Pumpkin is always in Season!

One thing I have learned since blogging for chewy.com and amusing my cats in the meantime is that pumpkin is actually good for cats...and dogs as well!  There are a few reasons why pumpkin is good for our feline friends and for us as well!

Top Four Benefits of Pumpkin

Pumpkin is a great source of fiber for cats.  In addition, many vets recommend pumpkin as a remedy for constipation in feline patients.  Just a little pumpkin helps to keep cats "regular".

Pumpkin adds more "bulk" to the diet of a cat and is great for cats that are on a diet!  The way it works is that you replace a bit of pumpkin with a reduced amount of food and the pumpkin will keep your cat satisfied and feeling full.

Pumpkin is a good source of vitamin A and C which helps to support the vision and the immune system of a cat.

Pumpkin is high in zinc and can help improve a cat's skin and coat.

Solid Gold - Triple Layer Pate - Salmon and Pumpkin

I was really excited that chewy sent me the most beautiful looking catfood yet by Solid Gold.  This is a Triple Layer pate with salmon and pumpkin that has two luscious looking layers of mousse that are whipped - one salmon and the other pumpkin that sit on a layer of real salmon shreds.  There are so many key benefits to this food, the first being that my cats can get mousse and shreds all in one bite!  I like the fact that this food is made for cats at all stages of life, so I can feed it to my older cats as well as to my younger cats.  Chewy.com is selling this food at a 6% discount and if you put this on auto-ship you will get an additional 5% off!  The shipping is free for orders of over $49 and items come within two days.

Key Benefits of Solid Gold Triple Layer Cat Food

The recipe is holistic and is gluten-free.

Triple Layer Pate is made with real salmon that offers your cat the protein it needs and real pumpkin that will help your cats coat and digestive system.

There are no fillers like corn, wheat, soy or artificial colorings or preservatives.

It provides cats with variety, there is no need to buy a topper for cat food, as this one comes with one.

It comes with the right amount of pumpkin so you don't have to measure out pumpkin, it's all done for you and your feline friends.

How active is the average dog? And do extreme weather events affect their activity? 

Researchers are appealing to dog owners around the world for help.

How active is your dog? Emily Hall wants to know, and needs your help to find out! Emily Hall is a vet and PhD student investigating risk factors for canine heatstroke and how environmental conditions affect dog’s ability to exercise.  Together with Dr Anne Carter (Senior Lecturer in Animal Biology) and Dr Mark Farnworth (Associate Professor in Animal Welfare) at Nottingham Trent University, Emily is asking dog owners around the world to share information about their dog’s normal exercise routine via an online survey. Dogs of any age, any breed and any health status can participate. Live with more than one dog? Simply re-start the survey to add additional dogs’ details too. 

Please share the survey link here, open until 31st December 2018:
https://ntusurvey.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/investigating-dog-activity-levels

What did your dog do today? How about your neighbour's dog? From the moment they woke up, to the point at which they curled up in their bed (or perhaps your bed), how did they spend their day? Did they go out for a walk, or a run? Did they chase a ball, or a cat? Did they compete in a canicross race, or train for an agility competition? Did they do as much as they were doing this time last year? Do you know what they will be able to do this time next year?

Surprisingly, we don’t know very much at all about dog activity levels.

Google “how much exercise does a dog need every day”, and one site will tell you this varies from dog to dog. Another site goes as far as to provide breed specific information on just how much your dog should be doing. For example, a Beagle apparently needs over two hours of exercise daily to keep them physically and mentally fit. A canine charity suggests how many walks a dog should ideally have a day. So who do you trust, and which one is right for your dog?

None of these popular, well-respected websites list any evidence base, such as references or sources of information to support these statements.

Go a step further with a search to Google Scholar. Search “dog OR canine AND activity levels”. The results explore how dog ownership impacts human activity levels, walking and general health. The only results relating to the dog’s activity levels, explore the use of wearable technology for measuring step count and distance travelled. We just don’t know how much exercise the average dog is getting, so we have absolutely no idea how age, breed, health status or external factors such as location or weather, impact the dog’s ability to exercise.

