how green are your cats/ dogs

[Annpan]

Our cat eats 'brekkies' y'know the boxes of dried food, we just buy which ever supermarket own brand we happen to be in at the time - I dare say they are not very green. We have recently (after a few years of trying) managed to get her to eat tinned food too, 1 tin lasts a week. I nearly lost a cat to liver failure, had to syringe feed him back to health, so I worry that my current mog gets a decent mixture of wet and dry food.

She spend most of her time out side and though we keep a litter tray she favours my herb patch

She does have a recycled bed - She would always sit on my knee when I wore a certain pair of cords, so when they wore out, I cut them up and made her a wee cushion stuffed with bean bag beans... she sleeps in it every night.

I'd imagine she has also saved a fortune in mouse traps... we got her because of a mouse infestation and I would never have thought of using anything other than a cat, she does a fine job and the carcasses are presented to me, then disappear an hour or so later... if she isn't eating them something else is.

She is spayed (or whatever the word is) too many kittens in this world still meet a hideous end, IMO best not to bring excess into the world. We got her jags just before moving to the countryside (she was 4) she got treated for worms and fleas twice, we have never seen the need since then. She has never been ill.

I reckon in her whole life she has cost us an average of £1 a week. Very good value for the affection and companionship she gives.

[MKG]

Don't know about stealing, but old Porks has developed a trick of teleportation. Here's how it goes ...

Dog sits by door.
I cut up cheese and leave it on cutting board. Dog continues to sit by door.
I turn to cooker (a mere 90 degree movement, you understand) to do whatever needs to be done.
I turn back to cutting board. Cheese has disappeared. Dog is still sitting across room next to door.
Dog looks me straight in eyes - you know ... the "What? Me?" look.

Not a sound, not the merest rustle. Interdimensional travel, maybe? Bloody crafty poodle, possibly?

[lucy.lists]

Our dog and 2 cats are fed on a raw meat diet. This isn't the BARF thing but a prey model type diet where we give them flesh, bones and organ meat in roughly prey-animal type proportions (hope that makes sense!). It's really easy and in the U.K was very cheap using meat from landywoods.co.uk Here in France it's more expensive as because we're a vegetarian family we don't have a friendly local butcher to go to for scraps. They're thriving on this diet, though. The dog also gets table scraps. The raw bones keep the animals' teeth cleaned, thereby saving on vets bills for the dog.

We use a herbal worm treatment for pets - a pipette full a month for the dogs and less for the cats (http://www.holisticpetsupplies.co.uk/pr ... ucts_id=87).
The dog is (unfortunately) vaccinated as he has a pet passport, the cats are unvaccinated.

The dog poops in the garden and it rots very quickly without smell in situ. Not at all like the huge piles I had to deal with when he ate dried food.

Cat litter I use a 100% vegetable based brand from the shops. The last one I used was 100% apples (!?) and was very dark brown in colour with quite a nice 'green' smell - but I haven't found it in the shops again. When we had a catflap they just went outside, no need for a litter tray. I'd love to be able to compost the used litter, as it's one of the few things we throw away, but I don't think you're supposed to compost dog and cat waste cos of toxins - any ideas?

Don't know what to do about fleas. We did use a herbal drop stuff - different ones for the cats and dog - but it didn't seem to do much except cause one of the cats to swell around her next and be very unhappy for a couple of weeks, so we'll not use that again. We tried a non-chemical powder stuff (http://www.holisticpetsupplies.co.uk/pr ... cts_id=476) but that doesn't seem to have worked and I'm worried about the pets' natural oils in their coats being dried up, also when you read the description it sounds a bit unsustainable to me! We used to use a chemical drop on the dog but then when we got the cats we couldn't, as you're supposed to keep them separate for 48 hours or so as it's dangerous to cats, and they all like to snuggle together!

[the.fee.fairy]

Don't know about stealing, but old Porks has developed a trick of teleportation. Here's how it goes ...

Dog sits by door.
I cut up cheese and leave it on cutting board. Dog continues to sit by door.
I turn to cooker (a mere 90 degree movement, you understand) to do whatever needs to be done.
I turn back to cutting board. Cheese has disappeared. Dog is still sitting across room next to door.
Dog looks me straight in eyes - you know ... the "What? Me?" look.

Not a sound, not the merest rustle. Interdimensional travel, maybe? Bloody crafty poodle, possibly?

Nope, its not just a poodle thing! I know another dog who can do that trick too...he's recently learnt to bang his bowls together when he feels peckish...

[marshlander]

Our cats are pretty much in charge and we give in to them every time!

I used to buy white fish for them but now they settle for sachets and dried food 50/50. They also get all their jabs as I would be terribly upset if they died of something preventable and it's also a condition of their insurance.

[Masco&Bongo]

Don't know about stealing, but old Porks has developed a trick of teleportation. Here's how it goes ...

Dog sits by door.
I cut up cheese and leave it on cutting board. Dog continues to sit by door.
I turn to cooker (a mere 90 degree movement, you understand) to do whatever needs to be done.
I turn back to cutting board. Cheese has disappeared. Dog is still sitting across room next to door.
Dog looks me straight in eyes - you know ... the "What? Me?" look.

