Why Pay More for Quality Protein?

Posted on May 21, 2013 in Burton's Blog, Feature | 0 comments

In our 20 years of service to you and your pets, we have experienced many changes in pet care.  Total Pet’s existence is predicated on people wanting more and better information regarding advanced pet care.  We believe in up-to-date science, not the marketing gimmicks that are so prevalent today in our big box stores and investment banker-run vet clinics.

The biggest change in pet care over the past 10 years has come in the form of pet food and treats.  In the beginning there were high-starch, low-protein diets along with very high carbohydrate treats. This is the opposite of what an obligate carnivore needs.  We have been on a mission for 20 years to get folks to believe that better pet food results in better pet health. Some people want to believe that all pet foods are the same and that price is irrelevant. Part of the reason this sentiment exists is that MOST KIBBLE LOOKS THE SAME. We see a food that costs $25 a bag and another that costs $50 a bag. Since they look the same in kibble form, it is very difficult to see that buying for price comes without a downside.  People tend to buy what they think is a value, based on price-motivated purchasing. Companies like Purina and DelMonte produce grocery foods for humans and pets. With companies like this it’s all about price and marketing and the bottom line. They use all kinds of wacky gimmicks to make their bags and the food look like what they think people want.  The marketing is not about quality in the bag but quality-appearance on the bag.  Purina has Beneful Playtime Formula. What do you think that is about? Ninety percent of the treats these manufacturers make is junky food with negative nutritional value and a very high carbohydrate content.  Don’t think for a minute that treats have no effect on nutrition just because it a “treat.” Poor treats supplementing a poor food makes for a terrible combination.  The worst thing that ever happened to dogs was the production of wheat-based biscuits.  People buy into food coloring, shapes, great photos of vegetables and steak. No matter how one evaluates these treats they are still nothing but empty calories with a negative value to your pet. We know there isn’t any substantial meat, veggies, or berries in a bag of treats, but we tend to believe what we want. Milkbone, as a treat, has become so common that it slipped into our everyday vernacular and our pet’s diet without thought as to the negative long-term impact they might have had on pets. Milkbone is no more milk than a bone. Milkbone is a cheap wheat-based treat shaped like a bone. How about Beggin Strips?  “Bacon, bacon, bacon,” my foot.  There isn’t any real bacon in Beggin Strips and even if there was, it wouldn’t be good for our pet.  Bacon in any quantity is too high in fat for dogs. The dog in the commercial is just yelling for bacon; he won’t get it in Beggin Strips. There really isn’t more than some bacon flavoring with glycerin in Beggin Strips. The point is that everything we put into our and our pet’s mouths count towards our overall nutrition, no matter what it smells or tastes like.

Many foods and treats, especially the cheap ones, use glutens like corn and wheat.  These are the great protein imposters. Glutens are left after extracting the carbohydrate from grain.  Glutens are highly processed grain fragments and are relatively high in protein, but the protein is not nearly the same quality as animal protein. The great pet food recall of 2007 was based on companies that not only used a lot of glutens to make food cheaper but wanted to further cut costs by going to China to buy the gluten. We all know what happened after that.  The Chinese companies wanted to make more money as well, so they cheated by putting melamine into our pet’s food. Competition for price drove some manufacturers to cut serious corners to compete with other companies (who were also cutting those same corners). This is a disease in our society today. If a company makes x amount of profits this year, they want to make x+y amount next year. Shareholders require that a business increase profits. And that’s the bottom line. Money. And more money. And their mantra, of late, is cheat but don’t get caught. The result was a lot of needlessly killed pets in the name of profit margin. They profited from using cheap, contaminated ingredients and pet owners paid the price. Obviously, they didn’t do it on purpose but they also didn’t ensure the quality of ingredients in their product.  As is so often said in business when people are shirking responsibility,  “Well, I told them we wanted quality. We have a contract.”  Those same people just didn’t want to pay for it. Isn’t it ironic that in our desire to find “the cheap,” we end up paying more in the long run (vet bills) and our pets sometimes pay with their lives. Meanwhile, veterinarians put on angel wings and continue to sell poor-quality pet food under the guise of their professional degree and expertise… which will, in turn, cause you to spend more on vet bills for your nutritionally ailing pets.

