ANIMAL WELLNESS
AnimalWELLNESS For a long, healthy life!
Living pawsitive!
BRAIN FOOD
TOP DOGS
How his diet can impact behavior and intelligence
for landing a HOT date
High-Tech Healthcare
Food as MEDICINE
When is it viable?
CANINE calming signals IT’S MINE!
What to do for dogs who protect their food and toys
The role it plays in cancer
Victoria Stilwell TV’s favorite gentle trainer shares her secrets to housetraining
feline WELLNESS Hip, cool and healthy!
Pros and cons of
INVISIBLE FENCING Body TALK
FEBRUARY/MARCH Display until March 25, 2013
WHAT IS SHE REALLY SAYING?
&
FERAL CATS... community relations
$5.95 USA/Canada
12CLEAN STEPS KITTY
HOW TO KEEP PEACE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD WHEN CARING FOR WILD FELINES
TO A
WORKING OUT LITTER BOX ISSUES
Meet VOLUME 15 ISSUE 1
AnimalWellnessMagazine.com
Tux
A THERAPY CAT WITH CHARACTER TO SPARE
BONUS FELINE SECTION NOW INSIDE! animal feline wellness
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Contents February/March 2013
FEATURES 18 FOOD AS MEDICINE
Chances are, you’re going to have at least one dog in your lifetime that develops cancer. Diet and supplements can play a key role in preventing and treating the disease.
22 CALM DOWN!
You’re stressed out and your dog seems to be going out of his way to do the opposite of what you want. He may simply be using canine calming signals to help ease your anxiety.
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26 VICTORIA STILWELL ON HOUSE TRAINING Adopting a puppy or untrained adult dog? This renowned trainer shares her advice on how to get him toilettrained.
28 HIGH-TECH HEALTHCARE
52 DO YOU HAVE A “FIRE” DOG?
Should he have a kidney transplant or heart surgery? How do you determine when high-end medical procedures are viable for your dog?
It can be difficult to get an anxious or overexcited pooch to chill out. Here’s how a wellness approach based on Five Element Theory can help.
66 12 STEPS TO A CLEAN KITTY
32 BRAIN FOOD
56 MENDING FENCES
69 MAGNET FOR MISCHIEF
Did you know your dog’s diet can have an influence on his behavior and intelligence?
38 PIT BULL PARADOX They’ve long had a reputation for being aggressive and violent, but when properly raised and socialized, these energetic dogs are affectionate and fun-loving clowns.
44 BUCKLE UP, SPARKY! Keeping your dog safe and happy during car trips involves proper restraint, along with a few comforts of home.
47 HIGH STANDARDS
This family-owned company formulates innovative mobility products for animals that relieve pain and discomfort while healing on a cellular level.
48 IT’S MINE!
Resource protection is a natural instinct, but can lead to bites and attacks. Acupressure is one way to evoke a sense of calm and trust in dogs who feel a need to guard food and toys.
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animal wellness
Mention invisible fencing, and a lot of dog lovers cringe. But it’s the way it’s used that’s most important. Combined with the correct training, it can be safe as well as effective for some dogs.
Cats and proper litter box etiquette go hand in paw. It can be a beautiful relationship – if you put the cat’s needs first.
Meet Tux, a black and white therapy cat with character and curiosity to spare.
62 BODY TALK
71 SERIOUSLY NATURAL
64 KEEPING THE PEACE
82 CHAKRA HEALING FOR FIDO
Your cat communicates as much with his body as his voice. Learning how to interpret the subtlest of signals will eliminate misunderstandings and strengthen your bond.
When caring for a feral cat colony in your neighborhood, factor community relations into your action plan to avoid friction with those who don’t like wild felines.
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This company takes special pride in formulating safe, healthy supplements, remedies and topicals for dogs.
These energy centers in your dog’s body help keep her life force energy flowing, but can become imbalanced or blocked, resulting in health or behavioral issues.
86 TOP DOGS FOR LANDING A HOT DATE
Come Valentine’s Day, romance is on a lot of people’s minds. Find out which breeds make you more attractive to a potential mate.
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COLUMNS 12 Yakkity yak 74 Warm & fuzzy
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76 Case study
DEPARTMENTS
88 Passages 90 Book reviews 98 Tail end
8 Editorial 55 Product picks 72 Wellness resource guide 80 The scoop
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92 Events Calendar 93 Marketplace 96 ClassiďŹ eds
animal wellness
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BY SUE ARMSTRONG MA, VETMB, VETMFHOM, CERTIAVH, MRCVS, RSHOM
Chances are, you’re going to have at least one dog in your lifetime that develops cancer. Diet and supplements can play a key role in preventing and treating the disease.
FOOD
AS MEDICINE No one wants to hear the “C� word from their veterinarian. Unfortunately, canine cancer is an increasingly common health issue, and just as the causes are complex, so are the treatment options. The good news is that diet and supplements have a significant part to play in the battle against this disease.
What diet can do
The importance of diet in treating and preventing cancer is long established. Some veterinarians claim to treat cancer by dietary manipulation alone, focusing on the elimination of toxins and providing potentially deficient nutrients to support the immune system and liver.1
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animal wellness
Growing evidence supports the basic principle in cancer nutrition of minimizing simple sugars and complex carbohydrates, and favoring protein and unsaturated fats as the main energy sources. This is based on studies of the metabolic requirements of cancer versus host cells. Cancer cells use protein for energy and will utilize certain amino acids, such as arginine, at the expense of the host. Fats provide more calories per gram than protein and carbohydrates, an advantage to very sick animals able
to ingest only small amounts of food. Most animals find fats more palatable. The biochemical response to food deprivation (even 24 hours of anorexia) leads to substantial dependence on fat-derived fuels. As cancer progresses, alterations in normal patient metabolism occur; often these changes are irreversible without treatment and adequate nutritional support. Diet in cancer patients can be extremely challenging when the animal is inappetant, able to swallow only small amounts of food, or is vomiting. Cachexic patients need high energy in the form of fat, and even carbohydrates may have to be reintroduced at this stage, even though they give the tumor an energy supply. Ideally, I prefer animals to be taken off refined commercial diets and put on raw whole food. If you opt to home-prepare the food, you need good instructions on how to create the right diet for your dog, and must be willing to spend the time putting it together every day, using fresh, high quality ingredients. Some excellent companies produce well-formulated raw food diets that are complete and take the hard work out of it if you have limited time. Dogs that have been used to commercial diets all their lives and are now very ill with cancer have to be transitioned carefully (it may not even be possible or advisable some cases). I do not use diets high in bone for these animals. Those with cachexia may not be able to handle raw food diets. At this stage, cooking the food, feeding it warm and not cold, and using high energy convalescence products is required. The home-formulated raw diet I use is essentially based on 2:1 meat/meaty bone to vegetable/fruit with an emphasis on human grade organic food. I also pay attention to the full spectrum of colors in fruits and vegetables to give the animal a good mineral/vitamin spread. If vitamin/mineral supplements are used, they must be bio-available and ideally sourced from whole plants. Additions to the basic diet include eggs, cottage cheese (especially if the liver is showing measurable signs of stress), spirulina, wheat grass, alfalfa juice and barley greens. Reducing the acid load is helped by vegetables, fruits and the additions mentioned above combined with the elimination of refined carbohydrates, grains, sugars and dairy foods. Evidence indicates cancer progresses more in an acid environment. The addition of digestive enzymes may be useful, especially in animals that have been fed refined diets for years. Continued on page 20. animal wellness
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