All the Creatures

Don’t you get tired of all those crazy claims that some pet food manufacturers claim? I know I do. Dog food and horse feed seem to be the most notorious of nutritional claims. I remember one dog food company that made an expensive dry dog food that claimed to alleviate all kinds of skin allergies. Did it work? Heck no…………..and I bought 2, 40 pound bags just to test it out. The “secret” ingredient was suppose to be avocados. I bought it for my female Chow Chow that was having skin lesions. The little bumps were at first thought to be flea bites but was something else. It turned out she had a food allergy to soy.

Soy beans are often added to dog and cat foods to hike up the protein percentage of the food. It is a cheap way for the manufacturer to make the claims of “more protein” than another brand. What us pet owners need to keep in mind is that soy is a plant. Being that it is a plant, it has cell walls and cell walls are harder to digest for carnivores than cells that have no walls (animal based foods).

Then there are the pet foods that have all those added vitamins - why? If the food was made from actual food rather than “by products” such as hair, bone and hoof then there would be no need to shop for which food contained the best multivitamins but the best top ingredients.

Here is how I shop for dry pet foods. I look at the ingredients and the first one had better be meat and not grains. Some of the best dog foods are often the store brands. The ones that I have found to have the highest amount of actual meat are the lamb and rice foods.

Happy pet food shopping.

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You love animals and want to spend your life around them. You have decided to become a veterinarian or a vet tech. I too wanted to be both but there are some stumbling blocks in the way that you should be aware of.

First up, stay away from online classes for these professions. Any online university that claims you can become ether of those is just blowing smoke up your ass and taking your money for nothing. You HAVE to attend in person classes and have hands on experience with live animals for those careers.

Next, find out what the educational requirements are for your state or country are before you even look at colleges. Some places will only accept certain accredited courses taught at certain schools. That private local college might not be qualified.

Once you have found that college you should know a few things. Class sizes are usually small and often you travel through the courses as a small group. Requirements to enter the courses are designed to narrow the qualified applicants down to a small group. Even the vet tech courses have waiting lists for people trying to get in.

Keep in mind that after you have graduated from your chosen career, many states will require a set number of hours that you have worked in that career before you can get fully licensed. For example in Oregon, once you have finished your vet tech course you will need to have 2000 hours of paid work experience as a vet tech before you can take the state test to become fully certified. The 2000 hours is about 2 years. Those facts are what you should be looking up when you research the requirements for your state or country before choosing a college and stay away from an online university.

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If the need arose, do you know how to perform pet CPR? Most people do not know. They assume that the method is the same as in humans but since the ribcage is formed differently than humans, CPR needs to be done differently. While I will not get into the specifics of CPR for your dog, cat or other small mammal, I will suggest you find out how. Your vet is a good source of information on how to do emergency CPR for your pet.

You might never have to use your knowledge of how to help revive your pet but it is good to know. Just think that one day you might be in care of an animal that has been diagnosed via ekg that it has heart trouble. You might have to use your CPR technique to help that animal.

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