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Let me help you get started Four fantastic choices for your dog's allergies

March 8, 2017 By Sunny Lim

You may have read all the articles and armed yourself with knowledge of how to identify a good diet. But one of the biggest problems you’re likely to face is that almost all of the food falls within your acceptable criteria.

To help you out a bit, I’ve seen an improvement in many dog’s skin condition after trying some of these brands and I believe they are great choices to start with.

What I’ve personally selected here are all grain-free and limited in ingredients, great for helping out with skin problems.

However, every dog is different and you may not see an improvement on your first try.

So to make things easier for you, if you order online we’ll give you a 25% discount on the listed products until the end of April 2017.

Furthermore, I’ve negotiated with the supplier of Kasiks to give you a Buy 1 Get 1 Free* promotion exclusively at The Grooming Table! Yup, it’s a deal that’s really hard to come by and you’ll not get the same deal anywhere else.
(*Limited to 3 sets per customer)

But act quickly, this deal is only valid till 2nd April 2017 and I’ve only got a total of 200 sets available. That means regardless of size or flavors, once I order 200 sets from my supplier, that’s the end of the promo =(

And remember, if you purchase $100 worth of merchandise, delivery will be free.

So take this opportunity to stock up a few flavors, and if you have any questions, feel free to comment below.

BrandStewart Pet FoodK9 NaturalKasiks Pet FoodFirstMate Pet Foods
Is it a raw diet?YesYesNoNo
IngredientsChicken, Ground Chicken Bone, Chicken Liver, Chicken Gizzard, Cantaloupe, Carrots, Broccoli, Lettuce, Egg, Ground Flaxseed, Inulin, Salmon Oil, Apple Cider Vinegar, Blueberry, Cranberry, Dried Kelp, Potassium Chloride, Sodium Chloride, Whole Ginger, Whole Parsley, Whole Garlic, Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Vitamin E Supplement, Copper Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Mixed Tocopherols (as preservative), Vitamin D Supplement.Lamb, Lamb Blood, Lamb Tripe, Eggs, Lamb Liver, Lamb Heart, Lamb Bone, Sunflower Oil, Brown Kelp, Flaxseed Flakes, Lamb Kidney, Cabbage, Broccoli, Swiss Chard, Carrot, Cauliflower, Dried Kelp, Calcium Carbonate, Apple, Pear, New Zealand Green Mussel, Beta-Carotene, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Vitamin E Supplement, Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Folic Acid, Selenium YeastLamb Meal, Chickpeas, Red lentils, Green lentils, Green peas, Yellow Peas, Pea Starch, Chicken Fat* (Mixed Tocopherols), Tomato Pomace, Sodium Chloride, DL–Methionine, Minerals: (Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Calcium Iodate, Cobalt Carbonate, Selenium, Yeast.) Vitamins: (Niacin, Thiamine mononitrate, D-calcium pantothenate, Riboflavin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Folic Acid, Biotin Vitamin B12 Supplement, Vitamin E Supplement, Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement.) Choline Chloride, Calcium Propionate, Yeast Extract, Taurine, Blueberries, Raspberries, Cranberries, Rosemary extract, Coconut, Kale, Glucosamine Hydrochloride.


*The chicken fat used in Kasiks Pet Foods is processed free of protein, eliminating the risk of allergies derived from chicken.*
Potato, lamb meal, tomato pomace, chicken fat* (preserved with mixed tocopherols), potassium chloride, DL-methionine, choline chloride, calcium propionate (preservative), blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, minerals: (zinc proteinate, iron proteinate, manganese proteinate, copper proteinate, iodine, cobalt carbonate, selenium yeast), vitamins: (vitamin E supplement, riboflavin, niacin, d-pantothenic acid, thiamine hydrochloride, vitamin A supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride, biotin, folic acid, vitamin B12 supplement, vitamin D3 supplement), taurine, yeast extract (a source of prebiotics), glucosamine hydrochloride.

