked to causing cancer. Educated consumers know this and will be impressed that Evanger’s dog and cat foods don’t need to contain any preservatives to maintain their freshness because the canned foods are cooked right in the can. As far as the dry foods go, there are natural preservatives like Vitamin E (mixed tocopherols) to keep all of the pet foods safe. C. How are dog dietary needs different from cat dietary needs?This is a very important lesson because pet owners that do not know this and let the dog eat the cat food or the cat eat the dog food could end up with a very sick or even dead pet. This does not usually happen if a few meals are shared, but if this happens on a regular basis. Incidentally, dogs are omnivores like people; they eat both meat and vegetables. Cats are obligate carnivores; they eat mostly meat. Cats have a higher protein and fat requirement than do dogs. Dogs that eat cat food could end up with liver, kidney and/or pancreatic problems because the cat food is too high in protein and fat for their bodies to properly metabolize. Cats that eat dog food could end up blind or with a serious heart condition called dilated cardiomyopathy. Both of these conditions can happen because cats have a dietary need for taurine. Dogs can actually make this amino acid but cats must have it supplied in their diets. D. What foods are poisonous to dogs and cats?Even though some of these are in Evanger’s pet foods, their quantities are safe ! Garlic and avocados are poisonous to both dogs and cats if given in a high enough concentration. Garlic is in the onion family, and both garlic and onions are toxic to dogs, cats, and many other animals. In a high enough concentration, ingested garlic or onions can cause the body’s red blood cells to breakdown leading to anemia. Cats are particularly sensitive to its toxic effects but do not worry. There is no garlic in the Evanger’s cat food. The garlic is only found in the dog food and it is not one of the first ingredients. In other words, there is not a high enough concentration in Evanger’s dog food to even worry about. Avocados eaten by dogs in LARGE amounts can cause gastrointestinal upset like vomiting and/or diarrhea. Again, there is not a large enough amount in the Vegetarian diet to even worry about. There are beneficial effects of these ingredients and good health and safety are always Evanger’stop priorities, for example garlic in a small amount acts as an antioxidant. If you have a customer that wants to know more about what can be potentially harmful to pets, you can send him or her to the Animal Poison Control Center website for more information. You would be surprised at what could be poisonous to pets. For example, grapes and raisins can cause kidney problems. Once again, your pet needs to eat a large amount to see toxic side effects. If your dog has eaten 1 or 2 grapes because they fell on the floor and he or she grabbed them, do not worry. If an entire bunch has been eaten then you need to contact your veterinarian immediately. There are no grapes in any of Evanger’s foods. E. What Evanger’s product should be recommended if your pet has diarrhea vs. constipation?This is something every pet sale’s person needs to know because some pets have a tendency to either eliminate too much water and others do not eliminate enough because they suffer from dehydration, a kidney problem or a large bowel problem. The end result is stool that is too soft and watery or too hard and dry, and both conditions could be painful for the pet. If a customer has a pet that tends to have diarrhea or constipation more often than normal stool, a veterinary check up is the first step to rule out a disease. If the vet gives the pet a clean bill of health then the diet needs to be changed to a blander, more constipating one for a diarrhea problem or a higher fat content, more fiber and more water diet for a constipation problem. Any of the Evanger’s diets that have rice in them will help with a soft stool problem. The lamb and rice dinner for example is a gentle diet for the gut. Feeding dry food will also help firm up the stool. If a pet has a stool that is too firm and dry, adding water to an exclusively canned diet can help. Look for a diet that has a higher fat content in it and maybe more fiber like combining the vegetarian can with pure pheasant meat; the combination of more fiber from the vegetarian diet together with more fat from the pheasant diet can help soften the stool up. F. What are the benefits of adding water to your pet’s food?We are all ~ 75% water-people, dogs and cats. Human babies are born at 78% water and the amount decreases with age. Therefore, it is important for all of us to take in enough water whether it is directly from how much we drink or ingested from the food. If a pet is not a big water drinker then dry food should never be offered. A dry diet can further contribute to a state of dehydration. Many people do not drink enough water. This is also true for many cats. Adding water to canned food can make up for that. Some cats don’t like the taste of tap water in a plastic bowl but filtered water changed daily and served in a glass or ceramic bowl tastes much better. Some pets will only drink out of dripping sink or worse, out of the toilet bowl. The ceramics keep the water cold even though there are many bacteria contaminating the water. Keep your lids down and keep fresh water available 24/7. Some pets can be stimulated to drink out of a water fountain where the water passes through a filter all day long. If your pet does not drink enough water then you can easily add it to his or her canned Evanger’s diet. G. Should I give my pet a variety of different flavors?This is probably one of the biggest misconceptions and caters to people’s needs. If you find a balanced diet that your dog or cat likes, then stick with it. It is healthier for your pet to keep the same diet fed twice daily than to constantly change. A change in diet can lead to stomach upset. This is why every pet owner should change foods slowly so as not to upset the GI tract. Gradually mix in the new diet with the old diet until the change is completed over the week. Another misconception is that giving animal fat like cutting off the steak fat or chicken skin and feeding it to your dog or cat can lead to a hardening of the arteries (arteriosclerosis) and heart attacks. Unlike people who should not ingest a lot of animal fats, dogs and cats rarely ever get arteriosclerosis or heart attacks from the diet. High cholesterol in the blood also does not predispose to arteriosclerosis and/or heart attacks but should alert your veterinarian into checking the thyroid function. A high cholesterol in a dog’s blood is seen with hypothyroidism, a under active thyroid gland. Too much animal fat can cause another problem like inflammation of the pancreas called pancreatitis. This is a painful condition that can be life-threatening. Vomiting is one of the signs and we happen to see it more often around Thanksgiving, Christmas and barbecue season when you may have guests over and they feed the family pet too much fat! H. Exactly when is it safe to exercise your pet in reference to eating?Everyone knows how important exercise is for our pets and us but when it is done can have a beneficial or harmful effect. You must rest your pet for at least 1 hour before eating and at least 2 hours after eating a meal. Otherwise, there can be some harmful effects. Before, during and after exercise, water should be offered. After a work out, there should be a cooling off period where the breathing rate has returned to normal, panting has stopped, and the pet is no longer overheated. If a pet has just finished a meal, it is safest not to exercise him or her for at least 2 hours. There needs to be time for proper digestion, and rest is best. If an animal, especially a deep-chested dog, small or large, is exercised right before or right after eating, a life-threatening condition called a gastro-distension volvulus or GDV could happen. This is referred to as bloat and is responsible for the death of many pets. This is the worst case scenario. Sometimes, if eating is too close to exercising, a gastrointestinal upset could happen- poor digestion, vomiting, even gas could result. No one wants to see his or her pet in any discomfort so it is best to rest a pet before and after a meal. I. What are the ancillary benefits to exclusively feeding Evanger’s?When a dog has a diet that is not balanced, a disgusting habit could result called copraphagy. This is a normal reaction when a mother gives birth to her offspring, she will ingest the waste products by licking the anogenital region of her puppies or kittens. In the wild, for the mothers that practiced copraphagy, there were no smells to lure predators and therefore, these animals would go on to reproduce. Feeding Evanger’s pet foods exclusively could resolve a pet’s disgusting habit of eating his or her own feces. Coprophagy can happen when there is a vitamin or mineral missing from the diet. PICA is the term used when a pet eats something that should not be eaten. If a pet is suffering from PICA or copraphagy, the first thing is to change the food to a more wholesome, nutritious diet like Evanger’s. It is also important that a complete diet is chosen not a meat only one, or use the dry food in combination with any one of the canned foods.
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