Today on Fit Dog Friday we wanted to talk about Dog Food and Dog Treats. The choices we make are very important to the health of our Pets.
We talked to Cheryl Orletsky, of Holiday Pet Care / Dog Guru about Food and she had the following suggestions for people buying commercially made Dog Food. Read the labels carefully, check where the food is made and sourced and that you can contact the company in case of questions and make sure you follow these 3 TIPS:
1) The number 1 ingredient should be an identifiable meat eg Beef, chicken, salmon, pork. It should not just say meat or meat products or poultry or fish or pork.
2) Avoid corn. It is used as a filler without a lot of nutritional value (and creates more poop)
3) No Additives and By-Products.
Cheryl Orletsky is the Founder and Director of Holiday Pet Care, Dog Daycare & Cagefree Boarding Centre, Dog Walking and Pet Sitting Service serving York Region since 1998. She is a member of the Canadian Association of Professional Pet Dog Trainers (CAPPDT), the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT), and is a licensed presenter for DogGone Safe. See the video of her interview HERE
Please note: Cheryl did not endorse or criticize any particular brand/s.
While filming Talent Hounds, we also spoke to Dr Jonathan Mitelman from Vets Toronto about food allergies and health trends. He suggested avoiding additives and looking for natural products (he did not endorse any particular brands in our interview).
Given our interest in training Talent Hounds using Positive Reinforcement and Treats, and our need for some $ to keep the lights on and edit videos, we decided to approach a Treats Sponsor to help us.
We had heard about recalls of Treats and Food made in China, because of contamination with chemicals, bacteria and/or unapproved hormones, so we were keen to find a company that uses all natural products from US and Canada without additives, and to actually meet them and see their factory.
We met Mauro, the founder of Bullwrinkles and Eurocan at Woofstock in Toronto (they sponsor the adorable Running of the Pugs and the popular Wiener Races).
He told us a bit about their philosophy of all natural Treats and Chews respecting human grade standards and invited us to tour and film their factory in New Hamburg and Barnsdale Farms, Ontario. We liked what we heard and saw. So did our Talent Hounds.See video below:
Some Further Tips on Treats:
Monitor quantities and break down into small pieces if multiple rewards needed for training.
Our friends at Slim Doggy have an app for monitoring food and more great tips https://slimdoggy.com/slimdoggy-releases-a-free-canine-and-dog-food-calculator-app/.
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Bullwrinkles sounds like a quality brand…Are they available in the US?
Thanks for reading Gizmo. Yes, they are available in the US and yes, they seem to be great quality.
People can enter our contest and win a big box of treats for their dog to try and for a Rescue org. in the US too.
Bullwrinkles! Absolutely love that name, we’re going to have to try them just based on their name alone. Thanks for the review tho and thanks for joining the Hop.
Thanks to you SlimDoggy- love this Hop and your tips and comments!
I know, right- great name and based on our experience, you’ll love them.