*The chicken fat used in FirstMate Pet Foods is processed free of protein, eliminating the risk of allergies derived from chicken.*
Nutrional AnalysisCrude Protein (minimum) 45%
Crude Fat (minimum) 26%
Crude Fiber (maximum) 6%
Moisture (maximum) 5%
**Omega 3 Fatty Acids (minimum) 3%
**Omega 6 Fatty Acids (minimum) 6%
Minimum Crude Protein: 29.1%
Minimum Crude Fat: 33.4%
Maximum Crude Fibre: 2.6%
Maximum Moisture: 8%
Calorie Content ME (kcal/kg): 4713kcal/kg
Calorie Content ME (kcal/cup): 330kcal/cup
Minimum Omega-3 Fatty Acids: 0.5%
Minimum Omega-6 Fatty Acids: 1.6%
Crude Protein (min) 25% Ash(max) 7%
Crude Fat(min) 12% Calcium (min) 0.9%
Crude Fibre (max) 8% Phosphorous (min) 0.7%
Moisture (max) 10% Glucosamine (min) 100mg/kg
Magnesium (max) 0.13% Calcium / Phosphorous ratio 1.3:1
Crude Protein (min) 24% Ash(max) 8%
Crude Fat(min) 13% Calcium (min) 2.2%
Crude Fibre (max) 7.5% Phosphorous (min) 1.2%
Moisture (max) 10% Glucosamine (min) 100mg/kg
Magnesium (max) 0.15% Calcium / Phosphorous ratio 1.8:1
VariationsTurkey
Lamb
Chicken
Lamb
Beef
Wild Pacific Ocean Fish
Free-Run Chicken
Free Range Australian Lamb
Australian Lamb
Chicken with Blueberries
Pacific Ocean Fish - Original
Discount25% Online exclusive25% Online exclusiveBuy 1 Get 1 Free25% Online exclusive

Filed Under: Dog Articles, Dog Nutrition, Pet Articles Tagged With: dog food, kibbles, product comparison

If they can’t convince you, don’t let them confuse you.

February 9, 2017 By Sunny Lim

In the last article, we’ve discussed how to utilize diet change to improve your dog’s skin problem. But many pet owners are intimidated when confronted by the choices presented to them.

To make things easier for you, today we’ll look at some of the jargons used by the pet food industry and what you should look out for.


I’d still cringe when I look at some of the pet food on the shelves. It’s not because that they’re not doing enough, but because they’re doing too much.

I was doing some shopping online and came across a pet food with “Life Protection Formula – with LifeSource Bits”. Wow, fancy isn’t it?

Now, what about another brand that tells you that it’s “Biologically Appropriate”? Hopefully, it’s not implying that feeding your dog other brands might be ‘inappropriate’. 

Then there’s a brand that’s “Veterinarian Recommended”.

And another brand that claims that it’s “100% Natural”.

And then there are another 20 more brands in the pet shop with their own marketing message (If you’re shopping on Amazon.com there are 4,761 items just under the category of ‘Dried Dog Food’). Frustrating isn’t it?

You’ll face the same problem with almost everything you buy. From mattresses to bedsheets, from fridges to washing machines – they all have fancy features, yet they don’t feel much different.

You know how important having a right diet if your dog is suffering from skin allergies, but where should you start? By throwing all of the marketing claims out of the window and just focus on what your dog needs.

In this article, we’ll look at some of the common jargons used by pet food manufacturers as well as going in depth on choosing a more appropriate food for dogs with allergies.

Brands like to feel special

Unfortunately, companies and products are not focusing on making products or services that are ten times better. Rather, they’re spending time coming up with jargons to make themselves feel important.

However, some terms are widely adopted across brands so let’s first take a quick look at them. There’s a lot of them, but I’ll cover four of the most common categories in the market targeted for skin problems:

  • Grain free diet
  • Raw diet
  • Hypoallergenic diet
  • Limited ingredient diet

Grain-free diet

What is a grain-free diet?

  • It doesn’t include grains like barley, wheat, corn, oat or rice.
  • But it doesn’t mean it doesn’t contain carbohydrate. Dried pet food (kibbles) need starch and carbohydrate to keep their shape.
  • As a replacement, carbohydrates like potatoes, peas, and legumes are used instead.

How can grain-free formulas help?

Grains and fiber take a long time to digest, and dogs like any other meat eaters have a short intestinal tract, as well as a lack of certain enzymes, gives dogs a hard time digesting grains and fibers.

But that doesn’t mean that you should choose only grain-free formula. Many dogs have no problem with grains at all especially when they’re ground up and cooked as with the case of kibbles.

Raw diet

Yup, it’s uncooked pet food. 

But unlike humans, dog’s short intestinal tracts are meant to process raw meat and raw diets are beneficial to your dogs in many ways.

