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for dog owners and dog lovers everywhere, please go
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Video of the Week
I brought you the skateboarding dog,
the one that cycles
Man and dog bite it out
News24, South Africa -
5 hours ago
That was the sequence when Alsatian police dog
Edge cornered two suspects on a cliff side after a grocery
store robbery in Napier, New Zealand, ...
Liverpool Dog Cull Starts In Earnest
K9 Magazine, UK -
1 hour ago
The controversial dog amnesty for Liverpool
and surrounding areas started today, with local press
reporting hundreds of dogs of being handed over to the ...
Girl jumps into icy canal to save dog
Burnley Citizen, UK -
2 hours ago
A TEENAGER was treated for shock and
hypothermia after jumping into the canal to try to rescue her
dog. The girl, believed to be 16 years old, ...
Dog Saves Toledo Woman's Life in Bitter Cold
KLTV, TX -
15 minutes ago
In the seat, in intense pain, Good says she
was finally able to call out Maddie's name quietly by human
standards, but plenty-loud for a dog. ...
Dog gets surgery paid for by cans
Monterey County
Herald, CA - 3 hours ago
Crushed cans were used to repair crushed bones
Wednesday when a Salinas dog that languished for days had
emergency hip surgery -- paid for with recycled ...
Man kills eagle after it attacks dog
Canoe.ca, Canada -
Feb 7, 2007
According to the court's proposed settlement,
the wildlife centre would pay only $782 for the dog's
veterinary expenses. The court will hand down a decision
...
Find out your dog's DNA
WFIE-TV, IN -
10 hours ago
For anyone who's ever gotten a mixed breed
dog, there's always that question. But, now, you don't have to
wonder. MetaMorphix Inc. has come up with a simple ...
Now for this
week's tips and advice
What’s Really In Your Dogs Food? - Part 3
How is Dog Food Made?
Although feeding trials are no longer required for a food to
meet the requirements for labeling a food "complete and
balanced," most manufacturers perform palatability (taste,
consumption) studies when developing a new pet food. One set
of animals is fed a new food while a "control" group is fed a
current formula. The total volume eaten is used as a gauge for
the palatability of the food. The larger and more reputable
companies do use feeding trials, which are considered to be a
much more accurate assessment of the actual nutritional value
of the food. They keep large colonies of dogs and cats for
this purpose, or use testing laboratories that have their own
animals.
Most dry food is made with a machine called an expander or
extruder. First, raw materials are blended, sometimes by hand,
other times by computer, in accordance with a recipe developed
by animal nutritionists. This mixture is fed into an expander
and steam or hot water is added. The mixture is subjected to
steam, pressure, and high heat as it is extruded through dies
that determine the shape of the final product and puffed like
popcorn. The food is allowed to dry, and then it is usually
sprayed with fat, digests, or other compounds to make it more
palatable.
Although the cooking process may kill bacteria in pet food,
the final product can lose its sterility during the subsequent
drying, fat coating, and packaging process. A few foods are
baked at high temperatures rather than extruded. This produces
a dense, crunchy kibble that is palatable without the addition
of sprayed on palatability enhancers. Animals can be fed about
25% less of a baked food, by volume (but not by weight), than
an extruded food.
Ingredients are similar for wet, dry, and semi-moist foods,
although the ratios of protein, fat, and fiber may change. A
typical can of ordinary cat food reportedly contains about
45-50% meat or poultry by-products. The main difference
between the types of food is the water content. It is
impossible to directly compare labels from different kinds of
food without a mathematical conversion to
"dry matter basis." Wet or canned food begins with ground
ingredients mixed with additives. If chunks are required, a
special extruder forms them. Then the mixture is cooked and
canned. The sealed cans are then put into containers
resembling pressure cookers and commercial sterilization takes
place. Some manufacturers cook the food right in the can.
There are special labeling requirements for pet food, all of
which are contained in the annually revised Official
Publication of AAFCO. The use of the terms "all" or "100%"
cannot be used "if the product contains more than one
ingredient (excluding water for processing).
Because all-meat diets are usually not nutritionally balanced,
they fell out of favor for many years. However, due to rising
consumer interest in high quality meat products, several
companies are now promoting 95% and 100% canned meats as a
supplemental feeding option.
I’m not going to go into labelling requirements any further
because they are a joke in my view. There are so many if’s,
but’s and maybe’s that you can drive a coach and horses
through these regulations. The bottom line is that nothing is
absolutely what you think is unless you saw it walking around
a yard clucking several minutes ago!
