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.