 You can find raw diets frozen, freeze dried or dehydrated. There are also small retailers that are selling fresh raw food.

Raw diets have grown in popularity recently and their reasons apparent:

  • Vitamins, enzymes, and minerals are not destroyed during cooking.
  • There are arguments that cooking food, which alters proteins and fats, may be harmful to the body.
  • Raw food contains zero or little carbohydrates – great news if your dog is sensitive to sugars.
  • A diet without processed food doesn’t cause plague, resulting in cleaner teeth.

Hypoallergenic diet

The term ‘hypoallergenic’ has been popular these days. You’d not only see the term on pet foods, but also on cosmetics to linens. The term just means ‘less likely to cause allergies’.

Sometimes they will plonk down the term just because it doesn’t contain corn or because they’re using exotic protein like rabbit meat. In diets you’d find in veterinary clinics, hypoallergenic diets use proteins that has been broken down for better absorption.

There isn’t any regulation regarding the use of the term and whether a pet food is hypoallergenic or not shouldn’t matter to you at all.

Limited ingredient diet

We’ve discussed that many ingredients in pet food are added in tiny quantities and that they might be causing your dog allergies.

Pet food manufacturers recognize that there are many dogs suffering from allergies which is why they have developed formulas which are more minimalistic.

Limited ingredients diet usually consists of:

  • One protein source
  • One or few carbohydrate source
  • Vitamins and minerals
  • Very little of other things.

Its ingredient list, therefore, wouldn’t look spectacular, but don’t let its simplicity fool you. Every dog’s requirement is different, and with the increasing occurrences of allergies, less is sometimes more.

Besides, these diets are usually cheaper as premium pet food markup their prices just because of the undetectable traces of herbs, fruits, and vegetables in them.

So why pay more? Take away all the pompous and your pet will still be able to benefit from all the nutrition it needs, and you’ll enjoy greater savings.

Which one should you choose then?

When it comes to skin problems, more isn’t better.
If your dog is suffering from skin allergies, one of the surest, simplest way (though not the easiest), is to change its diet until you get it right. Many times an elimination diet would be recommended, but many pet owners just don’t have that kind of time, patience, and persistence.

There is no guarantee that the priciest brand or a brand your friend swears by is going to work. You’d probably need more than a few tries to get it right. So to make your task of choosing a suitable pet food a breeze, here are some recommendations for you to increase your odds:

  • Feed a limited ingredient diet. You don’t need to scour the packaging for the term. Just take a look at the ingredients list. It should contain only one protein, limited sources of carbohydrates, and little or none of other ingredients e.g. Fruits, herbs etc.
  • I highly recommend raw diets because of its high digestibility and low carbohydrate content. Do give it a try.
  • Premium priced products might be better in quality but doesn’t mean it’ll work for your dog. Premium products usually have a high protein content and may not be suitable for urban dogs with limited exercise. I tend to look for formulas with less than 30%.
  • You also should also try canned food if your dog isn’t fussy (fussy eaters may not be willing to switch back to dry food after trying canned food). It’s high in water content, usually, has much fewer ingredients and it’s less processed.
  • At the end of the day, there’s no perfect food. Try until you see results.
  • Typically, you should be able to see less scratching, less inflammation and lesions on the skin within a month or two if a diet is working for your dog.

Other things to note:

  • Since we’re trying to figure out what diet works for your dog, take out the guesswork and refrain from feeding your dog any other food. No fruits and no treats.
  • Cut down on the carbs because yeast infection feeds on sugars and sugar also causes inflammation. If you choose to prepare your own meal, just stay with meat and steamed pureed leafy vegetables.
  • When you start seeing results, you can try to add in healthy supplements like yogurt, inulin, natural probiotic and enzyme sources like green lamb tripe to their gut health a boost.

Summary

When it comes to choosing food for skin sensitivities, the objective is to find a brand that doesn’t have ingredients that your dog is allergic to. 

The simplest way is through trial and error.

And don’t let price affect your judgment. Expensive doesn’t mean that it’s better. Product labels can be extremely misleading and it’s almost impossible to know what you’re paying for

So go for a product with less stuff. Use the money and get fresh ingredients or supplements when your dog gets better.

Good luck!


If you find this post helpful, please help to share it. You’d never know whose life you’ll change :)

Filed Under: Dog Health, Dog Nutrition, Pet Articles

If your dog is having skin problems, stop sticking to the same old food!

