Paws up? Paws down? Behind the scene at Yassy's Gourmet Dog Kitchen
In previous entry titled"Do you really know what's going into your dog stomach?? Part I", I wrote about why I have changed Palette's diet. Then in the entry titled"Do you really know what's going into your dog stomach?? Part II", I wrote about it is important for you to know what are in the treats you give to your dogs not just dog food ingredients. Then in the entry titled"Do you really know what's going into your dog stomach?? Part III", I wrote about it is also important for you to know where the treats are made, and if no full ingredients list for treats were shown, you should ask the store what are in it,where it is made before you purchase them.
Here, I like to take you a tour behind the scene in Yassy's Gourmet Dog kitchen, and show you some of the treats that did not make it to our store, and give you some tips and suggestion to find good treats for your furry friends.
Yassy's Gourmet Dog Kitchen is k9 restaurant. Our dog "Palette" is k9 executive chef and we strive to offer quality, not quantity. We are good team. Since she cannot read letters, I read for her and,she does tastes treats and gives me paws up, paws down along with more detail information such as treats texture, which no one can tell you unless some one does taste test it for real. We like to give as much information as possible for each treats, and I think it is a big advantage for other dog lovers too.
So, what treats did not make it to our online store?
** Product A. Take a look at a picture bellow.
This is a picture of beef bully sticks, and one piece of dried Fettuccine pasta. I have put a dried fettuccine pasta next to it so that you can compare.
This bully stick was packaged as medium sized bully sticks, and it had 20 sticks in a package. People have different sense of measurement,I suppose, but for me, it was not medium sized bully sticks. I understand that bully sticks are natural products and shapes,thickness can vary but this package had consistent in thickness and all 20 sticks were about 1/4".
Adding to size problem, this specific brand gave Palette digestive problem. She was not dancing for the bully sticks but ate it anyway.This thing caused Palette diarrhea and she needed butt wash. I gave her one stick one day and she had diarrhea. And, I wanted to see if this thing is really causing the problem and gave her one stick again and same result. Diarrhea. I had plenty left in the package but I did not give Palette again.
My suggestion to you is.. if the bully sticks are sold with varied thickness such as "Thick bully sticks" or "thin bully sticks", consider sellers/manufacturers may have different sense of measurement to you.
** Product B. Take a look at a picture bellow.
This is braided beef bully sticks. When you look at picture, you can see that one is about 1.5" width, and probably thicker than some of the braided bully sticks available on the market but, this thing had a couple of issues.
First, product description was 3" width, 5" long. This is not near as 3" width is it? I got more than one because it was package deal but many of them in the package were same width to this in picture above or similar. This was priced 3 times or so more than regular braided bully stick and I was very disappointed with this.
Second, this thing was very stinky even before opening the shrink wrap. I wondered if Palette may like stinkier one better? But nope, she turned the nose up. I gave her chance to try a couple of times, but she never grabbed it or eat it. This was clear paws down bully sticks.
Third, turned out this bully stick was made from Free range beef from Brazil,which is good, but how they were made gave me a red flag.
There are 2 ways to make bully sticks: Vertical or flat. If bully stick were made vertical, it will be hang vertically and fluid in the bully sticks will be drain well and these would not be cooked in its own fluid, usually it is much much less odor with the bully sticks made vertically. On the other hand, if the bully sticks were made flat, fluid in the bully sticks gets out from bully sticks like you get bacon fat when you cook bacon, and bully sticks will be cooked in its own juice. So, as a result, it leaves more odor, very stinky bully sticks.
Since I did not like the fact that it was made flat, plus it was paw down bully sticks anyway, I did not get bother to let Palette try again.
On the talk of bully sticks, since many dogs adore bully sticks, many pet supply stores offer those to dog lovers but be careful to pick. I came across web site where you can get big quantities with low price. However, since I did not see where those things were made, I asked the web site owner and I got answer that some of their bully sticks are from China,some of them are from Brazil. So,that means, it is like Russian roulette and you never know which one you will be getting.
My suggestion to you is.. if you were to get the bully sticks for your furry friends, and if the website had no information as to where they were made, ask them.
** Product C. Take a look at a picture bellow.
These days, it seems more and more pet supply stores seem to offer treats for omega3. Picture above is salmon treats I seem to get constantly as sample, although it would not pass to our store.