Since dogs and cats are defined as obligate carnivores, I ardently believe that more quality protein is better than less protein. Too much protein does not cause kidney problems. People believe it because manufacturers that want to sell cheaper foods with less quality protein tell us that. A better protein profile in both treats and food is always better than poorer protein profile.  Dogs and cats use protein to make their own sugar.  They did not evolve using starch as a carbohydrate source of energy.  Diets like Back to Basics (38% protein) and Wysong’s Optimal Diet (40% protein) – both boast about 70% to 80% animal protein – use no glutens and have little or no plant proteins.  These are top quality foods.  There are other great foods as well, but these are just two examples.  They do cost money, but how do we determine what is “expensive.” Personally, I think a cheap, poorer quality diet that you are paying for with the health of your pet is a far greater expense.

I know I sound like I know everything about pet food, but don’t think for a minute that anyone knows everything about our pet’s nutritional needs.  Food science is ever-changing and our knowledge base grows everyday. We constantly look for balance but it is a term that is not really attainable. The concept of balance changes for each pet at each stage of their life.  We really don’t have an absolute answer.  We barely know what complete is, no less the meaning of balance. Everything we offer our pets should seek to attain a closer proximity to complete and balanced. I feed variety. I feed high quality proteins. And I try to keep most starch out of my pet’s diet.  When in question, I tend to feed “primitive” diets.  BUYING FOODS ON PRICE ALONE WILL NOT GET YOU VALUE.

The long and short of it is that animal protein is expensive and that is why high-protein foods based on animal sources COST MORE.  It is, however, much more digestible. It is my belief that foods using high levels of plant proteins cheat our pets.  Are plant-based proteins cheaper by the pound? YES. Are they better value? NO. Plant protein is much cheaper and harder for short gutted animals like dogs, cats, and ferrets to digest. The hamburger or chicken we use for ourselves is roughly 15% protein with 75% water.  On a dry-weight basis fresh hamburger or chicken contains 2.4oz of protein per pound of raw meat that costs $3 to $4 per lb. at 75-80% +/- moisture content.  That, on a per pound dry-weight basis, makes beef for humans at $26.66 per lb. of protein a good value.  That makes quality dry pet food a good value.  The cost of plant protein is a fraction of that.

Quality animal-protein-based foods are more expensive but your pet will eat less because he can digest a greater percentage of the food. The price of the food is not always the number you see on your cash register receipt.

WHAT’S ACTUALLY IN BEGGIN’ STRIPS?

Ingredients:
Ground wheat, corn gluten meal, wheat flour, ground yellow corn, water, sugar, glycerin, soybean meal, meat, hydrogenated starch hydrolysate, bacon fat (preserved with BHA), salt, phosphoric acid, sorbic acid (a preservative), calcium propionate (a preservative), natural and artificial smoke flavors, added color (Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 1, Yellow 6), choline chloride.

There are many treats like this.  The ingredients speak for themselves.  It is negative nutrition. And when there are many all-meat treats that your dog would love just as much (likely more) why settle for negative nutrition?

VIP PetCare Clinics are coming to Burton’s Total Pet

Posted on Apr 2, 2013 in Feature | 0 comments

Burton’s Total Pet is proud to again offer in-store, affordable veterinary care for your pets courtesy of VIP PetCare. Below is the schedule for May, the first month of service.

Allison Park: First clinic May 4. 10-11:30am.

Cranberry Twp: First clinic May 4.  1:00-2:30pm.

Bridgeville: First clinic May 4.  3:30-5:00pm.

Monroeville: First clinic May 5. 10:00-11:30am.

Irwin: First clinic May 5.  1:00-2:30pm.

Greensburg: First clinic May 5.  3:30-5:00pm.

Edgewood: First clinic May 19.  1:00-2:30pm.

Pittsburgh (North Hills): First clinic May 19.  3:30-5:00pm.

 

 

About VIP PetCare

In January of 1995 VIP PetCare started offering pet lovers an alternate for their preventative veterinary care. VIP PetCare works with a variety of community partners, primarily pet and feed retail stores, to bring non-emergency veterinary clinics to communities across the country. Over the past eighteen years, VIP PetCare has grown from humble beginnings to become the premier provider of Community Veterinary Clinics in the country.

VIP PetCare offers comprehensive vaccines for dogs and cats, affordable vaccine packages, pet microchipping, standard blood and fecal testing, prescription flea and tick control, de-worming, and heartworm prevention at every walk-in community clinic. Many products are also available online or by phone for our existing clients. There is a state-licensed veterinarian supervising every Community Veterinary Clinic, and there is a board of full-time veterinarians that oversee all policies, protocols, and pricing for VIP PetCare services and products.

The goal of VIP PetCare is to improve the lives of pets and the people who love them. We strive to achieve this goal by treating your pet like a member of our family.

