Dog Jaunt

Feeding your dog: When and how much?

m-a — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:00:55 +0000

This is a guest post by Jim McBean, a blogger, dog lover and guardian to a Border Collie named Sweety and an American Pit Bull Terrier named Zeus. Jim blogs at http://doggybytes.ca which focuses mainly on canine health and nutrition. I asked Jim to write this post after I found myself with a measuring cup in one hand and a Ziploc bag in the other, not knowing how much kibble to pack for Chloe. The package had a suggestion, but after reading Jim’s recent posts I no longer trust dog food packaging the way I used to….

Photo by TheGiantVermin

How much and how frequently should you feed your dog? There really isn’t one answer to this question. Some people free feed their dogs, filling their dog’s dish and leaving it out all day for the dog to “nibble” on. Other’s feed their dogs “three squares” a day.

I once knew a lady with a golden lab named Buddy. Buddy had to eat “lunch” every day at 12 noon, because well, that’s “lunchtime”.

I had a conversation with another lady, a cat owner who leaves a dish of cat food out on all three floors of her house, just in case her cat was hungry and didn’t feel like getting off the chair and go down to the kitchen to eat – I guess?

You Don’t Need to Eat Today, You Ate Yesterday!

Dogs didn’t evolve to eat on a schedule (nor did humans for that matter), they evolved to eat when food was available, most times after a kill. There would days, perhaps many days when little or no food was available at all. Other days after a kill they’d gorge themselves.

Did You Know? Wolves can eat up to 20 pounds of meat and bone in a single feed.

Feeding Frequency

I feed my dogs a raw meaty bones diet once a day, with healthy, single ingredient treats offered randomly. Rarely do they eat the same food two days in a row, and they almost never eat at the same time every day. This is not to say that it’s a “bad idea” to feed your dog at the same time(s) every day. At the moment my schedule allows me to feed my dogs whenever, and whenever is usually when I wake up.

Another thing I do is fast my dogs one day a week. No, this isn’t a mean thing to do, it actually gives their pancreas and digestive systems a break, and along with the RMB diet, more closely aligns with a diet that canines evolved to eat.

How Much To Feed

Kibble

Recommending a portion size for kibble, that’s a tough one. Every formula has its own feeding recommendations, which you’d think would make it easy to figure out how to feed Fido or Chloe – just follow the instructions on the bag right? Well unfortunately in many cases it’s not as easy as that.

Take a recent study published in January by The Journal of the Americal Veterinary Medical Association, conducted by the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. The study looked at 93 commercially available pet foods (dog and cat) making “weight management” claims and showed that the caloric density of the pet foods studied ranged from 217 to 440 kilocalories per cup (kcal/cup), and portion recommendations ranged from 0.73 to 1.47 times the dog’s resting energy requirement. So basically double the calories and double the recommended feeding portions. Nice!

Co-author of this study Dr. Lisa Freeman, professor of nutrition at Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, says “There is so much information — and misinformation — about pet foods, it’s understandable that people are confused about what to feed their dogs and cats. To counteract these myths, people are accustomed to turning to the labels on food — but, as this study shows, packaging might not always be a reliable source of information.”

Raw Meaty Bones

On average, a small dog will require 3% of its body weight in food (preferably raw meaty bones) on a daily basis, or 21% spread over 7 days. So, an 18 pound dog would need a little bit over 1/2 lb of raw meaty bones daily, or just under 4 lbs for the entire week. That’s a ridiculously small amount of food!

For bigger dogs I shoot for 2% of their body weight in food from raw meaty bones or 14% over the course of a week. Many large dogs may only require 1% of their body weight daily, or 7% weekly. By the way, raw meaty bones should be about 70% meat and the rest bone – so more meat than bone.

Dehydrated Raw Food

What do you do if you travel a lot with your pet, aren’t crazy about feeding kibble but feeding a raw meaty bones diet isn’t possible while traveling? There is a third option, and that is finding a good dehydrated dog food that you can bring along with you and rehydrate at feeding time no matter where you are.