First, back of the package says ...
#1 Omega3 is good for healthy heart, coat, and skin
#2 Reduce tartar build up and plaque
I agree with #1. Wild salmon provides omega3, which is good for healthy heart, coat and skin. However,#2... 1/2" sized treats do not look like treats for teeth cleaning. For me, best way for teeth cleaning is daily teeth brushing, and offer something big that dogs need to sink into their teeth into and rip,tear and scraping teeth as they eat. Our dog "Palette" has nice teeth. She is 4 years old.
Second, I do not like ingredients list. The list goes.. Wild Alaska Salmon preserved with mixed tocopherol, rosemary extract, wheat flour, vegetable glycerin, propionic acid, garlic acid, kelp, potasium sorbarte, natural smoke flavor, garlic. Can you recognize all ingredients in the list? Some of them,I can but not all.
Mixed tocopherol is Vitamin E and many treats are preserved with this as natural preservatives. It sounds ok, but Vitamin E is delivered from soybean oil and Palette starts licking,chewing paws when she has treats with this. She maybe sensitive to soy. I have got sample of freeze dried salmon treats in the past but it too was preserved with mixed tocopherols and, Palette licked, chewed paws constantly and no more treats for her with mixed tocopherols in it.
Rosemary extract is also used as natural preservatives but to some dogs,it is not good. It can trigger seizure for EPI dogs. Some of the thing in the ingredients list such as glycerin, acid etc..I am not sure why they have it. Now, this treat has very strong smell. Probably stronger because of smoked flavor added. Personally,I like the treats without one and prefer the treats with natural smell,not enhanced smell. Lastly, garlic.. I am not sure how much garlic in it but too much garlic can thin your dogs' blood and can cause anemia. If you were to give fresh garlic for example, half of small clove of garlic is daily max for 20lb dog. If I were to give salmon treats to Palette, I would give her Surf Turf Jerky, which ingredients are only fully grass-fed buffalo and wild caught salmon and nothing else. Grass-fed meat is high in omega3 and so is wild caught salmon. Some of grass-fed meat you can find on the market can be grass-fed meat with grain finished. When you shop around grass-fed meat, be sure to check it is fully grass-fed meat.
** Product D. Take a look at a picture bellow.
This is fish skin chew. It seems,it is getting popular and see a lot of variety on the market such as rolled fish skin chew. This thing caught Palette's attention since she loooves seafood. However, it caused a little bit of problem.
First, she had problem chewing pieces off. She tried so hard with her back molars and also used front teeth to rip with her paws holding the fish skin.What she could get piece off was about 3" chunks or so. She tried to chew off to smaller pieces but it was impossible so,she tried swallowing the big chunk. After a couple of moments later,she vomited out the big piece she just swallowed, and showed no interests anymore. So, I think that human tends to come up with interesting treats, but fish skin chew is hard to eat for dogs. If I were to give this treats to Palette, I probably would use it as training treats, and use scissor to cut to small pieces so that dogs can swallow but not vomit up.
However, I prefer to give real thing. I would feed Palette wild caught salmon in her diet,Wild caught salmon meat with skin, for omega 3-for healthy hair,skin, and coat. She gets it regularly and she loves it. Just grabbed couple from freezer and took a picture of it.
Wild caught salmon fillet.Palette gets one chunk per meal. 2 times per week.
When you look around, it seems people pushing salmon as omega3 source. However, salmon is not the only source for Omega3. Chicken has it, Turkey has it, Beef has it, lamb has it. It just that how much in it is the difference.
For poultry, for example, take a look at nutrient in chicken here.Scroll down and you see omega3 information at about left corner. You see omega3 104mg, omega6 1514 mg. I usually don't take it as exact number and just use this site to get rough idea of nutrient,but you see that in chicken, you find with ratio about 1 (omega3):15 (omega6). Now, take a look at beef here. You find with ratio about 1 (omega3):2(omega6). So, red meat has more omega3 in it and if the red meat is grass-fed meat, the ratio gap between the omega3 and 6 gets much narrower. So, dogs fed poultry based diet get much much less omega3 in their diet compare to dogs fed more red meat in their diet.
