The Dog Geek
Product reviews, puzzle toys, training talk, DIY projects, and all things dog.
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Saturday, March 9, 2024
Is It Ok to Have a Favorite Dog?
Sunday, March 3, 2024
I Bought a Klimb Despite My Own Objections
The Klimb is a training platform. I have used all sorts of different training platforms for many years. Everything from plyometric jump boxes to children's step stools to cot beds to homemade plywood tables. They each have their own attributes. Cot beds are large, light, and portable, but also flexible. Wood tables are solid and sturdy. Plastic step stools are light and portable. But none of the platforms I have used have been large, light, portable, solid, and sturdy all at the same time.
I use it a lot more than my other platforms. I have all kinds of different things around for them to stand on, depending on whether we're working on pivots, rear foot targeting, or stays. Platforms are great for teaching stays because the criteria is much more clear than when the dog is on the floor. This thing is so easy to slide out of the way, or lean up against a wall, or shove in a closet, so it's always ready when I feel like using it. The legs come off and snap into storage spots on the bottom, but I don't usually bother taking the legs off.
Sunday, February 25, 2024
Numbercrunching: Kibble with the Lowest Fat, Lowest Calories, and Best Value
What is the lowest fat, lowest calorie dog food currently on the market?
Sisci Godzilla has pancreatitis. Not the acute hospitalization kind, and not even the kind where she needs to be on prescription food. It's more like a chronic tummy sensitivity. This started a few years ago with very occasional but severe episodes of vomiting. She would puke and puke until the only thing coming up was bloody foam. I would rush her to the vet and they would give her a shot or a pill of Cerenia, an anti-nausea medication. Maybe a short course of famotidine or sucralfate to help her feel better. She would be fine for a long time, six months or a year, before it happened again. It didn't seem to be correlated with feeding her anything in particular.
A couple of months ago, Sis had three vomiting episodes in one week. When I took her to the vet, I asked for bloodwork. I was worried about her kidneys and liver, but it turns out her pancreas levels were high. Not super high, just elevated. Not bad enough for acute treatment or a prescription diet. She was put on omeprazole and given more Cerenia for the nausea, and a diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome as well.
Prescription diets for pancreatitis have very low fat, around 5% for products like Purina's EN. Sis had been eating Diamond Adult Maintenance kibble with 12%, and I decided to look at food options with lower fat to help keep her body comfortable and hopefully settle her stomach. Calorie count was also a consideration here, as she gets fat on air like many cattledogs. With these factors in mind, I started collecting data on dog foods. I stuck with formulas marketed for weight management to help narrow the search. I started with the values for Diamond Maintenance and excluded any foods with a higher fat percentage.
Product | cal/cup | %fat | $/lb |
Diamond Maintenance | 360 | 12% | $0.94 |
Victor Purpose | 360 | 11.50% | $1.68 |
Wellness Healthy Weight | 405 | 10% | $2.70 |
Eukanuba Fit | 267 | 9% | $3.22 |
Royal Canin Weight Care | 256 | 9% | $3.67 |
ProPlan Weight Management | 330 | 9% | $2.12 |
Blue Buffalo Healthy Weight | 324 | 9% | $2.03 |
Science Diet Perfect Weight | 299 | 9% | $3.44 |
Iams Healthy Weight | 304 | 9% | $1.61 |
American Journey Healthy Weight | 299 | 9% | $1.77 |
Merrick Healthy Weight | 355 | 9% | $2.92 |
Purina One Healthy Weight | 320 | 8% | $1.37 |
Beneful Healthy Weight | 341 | 8% | $1.13 |
True Acre Foods Healthy Weight | 269 | 8% | $1.43 |
Natural Balance Fat Dogs | 315 | 7.50% | $2.47 |
Pedigree Healthy Weight | 280 | 7% | $1.21 |
Nutro Healthy Weight | 231 | 7% | $2.50 |
Solid Gold Fit | 330 | 6.50% | $3.05 |
Diamond Care Grain-Free | 304 | 6% | $2.12 |
Diamond Naturals Weight | 310 | 6% | $1.39 |
Kirkland Signature Healthy Weight Formula | 275 | 6% | $0.83 |
Science Diet Light | 271 | 5.50% | $2.64 |
Here is what I came up with. First, there is a huge range of different calorie content for different "weight management" dog foods. Wellness Healthy Weight offers 405 calories per cup, while Nutro Healthy Weight only has 231 calories per cup. That's a difference of 174 calories and means a dog can eat significantly more of the Nutro food while consuming the same amount of calories. That's something to remember when putting a dog on a diet. I could add a cup of green beans, or I could just feed more of a lower calorie food.
Next, there is a wide range of fat values in food marketed for weight management, with 9% the most common. There isn't an official feed definition of "weight management" food the way there is for puppy food, or adult food, or all life stages food, or large breed puppy food. Dogs use fat for energy, so for my active working dogs I look for higher fat. Most dogs don't need an incredibly low fat diet, and too little fat in their diet can leave them tired with a poor coat. Anecdotally have known people feeding vegan dog food that struggled with energy level and poor muscle tone in their dogs. While many people would be quick to blame the vegan food, I would more readily cite the 8-10% fat levels in commercially available vegan dog foods. But some dogs can benefit tremendously from a low fat diet, particularly for things like pancreatitis.
So what food gives me the most bang for my buck in terms of low fat and low calories? A number of pancreatitis prone dogs eat Science Diet Light (not Science Diet Perfect Weight) as it has the lowest fat content and calories per cup on the lower end of the range. I was about to order a bag, but needed to make a Costco run and decided to check out their house brand Kirkland Signature food just to grab another data point. I was pleasantly surprised to find a similar nutrition profile, at a much lower cost. So that is what Sis is now eating, and so far it seems to be helping. At least, she hasn't had any more uncontrollable vomiting episodes since the food switch.