To be honest, I don’t know much about these products yet, but I did find a company online called The Honest Kitchen that I pointed out to my friends Rod and Amy Burkert of GoPetFriendly.com. They travel A LOT and wanted to feed raw, which isn’t feasible for them when they’re on the road, so they switched their pals Buster & Ty over to HK’s Force back in December. So far the reports coming from the GPF camp are of gleaming stainless steel food bowls (after eating) and very happy dogs!

Signs of Overfeeding

Weight gain (obvious)
No visible waist line
Burying bones in the backyard (not hungry now but I’ll have it later)
Not eating

What About Balance

Balanced nutrition does not happen on a “by the day” basis, but rather “balanced nutrition” is achieved over time. In fact, no animal on this beautiful blue globe of ours has ever achieved a “balanced diet” on each and every day of its life. Think about it, have you or anyone you know, ever consumed every single required nutrient every day for an entire week straight? No, because it just doesn’t happen that way.

Balanced nutrition is achieved by supplying a variety of necessary nutrients at varying levels over time. I could get into the implications that this has with regards to dogs eating the same nutrients in the same quantities every day over a its lifespan, but that’s another post.

I can see problems occurring in pets fed multiple times per day, every day. Eating two or three times per day means that the pancreas has to produce digestive enzymes two or three times per day. In other words it has to work harder and over a number of years, this can take its toll. Potential weight gain by overfeeding is another common occurrence.

The Bottom Line

To me, the notion of feeding a dog a daily fixed portion size doesn’t make much sense. As with people, there are several factors that dictate how much a dog should eat, age, activity level, health problems, metabolism etc. We know that when we gain weight we either need to increase our exercise level, decrease or restructure the amounts and types of foods we eat, or both. The same holds true for our dogs.

Recommended Reading

Work Wonders: Feed Your Dog Raw Meaty Bones

Give Your Dog a Bone: The Practical Commonsense Way to Feed Dogs for a Healthy Life

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Dog travel logistics: Feeding Chloe on the road

m-a — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:00:22 +0000

Photo by Jordan Batch

Back in December 2009, I wrote a post about how I’d jumped through a number of hoops to ship frozen raw dog food ahead of us on a trip we were taking. Chloe’s a picky eater, I explained, and I’d be flirting with disaster to rely on the other food she’s sometimes eaten (Dick Van Patten’s Natural Balance rolls). My father-in-law assures me that no dog offered some form of food ever starved to death, but Chloe the Puppy seemed as determined as any cat not to touch food that offended her. When she first approved the raw food she now eats regularly, I just about wept with relief.

A couple of months ago, inspired by my blogging friends Jim McBean (Doggy Bytes) and Rod & Amy Burkert (Go Pet Friendly), I tried again with samples of Honest Kitchen’s dehydrated raw food. Jim and the Burkerts rave about the stuff, but Chloe rejected both Force (chicken-based) and Verve (beef-based). Picky, I tell you.

Imagine my surprise when, on a couple of recent trips, she polished off bowls of (1) reconstituted Stella & Chewy’s Dandy Lamb freeze-dried raw food and (2) Taste of the Wild High Prairie kibble! Take it from me, I was surprised. I was also thrilled to death, because shipping frozen raw food isn’t easy and it’s wildly expensive.

The take-home lesson, no doubt, is that a dog’s preferences change over time, and that you should keep running alternatives past your picky eater. I’m just relieved that traveling with Chloe has become that much easier.

But what about dogs that make Chloe look like a lean and hungry scavenger? Blogger Helen Fazio wrote a post about traveling with very picky eaters — “the eaters of home cooked food, the dogs who need it hot out of a pot, the dogs who think kibble’s just a little pile of rocks” — and her tips for finding healthy food your dog will like on restaurant menus and in grocery stores are well worth a look.