Protein source that offers higher amount of omega3 is probably fish however, and king of highest omega3 amount in fish is mackerel as you see here. Mackerel has 2991mg omega3 in 4 oz fillet. Wild salmon in 7 oz has 3996mg as you see here. So, that means, 4 oz of wild salmon has about 2797mg of Omega3, a little lower than mackerel. Another good omega3 rich fish is sardine. If you can give these fish in your dogs meal if you feed fresh food diet, you are giving great amount of omega3 via natural food.
When grass-fed meat or wild caught omega3 rich fish were not option for you to give your dog good amount of omega3 to your dogs, there still is a way to provide. You can bump up the omega3 amount via fish body oil.
The picture above is fish body oil.One capsule has 1000mg fish body oil. Palette loves these and it has no rosemary extract which seems common preservatives in pet fish body oil these days. And has no omega6 in it which Palette gets plenty from her main diet and, I give this to Palette now and then depending on weekly menu I feed.
When you shop around fish body oil, make sure you get fish body oil, NOT Cod liver oil.Cod liver oil products sometimes described as oil to provides omega3 but what cod liver oil can provide most is Vitamin A and D rather than omega3. Vitamin A&D are not going to be pee out when dog gets too much of it and dog store unused vitamin A&D in their body and too much of those can be toxic. Be careful for cod liver oil.
Fish body oil is getting so much popular these days and now it seems many kinds of fish body oil is available many stores offer them but be careful what to pick. First, make sure the oil you will be getting has no omerga6 in it. As you can see in description of omega3&6 ratio above, it is easy to get omega6 through readily available protein source. Omega3 is what you want, not omega6.
I find that many online pet supply stores seems not listing proper ingredients list for fish body oil other than describing how good omega3 is, and how good the products will offer omega3 even if in reality, it had omega6 in it. So, when you shop, visit manufacturer's website, and get information on omega6. Some fish body oil is preserved with rosemary extract too.
I like fish body oil capsule because easy to handle and, I know it is not going to contact with Air which I am not sure when you give via pump,I am not sure if air is not going to contact with oil. I know fish body oil is sensitive to heat,light,and air..
On the talk on fish body oil,I came across unscented fish body oil, which I would not get it anyway because it got omega6,mixed tocopherols (Vitamin E), I wonder how the manufacturer can make it odor less... Naturally, fish has its own smell...how do they do that??
As conclusion, for omega3, I prefer to provide through real food in main diet of Palette and if I give omega3 rich treat,I prefer the one with simple, good quality ingredients with no long line of ingredients list.
This is tour behind Yassy's Gourmet Dog Kitchen Part I, and stay tuned for part II.
I hope it helps you to see many treats from different angles and to pick better treats for your furry friends!
Here, I like to take you a tour behind the scene in Yassy's Gourmet Dog kitchen, and show you some of the treats that did not make it to our store, and give you some tips and suggestion to find good treats for your furry friends.
Yassy's Gourmet Dog Kitchen is k9 restaurant. Our dog "Palette" is k9 executive chef and we strive to offer quality, not quantity. We are good team. Since she cannot read letters, I read for her and,she does tastes treats and gives me paws up, paws down along with more detail information such as treats texture, which no one can tell you unless some one does taste test it for real. We like to give as much information as possible for each treats, and I think it is a big advantage for other dog lovers too.
So, what treats did not make it to our online store?
** Product A. Take a look at a picture bellow.
This is a picture of beef bully sticks, and one piece of dried Fettuccine pasta. I have put a dried fettuccine pasta next to it so that you can compare.
This bully stick was packaged as medium sized bully sticks, and it had 20 sticks in a package. People have different sense of measurement,I suppose, but for me, it was not medium sized bully sticks. I understand that bully sticks are natural products and shapes,thickness can vary but this package had consistent in thickness and all 20 sticks were about 1/4".
Adding to size problem, this specific brand gave Palette digestive problem. She was not dancing for the bully sticks but ate it anyway.This thing caused Palette diarrhea and she needed butt wash. I gave her one stick one day and she had diarrhea. And, I wanted to see if this thing is really causing the problem and gave her one stick again and same result. Diarrhea. I had plenty left in the package but I did not give Palette again.
My suggestion to you is.. if the bully sticks are sold with varied thickness such as "Thick bully sticks" or "thin bully sticks", consider sellers/manufacturers may have different sense of measurement to you.