Burton’s Blog: Feeding Your Pet

Posted on Mar 21, 2013 in Burton's Blog, Feature | 0 comments

As most readers realize I’m not a fan of marketing that is structured around selling a poor-to-mediocre product.  When we deal with our food and our pet’s food I believe in absolute truth in marketing. This is about quality of life. Unfortunately it is the products that carry the biggest marketing budgets that are generally selling the poorest quality with the least value in all varieties of products.  Today I’m going to mention a few words about a myth that has been perpetuated by many veterinarians and manufacturers for decades. Most of our long time customers that have talked to me about pet food know I believe that all animals require variety in their diet.  In fact I can’t help but believe that feeding one food with only a couple of protein sources may play a major role in the rise in our pets’ food-related allergies.

There may be some dogs that have sensitive digestive systems but for the most part it surely is a self-fulfilling prophecy that an animal (including humans) will develop a digestive problem of some sort if we only eat one thing and then suddenly switch.  On the other hand, in 45 years of experience in dealing with carnivores, I have had few animals that have developed digestive problems when fed a consistently wide variety of foods. As a result, I have based our entire philosophy of stocking our stores on just this very philosophy.  We carry over 40 manufacturers and from those 40 or so manufacturers we have access to 3,000 to 4,000 varieties of food with many protein, fat, and carbohydrate sources. I even go as far as to suggest that people vary the manufacturers that they purchase.

Also, by now most of our customers know that I don’t like kibble as a sole source of food. For those feeding kibble, I suggest adding low sodium chicken broth to the kibble to soften it. I think many pets would benefit from this. Add raw foods on the side. There are many excellent new raw roods on the market today.  I will mention a couple.  OC Raw, Stella and Chewy’s.  I would feed both freeze dried raw and frozen raw as part of your pet’s diet. I also suggest supplementation with canned foodsn especially if they are of the 95% meat variety.  Wysong, Evangers, EVO, Nature’s Logic, Wellness Instinct, Nature’s Variety, etc. all have quality all-meat canned foods.  As an additional treat, I feed some raw fruit and vegetables.  Cantaloupe, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, watermelon, apple, and my dog’s favorite, mango, etc.  I do not use citrus, grapes or onion.  Citrus can upset a dog’s stomach, and grapes and onions can be highly toxic in some instances. We all know we can’t feed chocolate to any pet because their livers can’t handle the theobromines in chocolate.

A little note about kibble.  The difference in the quality of kibble is dramatic.  Recently marketing by a major grocery food company stated that their food has twice as much animal protein.  Twice as much in comparison to what food?  Some kibble can be so deficient in protein profile that the dog has to eat twice as much food to get enough of certain amino acids.  This adds extra weight because the pet is eating unnecessary calories to get the protein he desperately needs.  Price of food is not the question here.  If you pay $35 for a cheap bag of pet food and your pet eats twice as much as a quality food costing $60 per bag, you still lose money on the cheap food.  Your pet will also be eating more calories because the food lacks a proper balance of essential dietary needs. This adds to some long-term health issues. Most people would never want to admit that the food they fed their pet directly contributed to malnutrition. But that is what is happening.

Most people also never monitor the amount of food a pet eats. They put bowls of food down and when the bag is empty the get a new one.  Some higher-priced foods have high-quality ingredients but they use less protein to make the price point look more appealing.  These are marketing gimmicks.  Find the foods your dog thrives on, not just exists on.  Any of our managers can help you pick the right food, and I’m always available for questions that they can’t answer.

-Burton

Burton’s Blog 11/22: Regarding Euthanasia

Posted on Feb 15, 2013 in Burton's Blog | 0 comments

How do we define the humane treatment of animals in this country? Within that question there lie other issues: What is humane for a farm animal? A household pet? A wild animal? A wild animal hunted for sport and population control? These issues span the gamut of human emotion. Some vegetarians vocally disapprove of the consumption of any animal by anyone, and for others, this is a quiet personal choice made with certain health benefits in mind. Some believe it is okay to eat fish but not mammals or birds. Hunting is barbaric. Hunting is barbaric but there’s problem picking up a chicken at the grocery store. Hunting is a humane form of limiting population numbers. I’m not strictly subscribing to any of these blanket statements. I’m merely trying to show that no matter your perspective, our notion of what it means to be “humane” can never be a black and white issue. There’s a wide disparity of opinions and none upon which I want to summarily pass judgment. If nothing else is gained from this article, I’d like for readers to think about these other perspectives before turning to an immediate emotional response.