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Good dog treats that pack well

m-a — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:31:38 +0000

Photo by FootAJ

It occurred to me this morning, as I was looking through Chloe’s pantry for treats that would work well on a walk, that we have a wide variety of treats but only some of them pack well. Chloe loves Etta Says! meaty treats, PureBites freeze-dried treats and Stella & Chewy’s Carnivore Crunch treats, for example, but none of them breaks into smaller pieces well (they crumble instead) — and for the same reason, they don’t travel well. She also loves New Zealand Real Meat jerkey treats and Wellness Pure Rewards jerky treats, but they’re borderline — they break apart into small-dog-sized bites, which is great, but they’re a bit fragile for packing.

When I’m packing treats for Chloe, I reach for Merrick lamb lung filet squares (be sure to get the flat filets, not the lamb puffs, because they can easily be broken apart into small bits). I also reach for Zuke’s Mini Naturals (which are really a bit too big for Chloe, but can be broken in half with your fingernail) and Zuke’s Z-Filets, which are excellent. Finally, I always pack some flavor of Buddy Biscuits (the Soft & Chewy ones, though Chloe also likes the crunchy Itty Bitty Buddy Biscuits).

Have I missed your dog’s favorite treat? Let me know — no doubt Chloe will want to check them out!

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Chloe’s Clicks: Links we liked this week

m-a — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:01:37 +0000

There’s something for everyone in this week’s Chloe’s Clicks! Let’s start with dog-friendly dining. ZooToo posted a cheerful report about an increase in the number of communities that allow restaurants to welcome dogs to outdoor patios (including Newport, RI and Panama Beach City, FL). Across the country, downtown Santa Cruz business owners are considering a repeal of the current dog ban, in an effort to reap the same benefits that downtown Carmel and Los Gatos merchants are enjoying. The vote is due on Tuesday, March 16th — fingers crossed!

A couple of links highlight dog-friendly spots in New York City: Glenwood, a real estate site, posted an article with some useful links to NYC dog resources, and offManhattan tracked down five excellent dog bakeries in Brooklyn.

Here’s the kind of link we love to see: Brampton Inn, about an hour from Annapolis, MD, posted an entry in the inn’s blog that describes its pet-friendly cottage as well as some local pet-friendly trails and attractions. As a bonus, it includes a recipe for Cheesey Dog Biscuits.

Speaking of local pet-friendly attractions, Avenue K9 posted its list of the top ten dog parks in North America. Unlike some top-ten lists I’ve seen, this one highlights parks sprinkled around the U.S., and includes one in Ontario. I was happy to see Seattle’s Magnuson Park, one of Chloe’s hangouts, on the list.

Still speaking of local pet-friendly attractions, I’m happy to report that Rod and Amy Burkert, our friends at Go Pet Friendly, received their specially-wrapped Winnebago and have set off on the first of many trips to investigate and report dog-friendly locations and activities around the country. Keep an eye on their travels through their blog Take Paws — and check out the fabulous new vehicle!

And speaking of the Burkerts’ blog, take a look at Take Paws‘ new series of guest posts from Dog Spelled Forward’s Eric Goebelbecker about training dogs to be good travelers. The series starts with a post describing how to capture your dog’s attention (don’t miss the video and the handout).

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Photo Friday: Dog travel photos wanted!

m-a — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:00:24 +0000

This week’s photo was taken last October in Amsterdam’s Oosterdok area, and I just love it. I don’t know for sure, but it looks to me like this dog is living on a houseboat — which prompted me to look for Oosterdok houseboats you can rent. Here’s one: The M.S. Atalanta has recently been redecorated and looks absolutely charming. I wrote to the owners, Brad and Marieke, and they told me that they welcome house-trained dogs on board. How soon can I get there?!

Photo by ricardo-pereira

Please send me links to your favorite dog travel photos! They’ll get listed below, for everyone to click on and view. Here’s how it works:

Every Friday, I’ll put up a post like this one, sometime during the morning (Pacific time).
If you have a blog or a website, post a dog travel photo on your site on Friday and link back here to the current week’s “Photo Friday” post so that your readers can see other great dog travel photos. Please take a moment to make sure that you are linking directly to your photo post instead of your homepage.
If you don’t have a blog or a website, simply post your photo to Flickr (or Facebook, Twitpic, etc.).
Enter a link to your photo or your blog post in the form at the bottom of this post. That way, Dog Jaunt will link back to you. Please include a few words in the “Link Title” box describing where you took the photo.

