Woofables – A Gourmet Bakery Your Dog Will Love

Although Woofables, The Gourmet Dog Bakery in Coralville, Iowa, sells dog food, it has the light scent of a real bakery. Owner Laura Taylor, who used to work in marketing, now spends her days crafting handmade treats for canines out of all-natural, all-human-grade ingredients.

While frosting a cake, Taylor explains that everything made in the store can be eaten by people; they’ll just think it tastes bland. Salt is unhealthy for dogs, so items are flavored with pumpkin, peanut butter, and cinnamon. Frosting is made with carob and yogurt and tastes like white chocolate….

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Clean Body – The Humble Art of Zen-Cleansing Yourself

If you enjoy tongue-in-cheek humor and are looking for practical cleaning tips using old-fashioned ingredients, Clean Body will provide you with a full ration of both. Author Michael DeJong, a self-described “clean freak,” takes readers back to the absolute basics of cleanliness (he actually describes how to wash your hands) with five simple ingredients….

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Peanut Recall — Your Food Safety Is Up to You

We learned in the news yesterday of yet another peanut-products recall due to salmonella contamination. This time, the food-processing plant involved is in Plainview, Texas. It’s owned by Peanut Corporation of America (PCA), the same folks who brought us tainted peanuts in their Blakely, Georgia plant. That recall was in January of this year. Perhaps you remember it? A brief peanut scare swept the nation, with many of us under the misapprehension that peanut butter itself was all we had to worry about.

Well, think again, America…

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Doreen Hock, DVM, Contributing Writer

Doreen Hock, DVM received her Veterinary degree from Oregon State University in 1987. After working as Chief of Staff at the Emergency Veterinary Hospital in Eugene, Oregon she discovered the effectiveness of acupuncture in dogs when her own dog was cured of a back problem by acupuncture alone.

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Green Living Pet Care: A Holistic Look at Vaccinations

If your veterinarian follows drug company recommendations, you probably have your pets vaccinated every year to prevent disease. But, in my opinion, that’s not beneficial to the health of most companion animals. For most pets, the greater danger lies in over vaccination.

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A Raw Diet for Your Pets

“Raw meat is what dogs are designed to eat,” says Doreen Hock, DVM. “It’s much closer to their ancestral diet.” We’ve been talking about the advantages of human-grade pet foods as compared to the more common, less-expensive foods that contain meat by-products. I’m already convinced from my research that anything containing meat by-products isn’t what I want to feed a pet that I love. But this idea of giving only raw foods is new to me.

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Pet Foods Good Enough to Eat

Concerned that Joe and I may be inadvertently feeding roadkill — or worse (see Pet Foods and Mystery Meats) — to our cat, Keebee, I visit with Julie Phye, co-owner of Leash on Life pet supply in Iowa City, Iowa. Although we’ve been relying on grocery-store pet foods for Keebee, Phye shows me that there are a wide variety of other choices available. Some are made with “human-grade ingredients.”

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Pet Foods and Mystery Meat

“There’s no way to know what the ‘animal by-products’ in pet food are. They could be euthanized pets, animals from research facilities, even roadkill.”

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Food Pets Die For: Shocking Facts About Pet Food

Foods Pets Die For: Shocking Facts About Pet Food by Ann N. Martin and Shawn Messonier isn’t for the faint of heart — or stomach. The text provides grim details about what goes into the pet foods that we find in the supermarket. It’s not pretty: dead animals from clinics, pounds, and shelters; roadkill; animals that have died from illness or disability; decomposing carcasses; even cancerous growths and the contents of stomachs and guts.

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