PUBLIC DEBATE

Circa 1980, animal rights activists burst into the mainstream. Their primary focus at the time was to eradicate the use of animal fur for coats. Many turned to throwing paint on anyone wearing a type of animal skin. Mink farms bore the brunt of this activism. These activists rarely, if ever, considered leather or goatskin, for example, as a crime against their ideological fanaticism. I say “fanaticism” here because these early throws of mainstream activism reeked of a kind of hypocrisy typical of, for lack of a better term, a pop-culture phenomenon. I have no doubt that activists are fueled by good intentions. They do believe, after all, that they are doing the “right” thing. What, exactly though, were they protesting against? They claimed their motivations lied in the inhumane treatment of the animals farmed for their pelts. By and large, the mink in question were raised on farms that practiced humane, painless euthanasia and lived healthier lives in captivity than they would have endured in the wild. It is all a matter of perspective, of course. Many of these activists used propaganda photos of mistreated animals to spur support for their cause. The problem, however, was that these photos depicted conditions and slaughtering techniques that hadn’t ever been used in this country. Most didn’t or wouldn’t believe the true story so they would validate their argument by any means necessary. Perception, as it is more often than not, was more important that truth.

With the fur trade banished to a fringe industry, Zoos became a more frequent target for activists. Zoological parks must keep animals in expensive space for years beyond their productive life span. The politically correct position is to spend thousands of dollars keeping an animal alive, often beyond their natural expiration (due to better and more frequent zoological care). In the meantime, space has been lost for animals that have no other place in the wild. Zoos are the last bastion of hope for species like the Bengal tiger; Snow leopard; Asian lion; the Java, Indian and Black Rhinoceros; and many primates and amphibians. The list of animals that can only exist in protected areas increases by the hour as the human population expands and consumes their natural habitat. While it might seem a cruel practice, the lack of extra resources for these endangered animals and the dearth of substantial breeding programs that include euthanasia policies will eventually be the end of many species on this planet. As I’ve said, it really is all about perspective. Emotionally it is very easy to fight euthanasia under any circumstances; however, the greater good often suffers due to our sympathies.

The public euthanasia debate that hits closest to home is that concerning our local animal shelters. By definition an animal shelter houses stray, runaway and sometimes wild animals (depending on the nature of the organization). Again, the many and various opinions on the responsibilities of animal shelters populate the entire spectrum. Some organizations believe that humans shouldn’t keep pets at all – that keeping animals only causes overpopulation and this overpopulation leads directly to euthanasia. Some refuse to euthanize under any circumstance. A popular movement of late is the cause to eliminate breeding programs for all pedigree dogs and cats because so many find their way into the shelter and rescue system.

In this country, pet shelters populate almost every city. They are sponsored by fundraisers, volunteers and local governments. Some of these shelters profess a no-kill policy because it garners more money from sympathetic donors. The problem with a blanket no-kill policy is that there are dogs that come to these shelters that resist rehabilitation. They have often been mistreated to the point of being irreparably asocial and cannot be trusted around humans. These are the saddest cases you will see. Through no fault of their own these animals have been conditioned to be aggressive and dangerous by poor excuses for human beings. The sad fact of the matter is that there’s very little anyone can do to re-socialize these animals, and if a no-kill shelter is truly no-kill, these unadoptable dogs will fill shelters to the breaking point. No new dogs would be adopted. Perfectly pleasant family dogs and companions would be turned away and taken to shelters that actively practice euthanasia. I’m not saying that we should take the euthanasia policy lightly, but if an animal behavioralist says that a dog cannot be trusted, it would be hypocritical of us to misdirect finite resources on a lost cause when there are thousands of potentially great pets that also need our help.

My intent in writing this article is merely to point out some of the difficulties in defining our obligations to the animals in our world. When do our hearts need to surrender to reason and logic? It’s a terribly difficult topic to discuss. I have seen many dogs euthanized over the years than I have ever cared to witness. Many are perfectly fine pets – and they deserve better.

There is much more that can be said about the euthanization process, but for now we need to look inside ourselves for answers to many of these questions. My personal wish would be to see better conditions on our factory farms. I would like to see better euthanasia practices in our slaughter houses. I would really like to see sensible and discreet use of euthanasia in our zoos’ breeding programs to promote more regular breeding and greater quality of life. We also need to get over the idea that chicken, beef, lamb and fish come from the grocery store. They come from farms. Yes, they are the lives of creatures, but in the natural order of the world, they are also the prey. Be they food, pet or otherwise, all animals deserve our reverence. I have a special dislike for the hunter that lacks the skill to humanely kill, that takes careless shots at an animal because he’s soaked up some beer and wants to tromp around the forest in the name of killing wildlife. This is not my kind of guy. If you hunt, hunt responsively, eat what you kill and hunt with due respect for the life of the animal. There are many situations like this in which we need to improve our handling of animals. For now, however, let’s think about how to deal with shelters and the dogs and cats that cannot be adopted so we can place the animals that need homes. It’s a crime, in my mind, to be so short-sighted that an irreparable animal might receive years of care at the cost of turning away potentially hundreds of perfectly fine pets and companions because the inn was full.