** Product B. Take a look at a picture bellow.
This is braided beef bully sticks. When you look at picture, you can see that one is about 1.5" width, and probably thicker than some of the braided bully sticks available on the market but, this thing had a couple of issues.
First, product description was 3" width, 5" long. This is not near as 3" width is it? I got more than one because it was package deal but many of them in the package were same width to this in picture above or similar. This was priced 3 times or so more than regular braided bully stick and I was very disappointed with this.
Second, this thing was very stinky even before opening the shrink wrap. I wondered if Palette may like stinkier one better? But nope, she turned the nose up. I gave her chance to try a couple of times, but she never grabbed it or eat it. This was clear paws down bully sticks.
Third, turned out this bully stick was made from Free range beef from Brazil,which is good, but how they were made gave me a red flag.
There are 2 ways to make bully sticks: Vertical or flat. If bully stick were made vertical, it will be hang vertically and fluid in the bully sticks will be drain well and these would not be cooked in its own fluid, usually it is much much less odor with the bully sticks made vertically. On the other hand, if the bully sticks were made flat, fluid in the bully sticks gets out from bully sticks like you get bacon fat when you cook bacon, and bully sticks will be cooked in its own juice. So, as a result, it leaves more odor, very stinky bully sticks.
Since I did not like the fact that it was made flat, plus it was paw down bully sticks anyway, I did not get bother to let Palette try again.
On the talk of bully sticks, since many dogs adore bully sticks, many pet supply stores offer those to dog lovers but be careful to pick. I came across web site where you can get big quantities with low price. However, since I did not see where those things were made, I asked the web site owner and I got answer that some of their bully sticks are from China,some of them are from Brazil. So,that means, it is like Russian roulette and you never know which one you will be getting.
My suggestion to you is.. if you were to get the bully sticks for your furry friends, and if the website had no information as to where they were made, ask them.
** Product C. Take a look at a picture bellow.
These days, it seems more and more pet supply stores seem to offer treats for omega3. Picture above is salmon treats I seem to get constantly as sample, although it would not pass to our store.
First, back of the package says ...
#1 Omega3 is good for healthy heart, coat, and skin
#2 Reduce tartar build up and plaque
I agree with #1. Wild salmon provides omega3, which is good for healthy heart, coat and skin. However,#2... 1/2" sized treats do not look like treats for teeth cleaning. For me, best way for teeth cleaning is daily teeth brushing, and offer something big that dogs need to sink into their teeth into and rip,tear and scraping teeth as they eat. Our dog "Palette" has nice teeth. She is 4 years old.
Second, I do not like ingredients list. The list goes.. Wild Alaska Salmon preserved with mixed tocopherol, rosemary extract, wheat flour, vegetable glycerin, propionic acid, garlic acid, kelp, potasium sorbarte, natural smoke flavor, garlic. Can you recognize all ingredients in the list? Some of them,I can but not all.
Mixed tocopherol is Vitamin E and many treats are preserved with this as natural preservatives. It sounds ok, but Vitamin E is delivered from soybean oil and Palette starts licking,chewing paws when she has treats with this. She maybe sensitive to soy. I have got sample of freeze dried salmon treats in the past but it too was preserved with mixed tocopherols and, Palette licked, chewed paws constantly and no more treats for her with mixed tocopherols in it.
Rosemary extract is also used as natural preservatives but to some dogs,it is not good. It can trigger seizure for EPI dogs. Some of the thing in the ingredients list such as glycerin, acid etc..I am not sure why they have it. Now, this treat has very strong smell. Probably stronger because of smoked flavor added. Personally,I like the treats without one and prefer the treats with natural smell,not enhanced smell. Lastly, garlic.. I am not sure how much garlic in it but too much garlic can thin your dogs' blood and can cause anemia. If you were to give fresh garlic for example, half of small clove of garlic is daily max for 20lb dog. If I were to give salmon treats to Palette, I would give her Surf Turf Jerky, which ingredients are only fully grass-fed buffalo and wild caught salmon and nothing else. Grass-fed meat is high in omega3 and so is wild caught salmon. Some of grass-fed meat you can find on the market can be grass-fed meat with grain finished. When you shop around grass-fed meat, be sure to check it is fully grass-fed meat.
