Hello dog friends, friends of dogs and cats,

Rosie here wanting to introduce you to my partner Bella! Part Border Collie, part Lab and Aussie Shepard she's as tough as she is purty. As partners goes, she's kind of pawsome, hard working, funny and one smart cookie.

So smart in fact that we decided she should have her own column! We're calling it: Bella Knows Best! Here she'll talk about smart stuff that matters, like safety stuff, training and nutrition. This week's edition of Bella Knows Best: 

Gluten Free for dogs?

Hey!  Bella here.  Just got back from chasing some squir – I mean, going for a walk… and saw a bunch of emails asking about the ingredients in our cookies.  This is completely understandable.  If you’re like me, this time of year you’re probably trying to watch your girlish (or manly) figure while helping your parents out with all the holiday meal preparation. You know, licking pumpkin pie platters (preferably while it still contains said pie), clearing away all the turkey trimmings (clearing the way to your tummy!!) and sampling Nana’s fruitcake (or, more likely, using it as a Frisbee, which is all they’re really good for, am I right?!).

No worries.  You can rest assured knowing that my mom and Rosie’s mom are really picky about what goes in our treats, keeping them ultra healthy and delicious.  They only use four ingredients for the base of every cookie they sell.  These ingredients are Certified Gluten Free oat flour, organic free-range eggs, filtered water, and vitamin E as a natural preservative.

That’s it!  No sugar, no salt, no other yucky unhealthy stuff.  My mom learned not to give me sugar the hard way…we tried some cookies from another doggie bakery that contained sugar, and not only did I clear the room…but my mom had to buy a new couch.  Some stains just DO NOT come out!

But anyway, I digress.  So.  I’ve decided to let you in on a few family secrets; letting you guys know why we use what we use.  Let’s start from the top.

Gluten free oat flour.  What’s up with that, right?  I mean, we’re not horses!  Why not good ole’ fashioned wheat flour?  Well, let me ask you a few questions:

• Do your front feet ever itch to the point where no matter how much you chew and chew and chew and lick and chew some more, they just WON’T STOP ITCHING?!?!  And your paw pads turn all red and swell up?

• Do you have bald patches in your coat, or maybe dry, scaly skin, or red bumps and other rashes on your bod?

• Do you barf a lot?  Poop a lot? NOT poop a lot? Poop like me on my mom’s poor couch, where it’s all soupy and slimy?

• And lastly, I know your nose smells, but do your ears smell?  Like, when your mom goes in to kiss you, and instead she makes a lemon face and grabs the cotton balls and alcohol?  Yeah.  Like that.

All these are telltale signs of food intolerance.   There are really expensive tests, where you go to the vet and get poked with pricklies, but a simple elimination diet is the cheaper (and less poke-y) way of determining the food culprit.  Take my best buddy Wesley, for instance.  He’s a bulldog mix, and his farts could clear the next zip code.  Poor smelly guy.  Then his mom and dad put him on a gluten free, potato free diet, and he’s been a lot easier to hang out with ever since!

What is gluten, you ask?  It’s a type of protein found in wheat, barley, and rye.  Not protein like cows and chickens, protein like prolamines and glutelins (say that with a mouthful of peanut butters!).  It’s really sticky and acts kind of like a paste that holds stuff together, and it’s a really common culprit in food intolerance.  With all the genetically modified supergrains out there, the problem is getting more widespread, too.  I mean, the grains that we eat today aren’t the same wholesome goodies that our wolfcestors scarfed down back in the day.  Our tummies haven’t changed – it’s the food that’s different, and it’s making us sick!

The trouble with gluten is that it’s hard to get away from, too, so your mom has to be really careful about what she buys – some products that say “wheat free” may not be entirely gluten free, and if you’re still all itchy and rashy and poopy and smelly, you may still be eating gluten and not know it.  They measure gluten intolerance in parts per million, too – that’s like a flea on an elephant! – and just that little bit can trigger an immune response.  Not fun at all.  Ask my mom’s couch.

Also, you can’t automatically assume that since something says it’s made with oats or oat flour that it’s gluten free.  Sadly, this is not the case.  Even though oats are indeed gluten free, in the good ole’ US of A, 97% of all oats are harvested and stored with wheat – so it’s cross contaminated on the farm, while the tractors are scooping it up – long before it’s made into kibble or a cookie.

This is why my mom and Rosie’s mom go that extra mile to only buy Certified Gluten Free oat flour, made from oats harvested from a certified gluten free farm and tested by the FDA, so there are no amber waves of grain to muscle their way into our cookies.

Bottom line, gluten can be bad.  Not bad like “Bella, stop chasing the kitty!” bad – bad like B-A-D bad. Even though only Irish Setters are prone to Celiac Disease – a chronic autoimmune disease where the gluten actually destroys the villi in the intestines, many of us doggies have some kind of gluten sensitivity or intolerance.  If left untreated, this can lead to an overall diminished health, not only causing those oh-so-fun digestive woes and skin problems, but also arthritis, epilepsy, allergies and inflammatory reactions, pancreatitis, hepatitis, infections, and a whole slew of other really serious health issues.  THAT kind of bad. 

So to keep me, my buddies, and all other critters out there safe and free from worry, my mom keeps the gluten far, far away from the cookie jar.

Stay tuned next time – I’ll fill you in on more secrets from my mom’s kitchen!  Now, I gotta run – the squirrels are encroaching on my backyard again.  They’re about to get the good ole’ Bella what-for.

For more information, please go to www.petwave.com or www.wheat-free.org