January 20, 2017 By Sunny Lim

One of the easiest way to improve your dog’s skin allergies.


You may already know that one of the best ways to get rid of your pet’s skin problems is through a diet change. 

And I agree it’s easier said than done, even if your dog’s perfectly fine. 

I still remember being in the pet shop for the first time, tasked to buy dried dog food for my Maltese, I was confronted with a dozen of different brands of kibbles (thankfully I was in a smaller pet shop). 

Looking through all the brands, I spent nearly an hour in the shop, and it was exhausting trying to compare the minute differences. 

In the end, I went for something that’s within my mid-range budget, with the longest ingredients list. I paid for the food and walked out of the store with a spring in my step, still feeling proud that I’ve unlocked the ‘Savvy Shopper’ achievement – getting the most stuff for the least price possible.

I’m sure you have had the same experience, and these days, it seems more challenging.

“If you can’t convince them, confuse them.”

Don’t you think that the adage is even more pronounced in recent times? I was shopping for bedsheets and every year they seem to be able to attach new terms to similar products – Pima, Sateen, Jacquard, Maillard (Just kidding, but who knows?).

It’s not just daily products. I’m even having problems keeping up with all the new pet products that are in the market and finding myself figuring out what’s good and what’s not.

Why do I bother? It’s because a right diet is the best way to help owner with their dog’s health issues – especially skin problems.

The good news is that no matter how fancy dog food gets, the fundamentals never change. 

Back to the basics

I’ve helped many owners with their dog’s skin problems and here are three tips I always share that will make things easier and increase your odds of success.

  1. Choose a good food
  2. Fewer ingredients means lesser chance of allergies
  3. Every dog is different. Try until you succeed

1. Choose A Good Food

No one can promise you a brand that will solve your dog’s skin problems. You can only increase the odds by selecting a good quality food.

But what does it mean by good quality?

Given the amount of competition going on, there’s a lot of confusion. 

Here’s are some tips I would like to offer you:

  • To oversimplify things a little, identify the brands that are being sold in supermarkets and stay away.
  • There are some brands which prices are suspiciously low (costs as little as supermarket brands).
  • Check if ingredients are specific.
  • Corn should preferably be avoided. 
  • Avoid products that uses BHT or BHA as preservatives. 
  • Don’t get fooled by fancy ingredients. 

Here’s the detailed explanation on why supermarket brands are inferior.  

However, good quality food doesn’t need to cost you an arm, neither does it mean having a long list of fanciful ingredients. The items in the ingredients list are arranged in order of weight, so the first few ingredients, usually meat and carbohydrates, makes up the bulk of the kibble.

In some brands, ingredients are ambiguous. Beware if the manufacturer uses terms like ‘Meat meal’, ‘Animal fat’ or ‘Poultry fat’. Who knows what meat or animals they’ve used.

Secondly, although corn seems like something healthy, there’s a long controversy behind them. Not only because they are cheap, but it’s also mostly genetically modified. I can’t go into them right now, but manufacturers aren’t short of alternatives, neither will you find yourself short of choices. 

As for BHT and BHA, they are preservatives that are linked to caused cancer. Common natural alternatives include Tocopherols (Vitamin E) or rosemary extract.

Don’t be fooled

Ingredients in the middle and end of the list make up only a tiny amount of the food. To know if the celery and spinach are merely dusting on a plate, identify where the animal fat is listed.

Can you see where ‘Poultry Fat’ is highlighted? Ingredients listed after that may only be in tiny quantities.

 

 

The reason is that kibbles are usually sprayed with a layer of animals fats to increase its palatability and it’s listed in the first few ingredients. You surely don’t see kibbles dripping in fat, so the ingredients listed after that is like salt and pepper on your steak.

Action Steps:

  • Stay away from kibbles with the following ingredients:
    • Unspecified sources of ingredients e.g. Meat/poultry meal 
    • Chemical preservatives (BHA / BHT)
    • Corn 
    • Flavoring and coloring
  • If you see the brand at a supermarket, don’t buy it.
  • If it’s way cheaper than other brands, don’t buy it.

 

2. Fewer Ingredients Means Lesser Chance of Allergies

Harmless as some ingredients may seem, we have no idea what your pet is allergic to. Even though allergy test will give you a good idea of the kind of food to stay away from, the results can be inconclusive.