** Product D. Take a look at a picture bellow.
This is fish skin chew. It seems,it is getting popular and see a lot of variety on the market such as rolled fish skin chew. This thing caught Palette's attention since she loooves seafood. However, it caused a little bit of problem.
First, she had problem chewing pieces off. She tried so hard with her back molars and also used front teeth to rip with her paws holding the fish skin.What she could get piece off was about 3" chunks or so. She tried to chew off to smaller pieces but it was impossible so,she tried swallowing the big chunk. After a couple of moments later,she vomited out the big piece she just swallowed, and showed no interests anymore. So, I think that human tends to come up with interesting treats, but fish skin chew is hard to eat for dogs. If I were to give this treats to Palette, I probably would use it as training treats, and use scissor to cut to small pieces so that dogs can swallow but not vomit up.
However, I prefer to give real thing. I would feed Palette wild caught salmon in her diet,Wild caught salmon meat with skin, for omega 3-for healthy hair,skin, and coat. She gets it regularly and she loves it. Just grabbed couple from freezer and took a picture of it.
Wild caught salmon fillet.Palette gets one chunk per meal. 2 times per week.
When you look around, it seems people pushing salmon as omega3 source. However, salmon is not the only source for Omega3. Chicken has it, Turkey has it, Beef has it, lamb has it. It just that how much in it is the difference.
For poultry, for example, take a look at nutrient in chicken here.Scroll down and you see omega3 information at about left corner. You see omega3 104mg, omega6 1514 mg. I usually don't take it as exact number and just use this site to get rough idea of nutrient,but you see that in chicken, you find with ratio about 1 (omega3):15 (omega6). Now, take a look at beef here. You find with ratio about 1 (omega3):2(omega6). So, red meat has more omega3 in it and if the red meat is grass-fed meat, the ratio gap between the omega3 and 6 gets much narrower. So, dogs fed poultry based diet get much much less omega3 in their diet compare to dogs fed more red meat in their diet.
Protein source that offers higher amount of omega3 is probably fish however, and king of highest omega3 amount in fish is mackerel as you see here. Mackerel has 2991mg omega3 in 4 oz fillet. Wild salmon in 7 oz has 3996mg as you see here. So, that means, 4 oz of wild salmon has about 2797mg of Omega3, a little lower than mackerel. Another good omega3 rich fish is sardine. If you can give these fish in your dogs meal if you feed fresh food diet, you are giving great amount of omega3 via natural food.
When grass-fed meat or wild caught omega3 rich fish were not option for you to give your dog good amount of omega3 to your dogs, there still is a way to provide. You can bump up the omega3 amount via fish body oil.
The picture above is fish body oil.One capsule has 1000mg fish body oil. Palette loves these and it has no rosemary extract which seems common preservatives in pet fish body oil these days. And has no omega6 in it which Palette gets plenty from her main diet and, I give this to Palette now and then depending on weekly menu I feed.
When you shop around fish body oil, make sure you get fish body oil, NOT Cod liver oil.Cod liver oil products sometimes described as oil to provides omega3 but what cod liver oil can provide most is Vitamin A and D rather than omega3. Vitamin A&D are not going to be pee out when dog gets too much of it and dog store unused vitamin A&D in their body and too much of those can be toxic. Be careful for cod liver oil.
Fish body oil is getting so much popular these days and now it seems many kinds of fish body oil is available many stores offer them but be careful what to pick. First, make sure the oil you will be getting has no omerga6 in it. As you can see in description of omega3&6 ratio above, it is easy to get omega6 through readily available protein source. Omega3 is what you want, not omega6.
I find that many online pet supply stores seems not listing proper ingredients list for fish body oil other than describing how good omega3 is, and how good the products will offer omega3 even if in reality, it had omega6 in it. So, when you shop, visit manufacturer's website, and get information on omega6. Some fish body oil is preserved with rosemary extract too.
I like fish body oil capsule because easy to handle and, I know it is not going to contact with Air which I am not sure when you give via pump,I am not sure if air is not going to contact with oil. I know fish body oil is sensitive to heat,light,and air..
