Dear friends,
It has been SO exciting to get more mail! A lot of you have written to me about the pet food scare, and several of you wrote to me about our KPR kitty Goldie, and two of you (one dog and one dog owner) expressed lots of worry about fireworks - let's start with that one first.
Fireworks are sort of like unexpected thunderstorms - one minute, you're contentedly snoozing, or thinking deep thoughts about your next meal, or mindlessly purring, or just doing that doggie blank stare, and then, BOOM!!! and CRASH!!!! and it seems like the world is going to end. Bladder control is hard under these circumstances, I can tell you! I see no possible good that can come out of subjecting my sensitive ears and nose and psyche to the stink and noise and randomness of such things. I don't even like crackling fires in the winter, or summer thunderstorms, let alone the very scary noises around my home for about 2 weeks around the 4th of July every year.
For many of us, the most sensible thing to do is to hide in as quiet and dark of a place as we can find, like in a closet or in a corner of the basement. I have a Lab friend who gets in the tub and pulls the shower curtain shut all by himself. I myself run downstairs and get in my crate just as fast as I can when I hear bad scary noises. My Mom is nice to me and when she sees that I am scared, she lets me stay in the crate and she drapes a blanket over the top and sides and she even plays music to drown out some of the noise. And she brings my food and water to the crate for me. But sadly, some of us have owners who think we should just pull up our Big Girl panties and tough the fireworks out. Others of us have owners who are also scared of loud noises and they get so worked up they make us more scared, too. So I am here to straighten them out.
PLEASE LISTEN, PEOPLE: you understand why there are those noises, and how long they will last. We don't. We just know that it is very unexpected and scary and we think it might go on forever. Many of us get even more scared of noises when we get older, too! So it doesn't help us for you to also have a panic attack. On the other hand, it doesn't help for you to be all Rambo and drag us outside to take a walk during the loud scary stuff. What we need is for you to stay calm and tell us that it's all right, and that everything will be fine, and to let us hide if we want to. What about drugs? Well, I am a natural sort of gal myself, and I prefer to not be sedated, but I do like some of the calming aromatherapy sprays my Mom uses. There are also some herbal '"calmer-downers" that are very safe if you have to be home alone when there are bad scary noises. Ask your people to check with their vet to see if they are safe for you.
On to some good news! Buckaroos, we have found out kitty Goldie a home! She is going to be a companion to a lady who is home a lot and who has been lonely since her 18 year old kitty died. She saw Goldie's picture after a Knollwood client sent her my column last month. Goldie went home last week and she already has more beds and litter boxes and toys than she knows what to do with. And she gets a fresh food diet. YAY for Goldie and YAY for our great clients who helped Goldie get a home!
Lastly....
Bless my whiskers, but I honestly don't know why so many of you are scared of raw dog and cat food. So many of you have written to me (or told my Mom) about how worried you are about food recalls "but" you don't think you can watch us eat raw food, or you don't think you can stand to keep it in your house, or you don't think you can deal with preparing it, or some such thing - well, there is no word to use except WHINY EXCUSES. So grind out those "buts" and have a little cheese with that whine, folks, 'cause Lizzie is here with Reality Check time!
Reality Check #1: Our doggie and kitty ancestors did not sit around a campfire toasting our food on sticks. We've always eaten it raw, our digestion is "preset" for raw, and we LIKE it raw.
Reality Check #2: Raw food doesn't mean cold food. Raw food means body temperature of the animal it is (was), so for Pete's sake, warm up our food before you give it to us!
Reality Check #3: If you say you're too grossed out to handle raw meat to feed us, I'm gonna say you are just plain silly, unless you really have never cooked a chicken, shaped a hamburger patty, prepared ribs for a barbecue, or microwaved a hot dog (although I'm not sure that a hot dog counts as meat any more than a Gainesburger does)!
Reality Check #4: If you think raw meat is unsanitary or gross, I'm here to tell you how to get yourself though it: pretend you're a famous sushi chef. What would a sushi chef do?
She would:
a) Wash her hands before handling raw food.
b) Keep the food frozen till ready to use, or only buy it very fresh.
c) Whether frozen or fresh, she would only keep in the fridge what would be fed within 24 hours. The rest would stay frozen or would be purchased the next day.
d) Keep the raw food separate from other foods, and use a separate cutting board and knife for preparing it.
e) Wash all utensils used to prepare the food in hot soapy water.
f) Discard any food that is not eaten within 30 minutes.
g) Wash all food bowls in hot soapy water after each use.
It is really that simple, folks. I am here to tell you that I feel and look SO much better since I have been eating raw food. I was a Rubenesque 22 pounds, and now I weigh 16.5 pounds and my legs feel much better (you remember I had my knee operated last year) and my coat is shiny and my breath is nicer and I don't need to have my teeth cleaned as often. And my housemate Sofia is getting healthier too (and her - ahem - noisy gas problem - is gone), and both cats love their food. The cats have gotten a lot heavier but it is all muscle and they don't have those woogly hangy tummies anymore that sway back and forth when they walk like a lot of cats have.
Some of you have asked what we eat and what supplements we get. My kitties eat Aunt Jeni's and Nature's Variety, and they get Arthriease joint support and Prozyme Plus every day, and half of a fish oil capsule and a balanced vitamin-mineral tablet twice a week. Sofia eats Northwest Naturals, and I eat Nature's Variety, and we both also get Prozyme Plus and we alternate between a bottle of Arthriease and a bottle of Cosequin DS. We also get fish oil, a vitamin, and a probiotic twice a week. All of us get chicken livers or beef heart once a week. We all like vegetables and fruits and we get those whenever Mom makes a salad. I also sneak into the garden and pick my own strawberries and green beans and I dig potatoes and Sofia eats all the tomatoes and zucchini when she can get to them. (We get in lots of trouble for this.) Mom runs our food under hot water, in the package, of course, to warm it up for us and she mixes our supplements right into it with some extra warm water.
I am going to take a break until my August column, because I have a lot of reading to do. Mom just got back from another veterinary meeting - that ACVIM one - and she told me it is amazing how many important veterinarian specialists these days go to professional meetings looking like they were planning to appear on MTV - but I digress. (I also think maybe she's just getting old and crochety - what's wrong with showing the world the butterfly tattoo on your butt at a professional meeting? At least they aren't greeting each other like dogs do when they meet!). Sorry, another digression - what I meant to tell you is, she brought all kinds of books and CDs and things back and I am going to rootle through them so I can tell you what is important when I next write. Here's some things I found out already - did you know that there is now a researched diet pill for dogs? And some very cool new treatments for cancer and bowel trouble? It's true! I'll tell you all about it, and more, in August. Until then, please tell your people to keep checking our website for food recalls - they are still cropping up occasionally, and you don't want to be eating bad food. And, um, if you go to a professional meeting - couldya keep that butt tattoo under cover, just for my Mom?
LIZZIE
