In Canine Caviar Google Hangout #10 learn about Canine Caviar’s alkaline based organic pet food and what it means to be an All Life Stages Dog food, including special considerations for a holistic diet for small breed puppies and dogs and large breed puppies and dogs. Canine Caviar believes in a holistic approach to pet nutrition and is an alkaline based diet for dogs.
Doreen Wong: Welcome everyone to Canine Caviar Google Hangout #10, we are answering questions from our Facebook and Twitter friends, so if you have one for a future hangout please visit us at @caninecaviar which is Twitter and Canine Caviar which is our Facebook. So this hangout is actually going to be talking about All Life Stages and I think either Dawn or Lynn have a question for you Jeff.
Lynn Stacy-Smith: I have a question, if you could just explain the difference between All Life Stages and the puppy formulas, especially large breed puppies. I have an 8-week-old puppy right now and to help figure out the differences and what she should be eating.
Jeff Baker: So we believe in All Life Stages dog food with the exception of the small breed puppy formula. The only reason we have a large breed puppy formula is that our distribution partners overseas have been asking for it and so even though we try to tell them we don’t believe in it customers keep asking for it and so we try to be a good partner to them and provide those formulas. Our whole belief around Canine Caviar is an All Life Stages formula and rotating those proteins so your pet will have a stronger immune system. No one single protein contains every single amino acid and so when you’re feeding different proteins you’re strengthening your pet’s immune system by building up the antibodies in their system. If we were to put all of the proteins into one bag into one bag of food then your pet wouldn’t have the differentiation of amino acids either. The benefit of rotating proteins from chicken to lamb or the duck or fish or whatever is that you’re getting a different amino acid profile to help give that differentiation in the body to strengthen the immune system. Now for the large breed puppies I think we’re going to be changing it to a large breed all life stages formula, actually, when we do some repackaging and we will change the formula a little bit because there were some concerns about calcium and phosphorous levels in it.
When you are on a more meat based diet there is more phosphorous because there is phosphorous in the meat, when you add more meat you have to add more calcium to make that balance. When people tell you that they’re on a meat based diet and they have low calcium and phosphorous I want to know how they do it because it’s not possible, for us anyway, so maybe they have a secret that they can share but for the most part meat is high in phosphorous and I think we have a chart on our website that explains the phosphorous content in meat because it’s a question that we’ve been getting a lot of so we said ok here is the phosphorous content of meat. We can say, ok, if you have this much meat in there you have this much phosphorous, you have to add this much calcium to get the right ratio so when people want single protein, single carbohydrate, complex carbohydrate diets you have to put more meat to be single protein. What we are going to do is change it to an all life stages large breed so it hits a broader spectrum as well.
The only one that we really advocate is the small breed puppy and the reason why we do this, and I’ll explain the difference between the small breed puppy and large breed puppy is because a small breed puppy is born at one or two ounces and when they’re fully grown they’re definitely less than the ten pounds and what happens when you feed an all life stages food is we recommend that you feed your dog more of it so they get more calories for those growth cycles the problem with the small breed puppy is more in means more out and they’re not going to grow into that body of feeding more in so what’s happening is you’re stretching out the colon of that small breed puppy and as they get older they’re more likely to have incontinence or colon issues because of it. Now the advantage of having a large breed dog or a medium sized breed dog is that they are still born at those few ounces but when they’re grown they’ll be at 40, and 50 and 60 pounds so they grow into it, when you feed them more as a puppy and you’re stretching out that colon a little that colon is going to be larger naturally as they get older and grow so you’re not expanding it beyond the growth of the pet.
Lynn Stacy-Smith: That’s very interesting; I thought it was because of the bone growth (in puppies), but the colon, that’s very interesting.
Jeff Baker: If you take all of our all life stages with the exception of fish, because we use herring, and herring is a small fish and it would be really difficult to debone, so when we make them we use the bones so it has a higher calcium and phosphorous ration than we would recommend (for puppies), but if you take our chicken or lamb or wilderness or the duck all life stages they have that calcium/phosphorus ratio that would be appropriate for a large breed dog. But yes, it is all about the bone growth as well, that’s a very good point, I’m glad you brought that up. You can always tell when you’re feeding your dog too much because the paws will start to go out like this, and what is happening is that the bones are growing faster than the muscle so you need to slow it down by lowering the amount of protein in the diet so that the muscles will catch up to the bone and pull everything back into place.