That’s the reason why if your dog is suffering from allergies, a fail-safe, though tedious way, is to put your dog on an exclusion diet, where the dog is fed with only a few variety of ingredients and slowly introducing other ingredients to observe the body’s response to them.

Not everything that’s good for us will benefit your pet.

We love to know that we’re feeding nutritious herbs, fruits and vegetables when choosing kibbles for our furry friends, but as mentioned earlier, they’re just not available in substantial quantities to provide any benefit.

Not only that, the additional ingredients may be the reason behind your pet’s allergies.

However, rarely do dogs have such severe allergies that they need to go through the hassles of an exclusion diet. Many dogs that I’ve worked with is able to see improvements after changing to kibbles with limited ingredients.

Dog food with limited ingredients usually comprises of a single meat protein, a few carbohydrate source and a few varieties of vegetables and will help reduce the odds of exposing your dogs to allergens (some brands have 10 – 20 different types of fruits and vegetables in their kibbles!).

If you see an improvement, then you may add in some healthy, low allergy risk foods if you wish, adding in one new ingredient every week. Yogurt, kefir, steamed or pureed leafy vegetables are great choices, but beware of human food that’s toxic to dogs.

Action Steps:

  • Put your pet on a limited ingredient diet first, which also means no treats :(
  • Add one new ingredient every week and observe if your dog’s skin acts up
  • If your dog seems to be allergic to a particular ingredient, remove it.

 

3. Every dog is different. Try until you succeed.

Although it’s common to see improvements on your first diet change, some dogs may require you to switch around a few brands.

Here are some more tips on how to do that:

Do your own evaluation. Don’t depend on hearsay.

Don’t have preconceived notion of certain ingredients if you haven’t done allergen tests. Doesn’t mean chicken is bad or your dog has to go grain-free. Who knows if your dog is allergic to potatoes instead? For example, my dog’s allergic to lamb and fish but not chicken. Besides, chicken formulas are still very popular with pet owners. 

It doesn’t mean that what people say is bad, will be bad, including me.

Price is not an indication of quality.

An iPhone is more expensive than most smartphones, but it doesn’t mean that it’s the best. It depends on what the user needs and what they’re comfortable with.

It’s the same for dog food. Although prices can vary by quite a bit, brands that you can find in supermarket will be much cheaper. On the other end of the spectrum, commercial raw diets are usually the most expensive, because of the high meat content. Most premium kibble brands are priced in the middle.  

At the end of the day, it still depends on what your dog’s requirements are. If it’s sensitive to a high protein/high meat content diet, feeding your dog expensive high protein diets is only going to make matters worse.

Be willing to try everything.

Try until you succeed. Let your creativity flow and trust yourself. After all, you’re spending most time with your dog and trust yourself to evaluate if whatever you’re doing is working or not. Here are some options you can try:

  • Canned food
  • Home cooked food
  • Commercial raw diets
  • Home prepared raw diets
  • Different protein, exotic protein if need be
  • Carbohydrates free (no sweet or starchy vegetables like potatoes, carrots, yam etc.)
  • Go vegetarian if necessary.

If you don’t try you’ll never know. Good luck!

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” – René Descartes

 

Summary

We are what we put into our mouth and the same applies to your dog. The body has an amazing ability to heal itself and our job is to give the body what it needs to heal.  Good quality food nurtures the body, and will help to prevent illnesses by strengthening the immune system. 

However, most of the time we don’t know what’s causing our dog’s allergies. So start with as little as possible and work up from there. The fruits and vegetables in dog food are usually in tiny quantities and may be the cause of your dog’s allergic reactions.

Finally, don’t give up just because changing one brand doesn’t help. I’ve helped so many owners with their dog’s skin problems and they’ve always been patient and strict with the program. Try until you see results.

Up Next

Now that you’ve learnt about how to utilize diet change to improve your dog’s skin problem, we’ll look at some of the jargons used by pet food. I’d also give my recommendations on what you should look out for in the diet to increase your odds of solving your dog’s skin problems. 

 

P.S. If you find this article useful, remember to share!

Finally, there are too many dogs suffering from skin allergies and more dog owners need to know about more natural and lasting alternatives to solving skin problems. You can help! On behalf of all the dogs in the world, Thank you!

 

Filed Under: Dog Health, Dog Nutrition, Home, Pet Articles Tagged With: diets, pet food, skin problems

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