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Sarasota, FL dog-friendly hotel: Hotel Indigo

m-a — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:00:48 +0000

We visited Sarasota, FL last week for a marathon opera weekend. No, Chloe is not an opera fan — but neither is my husband, so they cocooned together at the Hotel Indigo Sarasota, one in a chain of boutique hotels sprinkled around the country (with some outliers in Shanghai, London, Costa Rica and Mexico). It’s located only a couple of minutes away from the Opera House, and it’s a delightful place, so all three of us were happy. I should mention that we paid our own way at the Hotel Indigo — I’ll always let you know when something I’m reviewing has been paid for by someone else.

Dog’s-eye view: This is not a hotel that makes a big fuss about dog guests — no doggy welcome basket here — but the receptionist came out from behind the desk to collect kisses and distribute pats, and the staff generally beamed on Chloe. There are a couple of useful patches of grass directly across from the front door, and a large grassy lot just across the driveway, so bathroom breaks were a breeze.

Hotel Indigo Sarasota room

What we liked: It’s a small hotel with a charming personality. The lobby is inviting and friendly, and the rooms are large and well-appointed. The decor in this Hotel Indigo is Nantucket-with-a-twist — cheerful, oversized, white-painted wood furniture, lots of blue-and-white linens, and truly enormous beds. The hotel is located a heartbeat away from the most interesting part of downtown Sarasota, and even though it’s on Tamiami Trail, we had no problem at all with street noise.

What we didn’t like: We slept poorly the first night we were there because the hall door between the first floor rooms (where the management prefers to lodge pet owners) and the lobby slammed loudly. When we spoke to the front desk in the morning, we were moved to the third floor, which was perfectly quiet. All well and good, but we would have been satisfied with a sign on the door asking guests to close it quietly. It was our impression that the sign idea would never be implemented, so when you visit, mention the problem and ask to be given a room on another floor. It will not help to have a room far from the door — ours was nearly at the far end of the hall, and we heard it clearly.

The hotel has a café that serves breakfast, but both the menu and buffet choices were mediocre. The bar, however, was a pleasant place to sit and chat with a drink in the afternoon.

The shower is large and enjoyable, but there is no bathtub — and after an opera double-header, I yearned for a soak. I could have soaked in the hotel’s outdoor hot tub (there is also a small plunge pool of cooler water), but I failed to pack a swimsuit.

Next time? We will happily return to the Hotel Indigo, as long as we are assured a room on an upper floor. Our room was in the $200/night range, and we felt that it was worth the price. Please note that there is a non-refundable one-time $125 pet fee.

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Chloe’s car harness: Keeping your small dog safe on a road trip

m-a — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:00:23 +0000

Chloe in the van

Driving from Sarasota to Tampa this weekend, I realized that although I’ve described my preferred away-from-home car safety set-up for Chloe (a 3-in-1 vest harness plus the strap from a PetBuckle kit), I’ve never given you a picture of it in action. So here’s a picture of Chloe in my father-in-law’s van, just after a very satisfying trip to one of her favorite dog parks. It’s already hot in Florida, so she’s resting on the Zentek pad I bought a while ago. Please note that the strap is long enough to let her lie down comfortably, but short enough to keep her from being slung around the car in an emergency.

The only downside of this set-up is that she can’t quite see out of the window, which she loves to do (at home, our car is equipped with a booster seat). The tidiest collapsible booster seat I’ve found, though, only works on seats you can pass a belly-band around, and you can’t always be sure that the rental car you’re getting will have free-standing back seats. It also takes up more room than I currently have in Chloe’s suitcase, so we settle for the very compact harness-and-strap option.

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Which seat works best with an in-cabin dog? [United 757-200]

m-a — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:00:35 +0000

This is only a partial report because you board a 757 (in this case, a -200 series) from the side, and hoi polloi never see First Class. I hope that someday I’ll travel First Class on a United 757 or (more likely) that a kind reader will post the measurements I couldn’t get for you.