Lynn Stacy-Smith: Interesting, I didn’t know that either, I guess I must be feeding the right amount! Luckily mine don’t do that but that’s interesting.
Jeff Baker: And it can happen when they go through a growth spurt a little bit, but it shouldn’t last for more than a few weeks and everything should catch up into place. But you can always notice, and I go to the dog shows, and you can always tell the people who think they can make their dog bigger than it was supposed to be. Genetically, if a dog is going to be 30 inches he’s going to be 30 inches, unless you malnourish him he’s going to be 28, but just because you feed him more food doesn’t mean he’s going to be taller. If that were the case then we’d have 7’10” basketball players because we’d be feeding them a lot more food when they’re younger. But genetically the dog is going to be whatever it was born to be, so the only thing that you want to do is control that growth, so dogs like Great Danes and English Bulldogs, I know that is not a breed that people consider to be a giant breed dog but they’re a giant breed dog in a small body, or a Mastiff or something like this we would really recommend Special Needs Dinner for say 12-18 months, really low protein and it’s going to allow that muscle formation to happen properly.
Lynn Stacy-Smith: Well, here’s a question, I’m lucky that I have a really good breeder that I can contact, but if someone has a mixed breed or a rescue and they don’t have a good breeder can they contact Canine Caviar or who can they contact for the best formula?
Jeff Baker: By all means, please contact us and we can have a hangout about it or they can call the office, in fact I think we’re starting to have some live chats so we can answer your questions more quickly and more efficiently and but yes we try to be as open as possible. I know that everybody in our office hands out their business cards freely and we all have our cell phone numbers on them, or email us. I travel a lot so email is the best way to get a hold of me but we try to reply very quickly.
Doreen Wong: Hangouts are a good way to talk to you, too. I have a follow up question, someone emailed this question and they said that they have a 16 week old puppy and they are feeding them 1.5 cups twice a day of the Chicken & Pearl Millet but they said at the end that their puppy still looks like he’s starving and they wanted to know if that was normal or if they should feed them more or what should they do.
Jeff Baker: So dogs and puppies are like people, we all have different metabolic rates, some of us will use more energy and some of us will use less, so a lot of it is just looking at the dog and understanding their needs a little bit. I mean, you can start to feed them a little bit more but once again if you start to see them growing like this (with paws facing out) then you can reduce it again, but as long as their paws grow straight forward then you can feed them a little bit more. If they’re going through the calories and they need that extra energy, because they need that protein as well for muscle growth.
Dawn Barraco: I’m amazed at the additional knowledge that we get from what seems like a simple question so I appreciate your time once again Jeff for sharing that with the pet parents who are concerned about their pets, so thanks.
Jeff Baker: Thank you and I’m really glad that we’re doing these hangouts because it’s a great way for people to have a question they can watch the video at their leisure.
Doreen Wong: Before we go, Dawn I do want to give you an opportunity to share some upcoming events. I know that next week that Canine Caviar will be at SuperZoo and then there’s some other events happening as well.
Dawn Barraco: We do, we have SuperZoo coming up in Las Vegas, it is a trade show so we do become visible to help our new partners, which are the retailers and distributors to get on board with Canine Caviar. We absolutely love the opportunity to educate folks who don’t know anything about Canine Caviar and we are going to try to offer a hangout opportunity for us to talk to those retailers who are already doing business with Canine Caviar so hopefully you’ll be able to see us live and in action from SuperZoo when that happens. And we’re looking forward to in southern California we are still firming up all of the plans but we’re looking at having a red carpet location at our friends who love Canine Caviar and loving selling Canine Caviar and the health results that they’re getting with their Canine Caviar, so Posh Pooch in Huntington Beach says “let’s do a red carpet in the sand” and lets’ see if we can raise some money for our research foundation, so very very excited about that.