Can Your Dog Benefit From A Vitamin Supplement?
by Sandy Phillips
Could your dog benefit from a vitamin? For most dogs, the answer is yes. I know, you're already feeding high-quality dog food, and you should have your dog covered, but is that really true?
Let's talk about the vitamins in your dog's bag of kibble. Are they vitamins from whole food, or are they synthetic vitamins? How do you tell the difference? For most people, it's simple; if you cannot easily pronounce the ingredients, they are highly likely synthetic. Dog food manufacturers need to add all these vitamins to that kibble because the kibble itself is void of these vitamins or the vitamin component is so small that they don't meet US dog food standards. Take a moment to think about that. Is your dog genuinely eating "food?"
Did you know that only a very few brands of dog food made in the US use natural or whole food vitamins in their food? Most use a vitamin pre-mix, and it's comprised of synthetics. The 80-dollar bag of kibble may differ from what you think you are buying. Expensive does not necessarily equate to quality where dog food is concerned.
A better understanding of synthetic vitamins and how they work in the body will offer you more information when evaluating your next purchase of dog food.
Via chemical structure, synthetic vitamins are "mirror images" of their natural counterpart. For example, vitamin C in its natural form, let's say, looks like a string of lights with all the bulbs facing to the right. Vitamin C, the synthetic form, looks precisely the same as the natural string of lights, but the bulbs all face the opposite direction, to the left.
Mother Nature instructed our bodies and the dog's body to utilize those natural vitamins in a specific way. There are receptors in the cells that recognize that string of lights with the bulbs facing to the right, and they fit into the cells in our bodies just like the perfect puzzle piece. Once in place, the body knows how to benefit from the vitamin's presence.
Now, when that string of lights with the bulbs all facing left enters the cell, and because they are not an exact fit, the cell rejects it as a foreign object, and our bodies eliminate it through the urine.
Here's a visual example. Stand in front of a mirror and look at your face. Then, touch the mirror image of your face on the nose. (Be sure to touch the mirror.) You feel the touch sensation on your finger; the nose itself felt no stroke, no warm touch, and received no benefit.
Now touch your nose directly on your face. You feel the soft touch of your finger, and your nose notices the physical contact. In short, your body responds to the natural touch, not the "mirror image" touch. If you leave the mirror without ever having touched your actual face, your nose will never know the experience even happened. Mirror images are not the proper coding Mother Nature intended, so the body will never benefit from those synthetic vitamins.
Have you ever taken vitamins and thought, "these don't do anything?" You're likely right if they were synthetic.
The good news is that whole food vitamins are on the market, which can help improve any bag of kibble. You can even find them in a "treat" form that your dog will love.
Feed the highest quality dog food you can afford for your dog's overall health. And yes, even the best foods can benefit from adding whole-food vitamins. As our dogs age and continue to be exposed to environmental stressors, natural food source vitamins can play a role in maintaining your dog's overall health.
The next time you purchase dog food, take some extra time to read the bag carefully and make an informed choice for your dog. Consider adding some whole-food vitamins too. Remember, your dog relies on you to make good food choices for them.
Mites: Can we scratch that itch?
by John Maniatty, DVM
Your puppy or kitten constantly scratches and licks; they cannot get relief. Their skin is crusty, and they are losing clumps of fur. You bathe them, but it is not helping. It doesn’t appear to be fleas, and you have given them Benadryl, still with little relief. What is causing all itchiness? Could it be Mites?
Mites are microscopic arachnids of the skin. Some live on top of the skin, like those of the family Trombiculidae (Chiggers) and Otodectes Cyonitis (Ear Mites). Others live just below the skin, like Cheyletiella (Walking Dandruff), Sarcoptes scabiei (Scabies), and Demodex species mites (Mange). Demodex are normal skin inhabitants, while all the rest come from outside sources. Mites generally do not live long off the host body but can be transferred from animal to animal/human and plants, bedding, and soil. Mites feed on the material in the skin and the skin cells themselves. The digestive juices they use to break down the cells and other materials in the skin lead to inflammation. The mites also tunnel into the skin and lay eggs, creating inflammation and can lead to allergic reactions. Clinical Symptoms you may see because of this are pruritus (itching), licking, chewing, skin sores, crusts/dandruff, and alopecia (hair loss).
A skin scraping, acetate tape preparation, hair plucking, skin biopsy, and treatment response can determine a mites diagnosis. Skin scraping requires using a scalpel blade to scrape the skin deep enough to make capillary bleeding. The sample is then examined on a microscope slide. Unfortunately, mites or eggs are only seen 50 % of the time with this technique.
