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Pet Wellness Expert in Austin: Your Pet's Health

In this video, ASC's Ellie Evans talks with Marti Miller, a local expert in Pet Wellness about how to keep your pets in the best possible health. Then, read on for more information about pet nutrition and pet wellness in Austin, Texas.

Nutrition is the foundation for keeping your pets healthy. Providing your animal companion with clean water, air and food is the cornerstone to creating optimal health for years to come. The water and air is pretty self explanatory, so I will take this time to talk about food.

The information provided is mainly for dogs and cats in Austin, but some of it will hold true for other animals as well. 

Be Prepared! Read the label whenever you are looking to buy dog or cat food in Austin.

Stay away from food that has any by-products of any kind in it. That includes meat by-product, egg product, or poultry by-product for example. These are usually things that can not be consumed by humans and also includes the animals that are diseased, dying, debilitated, or dead. 

The next things to stay away from are wheat, corn, soy, and BHA/BHT. Most of the cat food has a lot of corn in it so really read the label. 

There are many good foods out there now that are healthy for your companions. There are different diets available as well. BARF diet is one of them.

Did You Know? BARF stands for Biological Appropriate Raw Food. This is based on what a dog or a cat would eat in the wild.

That would be raw meat, bones, organs and some digested food. There are no grains in this diet. It has become so popular that there are many pre-made frozen raw food for both dogs and cats. So here again you will need to read the label and make sure there isn’t any rice or grain added to the food. 

Not all dogs and cat will eat or tolerate this type of diet, so if that is the case with your animals then I would suggest a premium kibble, dry food, that doesn’t have any grains in it. Here again there are becoming more popular and there are many available. I just read that there is a link with grains and kitties forming crystals. So it is really important to get kitties that have had crystals or urinary system issues on a grain free diet.

Tip! When deciding what to feed something else to consider is that dry food takes 16 hours to digest, raw diet takes 4 hours. 

Both dogs and cats are carnivores so they need meat not grains. If you do feed dry food, then what I suggest is that you add water and let it soak up the water.

I also recommend that you feed canned food to both your dog and cat if you are not feeding the raw diet.

If you are worried about keeping the teeth clean, feeding raw meaty bones is a good way to do that. You want the softer knuckle bones to feed and you will always want to supervise your dog while they are enjoying the bone. For cats there are products that can be put in the water to help with tarter. There is also a gel that can be placed on the teeth to remove tarter called Petz.

If you have additional questions about your pet's diet and nutrition needs, or about the general wellness of your pet, contact Marti Miller, Pet Wellness Consultant in Austin, Texas.

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