Living it Up -- Kitty Style With Liv A Little Treats by Halo

My gang of five likes treats... they all run into the kitchen every time I walk into it looking for goodies.  This month I could not resist trying Liv A Littles Whole Chicken Breast treats...from chewy.com and, I am glad I choose these high protein treats to review, so is my gang of five...they love them!

My Tonkinese cats are sniffers and they seem to know when something good has shown up at the door... and Liv a Little didn't disappoint.  The first thing I noticed about these treats is that they smelled really good and looked even better, this is because they are freeze dried and not dehydrated.  The freeze drying process helps them to retain a good wholesome color, great smell, and texture.

The second thing I noticed was their size, the container was packed full of large chunks of white chicken breast meat.  There isn't anything wrong with small treats but, it seems that half the fun of having Love A Little treats for Sabu is trying to fish them out with his paw adding an element of fun to deliciousness!

Benefits of Freeze Drying

Liv A Littles Whole Chicken Breast are made by  US company, Halo, Purely for Pets whose goal is to be transparent about what is in the pet food they make and where the ingredients come from.  I like the fact that this treat is freeze-dried as opposed to dehydrated because it helps to lock in the whole chicken nutrition, aroma, and taste. 

The process of freeze-drying uses a vacuum to remove moisture from frozen meat without thawing it, similar to the process for preparing raw food. The protein doesn't shrink or toughen during the freeze, which makes it enjoyable to eat. Plus, it doesn't contain additives that dehydrated food does, and it retains its original nutrients, while dehydrated food loses up to 50%.

Healthy Highlights

For over 30 years, Halo has insisted on creating only holistic pet foods that rely on whole meat, poultry or fish and never any rendered meat meal. This is the fundamental difference that sets them apart as a premium pet food brand.There are several key reasons why to try Liv A Little Chicken treats for your dog or cat and chewy.com makes ordering them easy.

• Pieces of freeze-dried white meat chicken breast made in the US.  
• No meat meal of any kind is used in this product.
• Grain-free perfect for pets with a sensitive stomach
• All natural, single protein treat that is low in calories, a real plus for indoor felines. 
• Simple wholesome ingredients: chicken, water, sodium phosphate, salt, and carrageenan.
• Serve as a high-quality special treat or crumbled them in food at mealtime for added incentive.
• Packaged in an easily stored 2.2-ounce  hard plastic container that keeps the product fresh. 
• Best of all my cats love them and I think they would eat the entire container at one sitting if left to their own devices!
• Good to the last drop, with the small amount of chicken "dust"  at the bottom of the container I sprinkled it on their wet food for a special treat and they went wild!

It's Just Yummy!

My gang of five and I are not the only ones that think that Halo's Liv A Littles Chicken Breast Treats are good, out of 478 reviews on chewy.com this product had 4.5 out of five stars with 78% of reviewers giving it 5 stars, 9% giving it four stars and 4% giving it three. Best of all, this is one of the few products that is suitable for cats as well as dogs.

Getting in Shape with Slimcat! & #TigerTwins @ Beardsley Zoo!

One of the most popular resolutions of New Year is to get back on or go on a diet!  So many of us indulge during the holiday season -- even our cats get extra treats!   With  this resolution in mind,  I was intrigued when I saw a gadget called Slimcat  available at www.chewy.com.   This clever device is an interactive cat feeder by Petsafe, and, better yet,  available @www.chewy.com at a 56% discount!  It seems every time I head into the kitchen, so does my gang of five for their treats  !  The trouble is  I don't want them to gain weight... and with Slimcat they have to "work" for their treats...at least some of the time!

The cool thing about this treat dispensing gadget is that you can load up the treats and then adjust the number of treats that it dispenses depending on the size of the treat and the size of the opening which is adjustable.  It is a great new and healthy toy that my cats, especially the Tonkinese enjoy.

It is fun watching them bat this ball around that rolls easily on the floor as well as on a carpet dispensing treats along the way!   It keeps them all occupied on these cold winter days as well as helping them maintain their weight. I have tried this with several brands of treats from chewy.com including Greenies, Temptations and Party Mix.

To really get the attention of my Tonkinese I  broke up a few pieces of Halo Chicken one of their favorite freeze dried treats and, once they understood that food came out when they played with it, they really enjoyed this interactive cat feeder by PetSafe.

Slimcat is made of  BPA- free plastic and can be  taken apart and washed by hand or in the dishwasher.  It holds 2/3 cup of  dry food or treats and is compatible with most because the  holes in the sides are adjustable.  Slimcat comes in a variety of colors and seems to really brighten up these short winter days...it even woke theMaxx up from his snooze!

Rare Amur Tiger Cubs Born @ Connecticut's Beardsley Zoo

On November 25, two rare Amur tigers were born at Connecticut's Beardsley Zoo, which is home to their parents, a male, Petya and a female, Changbai. They are  part of the Species Survival Plan that is administered by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. When born these girls weighed 1.7 pounds and seven weeks later they weigh 10 pounds and will weigh over 100 within six months.

 Rejected by their mother at birth,  Zoo staff has been hand feeding the cubs every five hours; and happily the cubs are  thriving. They will not interact with their mother because at this point she would see them either as a toy or as prey, not as her cubs.  As they grow and are weaned physical interaction will end.  Zoo staff  will raise these girls as "tigers" and time will tell if they will be kept together although the hope is they will be together for at least two years.  Genetically, they are very important to this rare species.

The girls have been named Reka and Zeya in honor of their Russian heritage. Zeya is a river that runs through the Amur area of Russia and Reka is a city in that area.  To watch the tiger girls grow, check out the zoo's Facebook Page.  The cubs parents are considered to be in the top ten in regard to tigers by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums because of their genetic diversity.