For the acetate tape preparation, one takes the clear scotch tape and touches it to the skin at areas of sores and irritation. It is then transferred to a microscope slide. Only 50 % of the time will you see mites or eggs. One of the benefits of the acetate tape test is that it allows for staining of the tape prep and looking for secondary bacterial or yeast infections.
A biopsy is much more sensitive, and if mites are present, they will be seen at a higher percentage than the previous techniques. It also can be used to diagnose other possible causes. The significant drawbacks are that it is much more traumatic and expensive.
Hair plucking is used for Demodex identification because they live in the hair follicles and sebaceous glands/blackheads.
In some cases, treatment response and patient history are all we can use to diagnose mites. We do this sometimes when we are highly suspicious of mites and the less sensitive tests return negative.
A mite’s ability to infest other animals varies from mite to mite. Chiggers are rare in dogs and cats but are more common in humans. The eggs are in the soil or decayed plant/wood, and the larval stages are mites when they hatch. The mites crawl on the skin and place digestive enzymes down to dissolve the skin to ingest and make tunnels to crawl in the skin. Next, inflammation occurs, which can be seen in the form of sores, nodules, wheels, and plaques.
Ear Mites live in the ears and on the head. They are species-specific to dogs and cats; they do not infect humans. They lay eggs in the ear that hatch and are asexual when hatched. The asexual mite binds to the male mites and develops into male or female. Males disconnect. Females stay connected and copulate with males and lay their eggs. There is a 4-day incubation period. Once hatched, they feed on the skin cells and waxy debris. They do not live long off the body. Their life span is about 21 days.
Cheyletiella, commonly called Walking Dandruff, are not host-specific mites. Dogs, cats, humans, and rabbits are prone. Different species of these mites are more prominent in dogs versus cats versus rabbits, but all can infest each other and humans. They do not always cause a reaction; if not, the more common species may be temporary. They are transmitted by contact with the infected animal or from fomites such as plants, bedding, and cages. Unlike many other mites, they can live off the host for 21-30 days. In addition, these mites can lay eggs in the environment leading to sources for re-infestation.
Sarcoptic mites (Mange) tend to be somewhat species-specific in that the specific host can be infested, and the mites can continue to propagate for a long time, while with other mite species, it can be transient (short-lived) or not at all. Mites are passed through direct contact and fomites. Their life span is roughly 21 days.
Demodex are normal inhabitants of the skin. However, they overgrow in young puppies and kittens whose immune systems are immature and not strong enough to keep the mites in check. It is also seen in immune-compromised older pets. In this case, further workup may be needed to determine what led to the weakened immune system. Their life span is from 20-35 days.
Treatment for mites is very similar to treating for ticks. Your veterinarian can prescribe topicals; see the chart for a medication/mite reference.
Trombiculidae (Chiggers)
Otodectes Cyonitis (Ear Mites)
Cheyletiella (Walking Dandruff)
Sarcopties scabiei (Scabies)
Demodex (Mange)
Medication Name/Mite Type Amitraz Lyme-Sulfur NTD Fipronil Isoxazolines AML MML
And You Thought They Would Forget
According the MTA-ELTE Comparative Ethology Research Group in Budapest, Hungary, dogs exhibit episodic memory. Meaning they can repeat things that we do.
Over a period of time, dogs were shown an activity, like jumping in the air and then asked to perform the very same activity with the command, “do it!” While you may consider this training, the sessions were next followed by the presentation of the very same human activities, again like jumping and the next time, the dogs were asked to lie down after viewing each activity. After one hour, the dogs viewed the activities again and responded on cue with the previous command “do it!” This not only indicates their ability to recognize human commands, but the
ability to remember the differences in similar activities
"From a broad evolutionary perspective, this implies that episodic-like memory is not unique and did not evolve only in primates but is a more widespread skill in the animal kingdom," says Dr. Fugazza, Program Director. "We suggest that dogs may provide a good model to study the complexity of episodic-like memory in a natural setting, especially because the species has the evolutionary and developmental advantage to live in human social groups."
For us dog owner, quite simply put, your dogs are paying attention and they'll remember what you did. Now if they just had opposable thumbs.
WTOP/FM Washington, DC reported that the incidence of diabetes in dogs in the US has crept up in the past decade, with an 80% jump in dogs. Veterinarian Katy Nelson, says the increase is linked to pets' expanding waistlines. Pets with diabetes drink more water and need to urinate more often, and those are commonly the first signs of diabetes.