Amongst the articles on how dog ownership impacts human health, we see at one point the British tabloids reported the National Health Service was prescribing dog walking to help people keep fit, following a study showing that older people walked more if they own a dog. Sounds good? Perhaps, until you explore the study design. Participants were required to confirm their ability to walk unaided for a minimum of 10 minutes continuously. Ok, sounds reasonable? For the dog owning participants, they had to confirm the same criteria applied to their dog. So sadly, this study is flawed because it excludes all the dog owners who don’t have an active dog. 

The key problem with suggesting dog ownership to improve human health and physical activity levels, is the lack of evidence for normal canine activity levels. Confounding that, we also have no idea how canine factors such as breed, age or health impact activity levels. To complicate things further, increasingly frequent extreme weather events such as record breaking heatwaves like those seen in parts of Australia in 2017 — and the UK, Canada and Japan in 2018 — may also impact a dog’s ability to exercise. We just don’t know. 

In planning our next research project, we hit this wall. To get past it, we need to know: how active are our dogs? What affects their ability to be active? It’s always interesting when some of these really fundamental questions have been overlooked in the field of canine science, and we’re excited to learn more.

Participate in the online survey

Through our online survey we are investigating activity levels in dogs of every age, every breed, from all over the world. We are asking owners to share their dog’s health status so we can investigate if certain health problems impact a dog’s ability to exercise. It may sound obvious that a dog with a painful hip won’t want to walk as far as a healthy dog, but what about a dog with long-term itchy skin, or epilepsy? Does their disease impact their exercise routine? 

We also want to know how the weather affects dogs. How are the heatwaves affecting dog’s activity levels? Are they exercising at all, or is the risk of heatstroke too great? At the other extreme, what happens when it snows? Do some dogs love the snow and exercise more, or do they get too cold and refuse the leave the house!

Share your dog’s activity levels

We would like all dog owners to complete the survey, no matter how old, young, or healthy your dog is. The survey can be completed as many times as required, so if you have more than one dog, re-start the survey for each individual dog. If you feel a question doesn’t apply to you, leave it blank, or leave a comment. 

Please access and share the survey using this link: https://ntusurvey.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/investigating-dog-activity-levels 

The results

The survey doesn’t close until the end of 2018, so you’ll need to be patient while we crunch the numbers, but all results will be shared via the project blog, at https://heatstroke.dog/ 

Any questions, please get in touch via heatstroke.dog@gmail.com

Emily Hall
Nottingham Trent University, UK

Images via Flickr: froderamone / carterse / blumenbiene

Put the Wow in Meow with the New Fancy Feast Appetizers

This month chewy.com sent me a super treat for my gang of five... the Fancy Feast Appetizers that are a perfect topper making an ordinary Fancy Feast  Dinner into an extraordinary cat dining experience! Each little appetizer container has a different saying... "happiness is a clean dish", "like a hug from inside," and "tasty ways to wow your cat."

 My favorite saying was "today just went from meow to wow"!!  And, my gang of five could not agree more!  They devoured this topper on their Fancy Feast Pate, Salmon. I was really impressed that this Fancy Feast Appetizer had a good portion (appetizer size) of light meat tuna and a good size scallop topper, all wrapped up in a savory broth.

Benefits of Fancy Feast Appetizers

• This is a grain free gourmet recipe
• This appetizer is made from high-quality proteins like skipjack tuna and scallops
• The texture is flakey making it a perfect topping for a pate
• It is an extra special treat between meals and puts the "wow in meow"!
• This comes in a delicate fish broth that helps hydrate your cat
• The appetizer comes in an easy to use peel and serve tray.
• Best of all, my cats love it!

Star System

We all love to pamper our pets and this food is paw licking good!  Don't take just my word for it, according to www.chewy.com's customer reviews, this food got 5 out of 5 stars and is100% recommended!  One reviewer put it best... "Good snacks, happy cats!"  This food comes in a handy tray of 1.1 oz treats consisting of 10 packages.  If you order $49 or more from chewy.com the shipping is free and if you put items on auto ship you get a 5% discount!