The Amur or Siberian tiger is a rare subspecies of tiger and the largest cat in the world. There are only 500 Amur tigers left in the wild and genetic diversity is a concern.  Male tigers can weigh up to 675 pounds and females can weigh up to 350 pounds. Another difference is that the stripes of Amur tigers are fewer and paler and they have a mane that helps to keep them warm.  The public will be able to visit the tigers this spring.  The Zoo is raising money to build a special viewing area for the girls.

The owner’s behavior: The elusive puzzle piece in dog-human relationships

Please welcome today’s guest contributor, Giulia Cimarelli, a researcher at the Unit of Comparative Cognition and at the Wolf Science Center of the Messerli Research Institute (Vienna, Austria).

Adam Griffith, Unsplash

When considering the dog-human bond, it’s pretty easy to agree that how we behave can influence dogs. We influence how they perceive and respond to situations and this can inform what they might expect from us in the future. This, of course, goes both ways. For example, if a dog is supported by an owner during a stressful situation, the dog could feel less stressed in a similar situation in the future. 

But of course, social relationships are complicated. Many factors are involved, like the personality and upbringing of both individuals and the social context in which the relationship develops. For decades, scientists from different disciplines have tried to understand and describe the relationships that humans and non-human animals build with one another. Today, there is general agreement that both parties influence one another.

When I first became interested in how human behavior influences dogs, I found that most existing research was based on questionnaires. Being an ethologist (a scientist who studies animal behavior), I wanted to examine owner behavior as I saw it, not just as people reported it. Professionals who work with dogs and their people probably know that people are not always aware of how they behave with their dogs, even though most people seem aware that dogs can respond to subtle human behaviors.

Giulia and dog friend

To understand how owners influence their dogs, we need to see what owners really do. And not only during training sessions. Life is so much more than training! I wanted to see how owners interact with their dogs in everyday situations, both positive and possibly negative. 

With this aim in mind, my colleagues and I at the Clever Dog Lab (Vienna, Austria) invited owners and their pet dogs to our lab to participate in a test that we called the “Owner Interaction Style test”. The experiment consisted of 8 different scenarios where we let the owner and their dog interact with one another. These scenarios were meant to recreate real life situations, but in a controlled environment. For example, we asked owners to leave the dog alone for a few minutes, and then we analyzed how they would greet their dog when they returned. We also asked owners to play “fetch” and “tug-of-war” with their dog, to teach them how to open a bin to retrieve food, and to perform basic obedience behaviors (i.e. sit, lay down, and stay) while an unfamiliar person attempted to distract the dog (i.e. by pretending to look for something in a box full of crumbled newspapers). We also saw how owners behaved when their dog was dealing with a potentially stressful situation (i.e. if the dog’s movements were restricted like during a vet examination). 

In each test we kept track of how many times the owner gave commands, praised, petted, clapped, or whistled to the dog. We also assessed how warm, enthusiastic, and supportive owners were, or if they were cold, authoritarian, or avoidant when interacting with their dog.

We found that owner behavior varies across 3 factors: 1) warmth in positive situations like play, teaching, and greeting, 2) social support in potentially stressful situations, and 3) behavioral control. 

Interestingly, these factors are very similar to those observed in human psychology studies when describing how parents interact with their children, possibly because humans have a general way of interacting with individuals they are caring for. 

Below is a short video of the study in action.

We also wanted to see if the way owners generally behaved with their dog would influence their dog's behavior in a stressful situation. Would dogs behave similar to children? Research has shown that when the parent is helpful and supportive, the child will trust and seek help and support from the parent in the future.

To answer to this question, we conducted a test that you should NOT try at home: owner and dog participants were approached by an unfamiliar person in a threatening way (i.e. stepping slowly toward the dog, with the upper torso bent forward, and staring into the dog’s eyes). In this test, the owner was told not to interact with their dog so that the dog’s reaction would not be influenced by the owner’s current response. Instead, we wanted to see whether the dog’s reaction related to how the owner had previously interacted with the dog, as analyzed in the previous study (warmth, social support, or control). We assumed that because of previous experiences, dogs will know how their owner will behave.

Indeed, we found that dogs’ reactions, either approaching the unfamiliar person independently or remaining close to their owner, depended on how warm the owner had been during the interaction style test described earlier. In particular, dogs who stayed close to their owner had warmer owners than those dogs who reacted more independently. 

Our study suggests that dogs are influenced by how their owner interacts with them outside of training situations. How enthusiastic, warm, and present we are in the everyday lives of our dogs can influence how our four-legged companions rely on us in stressful situations. 

This is important because sometimes people focus too much on training and forget that everything we do can matter. Whenever we interact with our dogs, we are telling them who we are, what we are for them, and whether they can count on us.  

Giulia Cimarelli, researcher at the Unit of Comparative Cognition and at the Wolf Science Center of the Messerli Research Institute (Vienna, Austria).

E-mail: giulia.cimarelli@vetmeduni.ac.at

References

Cimarelli, G., Turcsán, B., Bánlaki, Z., Range, F., and Virányi, Z. (2016). Dog Owners’ Interaction Styles: Their Components and Associations with Reactions of Pet Dogs to a Social Threat. Front. Psychol. 7, 1979.

Cimarelli, G., Turcsán, B., Range, F., and Virányi, Z. (2017). The Other End of the Leash: An Experimental Test to Analyze How Owners Interact with Their Pet Dogs. J. Vis. Exp., 1–11.