The rest of the cabin is divided between Economy Plus (sincerely recommended, as I’ve said before, for the five extra inches of leg room) and Economy. Both have three seats on either side of the aisle. The exception is Row 8, which only has two seats, and only on the right — but it also has a bulkhead, so you can’t sit there with an in-cabin dog anyway. There is also no under-seat space under the left side of Row 9, the first row you encounter as you enter the plane, so that’s not an option either.

The under-seat measurements are the same for both Economy Plus and Economy. On this plane, the clear winner is the middle seat, followed closely by the window seat. Although there’s a place for a life vest, the packets are empty (per the safety video, use your seat cushion), so the under-seat height is a roomy 10.5 inches. The window seat space is 18.5 inches wide, the middle seat space is a glorious 20 inches wide, and the aisle space is a dire 12.5 inches wide (curse those rails). The depth (measured front to back) is about 17 inches.

This post is part of an ongoing series recording under-seat measurements of the various planes we fly on. Keep in mind that most domestic and international airlines have rules about the maximum size of in-cabin pet carriers they allow on board (see Dog Jaunt’s handy charts under the “Guides” tab above).

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Chloe’s Clicks: Links we liked this week

m-a — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 21:54:25 +0000

Each week is a roll of the dice, of course, as far as interesting pet-friendly links go — this week is heavy on pet-friendly hotels, in the U.S. and abroad.

NileGuide posted a delicious article about eight luxury dog-friendly hotels around the world, from Crested Butte, Colorado to Rome, Italy. A new (to me) blog called Gotta Visit NYC: My New Yorkie Blog is about Yorkies Schmitty and Pudge and pet-friendly fun things to do in New York City — I found the blog by way of a post reviewing the pet-friendly New Yorker Hotel, near Madison Square Garden.

An unexpected source (the New Haven Railroad Blog) posted an article about pet-friendly places to stay in Ayr, Scotland, and a couple of now-forgotten links led me to the sites for a couple of attractive hotels — one a group of holiday cottages in Cornwall, and the other an apparently rare pet-friendly hotel in Istanbul.

On to posts about dog-friendly getaways! The first is offManhattan’s post about seven weekend-worthy, pet-friendly hotels within easy reach of New York City. I particularly appreciate the paragraph at the end of each entry describing how to reach the hotel using pet-friendly public and alternative transit. The other link I have for you describes four dog-friendly beaches in Florida.

On the lighter side of pet travel, People Pets posted a delightful collection of pictures of celebrities traveling with their pets — celebrities don’t always follow the rules about keeping pets in carriers inside airports, it turns out, but many of them appear to own carriers, so I call that a win. Hilary Duff and Ashley Greene set the best example.

And finally, even I realize that there are times when you just can’t bring your dog with you. Take a look at a recent post from Will My Dog Hate Me about choosing the best petsitter for your beloved pooch.

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Photo Friday: Dog travel photos wanted!

m-a — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:21:17 +0000

Today’s photo was taken about two years ago, at Neptune Beach in Jacksonville, Florida. Who doesn’t love an English Bulldog? Who can resist two English Bulldogs?? Leashed dogs are allowed on Neptune Beach and Jacksonville Beach before 9 a.m. and after 5 p.m. They are allowed on Atlantic Beach anytime.

Photo by DeusXFLorida

Please send me links to your favorite dog travel photos! They’ll get listed below, for everyone to click on and view. Here’s how it works:

Every Friday, I’ll put up a post like this one, sometime during the morning (Pacific time).
If you have a blog or a website, post a dog travel photo on your site on Friday and link back here to the current week’s “Photo Friday” post so that your readers can see other great dog travel photos. Please take a moment to make sure that you are linking directly to your photo post instead of your homepage.
If you don’t have a blog or a website, simply post your photo to Flickr (or Facebook, Twitpic, etc.).
Enter a link to your photo or your blog post in the form at the bottom of my post. That way, Dog Jaunt will link back to you. Please include a few words in the “Link Title” box describing where you took the photo.

Giveaway code: FAFNIR