You Are What You Eat

If you follow our Paw Pals Boutique Facebook page you know that we re-post articles about recalls and other important information about pet food.

I was really upset when I read the one about dog food companies that use dyes to make kibble look better to humans and smell better to dogs. They think that kibble is boring looking to humans so they add colors to make it prettier.

I like pretty colors. We use pretty colored ribbons to make our gift baskets look extra special but I don’t think dying kibbles green and orange to make them seem like peas and carrots is a good thing to do. Science people say that Red 40, Yellow 5 and Blue 2 are dyes that cause cancer. That is BAD.

And where is the meat? Dogs like meat and meat is actually good for dogs. Lots of dog food today is “plant based” or made with “meat by products”. Plant based means stuff like corn and meat by products could dead zoo animals, hooves or other not so good stuff. That’s cheating!

Mom is a label reader. She reads labels on packages. She does it to make sure that the food she buys for our house, for the peoples and for the dogs, has lots of good, nutritious things in them, AND, just as important, does not have any bad things, like dyes in them.

Peoples who sell pet food want to sell more so they try to make their food look better than other kinds you can buy. They use words like “gourmet’ and “natural” which are just words and don’t mean that the food is so special.

One word you can look for is AAFCO. That is actually a bunch of words which are Association of American Feed Control Officials. They have “official” in their name but they are not government peoples. They look at how the food is made and say if it meets basic nutritional requirements. Check your food to see if it says AAFCO.

Keeping our food fresh is also important. We buy a big bag of food that DixieLee and I share and a small bag of food just for me. Mom says I gain weight when I eat too much regular food so I have half of my food be a “weight control” kind. We eat up a bag pretty quick but if you don’t, you should make sure the bag is sealed up tight so your food doesn’t get stale.

All this talk about food is making me hungry. I know Dad is going to tell me I have a big minute until supper but you never know….

Bone appetite,

Zeva

P.S.  Blatant self-promotion. For the bestest pet gift baskets in the universe, check out pawpalsboutique.com