PRIVATE DEBATE

Now for my final thoughts regarding euthanasia, i.e. how it affects lives when we are the owners of a sick or dying pet, be it from disease or old age. You bring your pet, no less than a family member really, to the veterinarian. The veterinarian may or may not know if they can save your pet, but you ask what can be done. The vet says it’ll cost $2000, no guarantees. Of course you’d do anything for your best friend, but how can you afford a $2000 payment? You rack your brain: where could you possible get that kind of money? You fear that you’d be letting your pet down if you even considered the alternatives. I always give this word of advice to anyone in this situation, especially to older citizens who often live on a very fixed income: if you can’t afford the vet’s services, seek the advice of another. If you get the same answer twice then you need to weigh the alternatives. Not to diminish the problems that vets have in meeting their expenses, but I have seen vets turn away or deny treatment of a pet if the owner cannot “cough up the cash immediately.” It’s a cold world out there for those of us that live paycheck to paycheck, in and out of debt. Over the years, these situations have caused me many sleepless nights. I spent five years on the radio offering pet advice. People call me asking these questions about vet bills, euthanasia and other alternatives. I always give the same advice. If you can pay for your pets’ medical bills without jeopardizing your well-being, get a second opinion and use all of the knowledge you’ve garnered to make the best decision. If you cannot afford the vet bills for an aging or dying pet, you must consider euthanasia. This is a heart-wrenching decision for any animal lover. Emotion and logic often conflict, and in many instances where extreme and expensive measures must be undertaken to extend the life of a pet, the end result may not always be positive. You love your pets – we all do – but what kind of life is a life lived in agony? This is the cold truth about a decision every pet owner fears. But it is a personal decision that nobody can make for you because nobody else knows what’s best for you and your family.

I hope this discussion on euthanasia proves helpful. I do not intend to make your decisions for you, but rather to illustrate the problems related to each of our individual concerns about euthanasia. Every case is different. Every case can only be solved by someone who wants the very best for their pets. I have personally spent many hours grappling with my own thoughts on the matter in order to put them into words.  I hope there is something here for everyone to consider and, with regard to the tricky topic of euthanasia and animal shelters, it certainly points out the need for a better system to promote pet adoptions. May you, your family and your pets have a safe and healthy holiday season.

Burton’s Blog 2/22: An Idle Thought on Nutrition

Posted on Feb 15, 2013 in Burton's Blog | 0 comments

Complete and balanced does not exist. It doesn’t exist for us and it doesn’t exist for our pets. The sooner we understand why, the sooner we’ll take that first step toward whole body nutrition.

A diet can be complete in that in enables you or your pet to subsist adequately. When we are short some vital component of our diet, our bodies may or may not provide obvious indicators. We experience the symptoms in any number of ways. Malnutrition can exist even in the face of increased caloric intake. Starvation is only one possibility when considering malnutrition. When a food is deficient in one particular category, increased consumption does not overcome the deficiency — it only causes further problems such as obesity.

Malnutrition for our pets can manifest itself in the form of behavior, cancer, skin or coat quality or premature death. In the past none of these maladies were considered to be a product of malnutrition. I can tell you, without reservation, that whole body health is absolutely related to nutritional balance. In order to achieve whole body health, feed your pet a variety of foods, more specifically a variety of protein sources from quality ingredients from quality manufacturers. Variety will go a long way toward covering up potential deficiencies that may occur in your pets’ food. Don’t wait until symptoms appear; by then in might be too late to fix with something as simple as a diet adjustment. You might be talking about thousands of dollars in vet bills. Would you rather spend a few extra dollars on a variety of quality foods or thousands on veterinarian bills that may or may not solve the damage that has already been wrought by years of malnutrition.

I’m asking you to think about nutrition for your pet as more than just opening a bag of kibble. It is so much more. If you have any questions about Total Pet’s concept of total pet nutrition, please ask one our managers for assistance.

I do hope your pets are enjoying the late February blanket of snow. Watching an animal enjoy the weather always lessens the burden we all experience as we shovel and salt and skid and wait, less than patiently, for the permanent arrival of Spring.