On the talk on fish body oil,I came across unscented fish body oil, which I would not get it anyway because it got omega6,mixed tocopherols (Vitamin E), I wonder how the manufacturer can make it odor less... Naturally, fish has its own smell...how do they do that??
As conclusion, for omega3, I prefer to provide through real food in main diet of Palette and if I give omega3 rich treat,I prefer the one with simple, good quality ingredients with no long line of ingredients list.
This is tour behind Yassy's Gourmet Dog Kitchen Part I, and stay tuned for part II.
I hope it helps you to see many treats from different angles and to pick better treats for your furry friends!
Posted by yassy at 4/8/2010 8:02 AM 
Categories: Yassy's Gourmet Dog Kitchen
Tags: omega3 treats yassy's gourmet dog kitchen bully sticks taste tests
Categories: Yassy's Gourmet Dog Kitchen
Tags: omega3 treats yassy's gourmet dog kitchen bully sticks taste tests
This is really a wonderfully interesting post! I learned so much from it and several things that were answered were questions that I had been wondering about lately. I had started giving my dogs Omega 3 Fish Oil 1000 mg capsules that I'd gotten from Costco, and after reading this post, I checked it and found that it really is a good brand to give. I'm still not certain how much I should give them. I know that the corgis all really LOVE it! I've been giving them one every 2-3 days. I do see, though that it has "Natural tocopherols" and wonder if that isn't so good. It is made from Anchovy, Mackerel and Sardine with some soy.
It's posts like these where I can tell that you know what you are talking about and only sell safe dog products that makes me eager to buy things for my dogs from you.
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How much of Fish oil is given to dogs are, I think, depending on the main diet, health,and weight of the dogs. People who feed salmon/Mackerel/sardine/herring etc, so called omerga3 rich fish, regularly along with more red meat,less poultry would give Fish oil less than those whose diet is poultry heavy menu. And, those who can feed grass-fed meat with omega3 rich fish need much less fish oil than dogs on poultry heavy diet. Generally, people give 1000mg fish oil capsule per 20lb or 30lb body weight of dogs. Palette is 33lb and, I used to give fish oil with one capsule per 20lb body weight guideline, but because she gets omega3 rich fish regularly, and some of her food are grass-fed, I now go by 1 capsule per 30lb body weight guideline and,I give 1 capsule per day. I usually go look how much omega3 she is getting from food roughly by visiting nutritionsata.com, and get rough idea and decide how many capsule I will give per week.Sometimes,when I feed mackerel, she gets many omega3 from real food itself and, on those weeks,I give fish oil cap much much less compare to other weeks. Sometimes, I give 7 fish body oil capsules per week(1 capsule per day), sometimes 3 days out of 7 days,she gets fish body oil capsule.It depends on what are to be fed.
And some dogs need much more fish oil than the other due to health issue such as cancer.Those dogs generally gets 1000mg fish oil capsule per 10lb body weight per day.
Palette loves fish body oil capsule she gets. As soon as she hears the sound of fish oil bottle,she comes trotting to me,sit nicely and wait for me to give it to her.
Vitamin E, as I understand it, there are alpha-tocopherol,beta-tocopherol,gamma-tocopherol,delta-tocopherol. Some fish body oil has all of these(alpha,beta,gamma,delta) but some fish body oil has fish oil and alpha tocopherol only.I Once got fish body oil made with alpha tocopherol only from walmart. I opened up, gave Palette one capsule and, she constantly started chewing paws, and I ended up throw away. Now, her fish body capsule has fish oil from salmon,mackerel,herring,anchovy,sardine and no omega6 in it and tiny bit of vitamin E (alpha,beta,gamma,delta tocopherols) as natural preservative. EPA is 180mg and DHA is 120mg in one capsule.
With natural treats preserved with mixed tocopherols (Vitamin E), Palette start chewing,licking paws and I was wondering if she does same with this fish body oil capsule but,with this, she does ok. So, I keep her on it. Maybe the amount used as preservative is so small to bother her or maybe kind of Vitamin E (some mixed tocopherol can be high in one of the 4 tocopherols etc; maybe mixed tocopherols in all natural treats she gets itchy is high in alpha tocopherols in mixed form?) is different for the one in natural treats or.. I am not sure.
Each dogs react differently and, for her, fish body oil is ok but no-no for natural treats preserved with mixed tocopherols...
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