Not a sound, not the merest rustle. Interdimensional travel, maybe? Bloody crafty poodle, possibly?

Nope, its not just a poodle thing! I know another dog who can do that trick too...he's recently learnt to bang his bowls together when he feels peckish...

Our puppy sits by his "dinner place" and howls if he feels I'm not on time with breakfast/dinner, and will only eat if his bowl is in the right spot, otherwise he shunts it until it's in the right place...

[the.fee.fairy]

Aw bless!

Finlay likes a cup of tea now and then (he lets you know he fancies a cup of tea by waiting until you make one and then looking at your cup...then his bowl...and so on...).

However, it must be made in a mug and then poured into his bowl. you can't make it in his bowl...that would be dog tea. he doesn't like dog tea. It has to be made in a cup, and then he has to be watching you pour it from cup to bowl - then he knows its human tea in his bowl.

[hedgewitch]

I'm interested to hear why a few of you think un-vaccinated is a good thing?

My cats aren't particularly green...but their mummy is.

[farmerdrea]

Ours (4 dogs, 4 cats) get similar to lucylists above, and we raise 3/4 of the meat they do get in the form of poultry, chevon and rabbit meat. They love it, and thrive on it. Dogs also get a small portion of cooked brown rice (cooked in whey or broth) in the mornings.

As for vaccinations, our present dog population (aged 13, 5.5, 2.5, 2) has only ever received their puppy vaccines. We had a dog ages ago who ended up her life with Cushings disease at the age of 12. The vet who was treating her told of something called vaccinosis (sp?) and said that most pet animals (this was in the US at the time) were over-vaccinated, and that the annual vaccines they received (or were conned into receiving by the vets and drug cos.) weren't necessary usually beyond the first year of vaccines. Most vaccines were efficacious for the life of the dog or cat, and vaccines like for rabies were good for 4 or 5 years (this started to catch on, actually, as the requirement for rabies vaccines was changed from annually to every 3 years some time ago). This vet was in Oregon, but we had the same thing confirmed by our vet in New York when we lived there.

So, we don't vaccinate beyond the first year anymore. The cats (aged 13, 9, 4 and 4) have never been vaxed (except for the older cat, who came with us from the US to NZ, and she had to have a number of vaccines and titres done before coming here... oops, hang on, same for the 13 year old dog above).

We sometimes have to buy in dry catfood if we run out of their meat (they get more organ meat than the dogs do), and we just buy supermarket type.

Andrea
NZ

[bumbled_bee]

Hi.
As a vet nurse, I'm curious to know why everyone seems to think vaccinations are a bad thing? It's sort of my job to promote preventive health care for our pets, but I'd love to hear a different side of the story.

All of my pets are vaccinated yearly and I try to keep up to date on flea and worming treatments.

[farmerdrea]

As I mentioned in my first post on this thread, vaccinosis is the reason why we no longer vaccinate beyond the first year. This has been recommended and endorsed by two veterinarians (in the US, in 2 clinics in 2 states on opposite sides of the country), and it really seems to be working for us.

Here's a link with some good info:

http://www.charlesloopsdvm.com/vaccinosis.htm

Cheers
Andrea
NZ

[oldfella]

Our two Dogs and our two cats run free and go off hunting in the woods every day and are gone for 2 or 3 hours at a time. They have dry biscuit in the morning and meat in the evening and yes they fully vaccinated against Tiques and their vaccinations are kept up to date. We live in the middle of the woods and I have no idea what they find on their travels and visits to the farms.

One of the worst thing that I have experienced with animals was when I was working on the roof and my old dog Tarn walked under the ladder, I noticed a kind of shimmering of the hair on his back, on examination I discovered that he was covered in maggots that were actually eating him alive, The Vet came at once to the house and explained that they were from the cow Flies; As I had been with the dog in the morning I felt guilty and thought that I should have seen them then, but he explained that they hatch very quickly and that unless I had touched his back the chances were that I would miss them. After that experience I am not prepared to impose my belief's on my animals as I do not have the knowledge.

[contadina]

I'm with Oldfella; I've seen too many dogs in Italy die painful deaths through lack of vaccinations. I can make informed health decisions for myself, but we have farm dogs who love to adventure so precautions need to be taken. Aside from vaccinations, I'd love to give them a less chemically-laden anti-parasite precaution but with leishmaniosis being so rife in the Med I'm not prepared to risk not dosing them from April to October.

[Ratty]

MrsFlibble - did you know that your guinea pigs can help you recycle veg scraps? Our 3 indoor piggies (I've kept guinea pigs for the past 30 years!) love pepper stalks, melon skins (a rare treat when we're making fruit juices!), carrot peelings, cauliflower leaves. Not too much lettuce though or it makes them have the runs! Some people also swear by giving their piggies potato peelings cooked with bran but I've never bothered to try this.

Our rabbits, guinea pigs, hamster, dog & hens all eat a complete dry food appropriate for them. They also eat raw veg scraps (not the dog) and cooked food scraps (dog). The dog has a very delicate stomach (he's a rescued lurcher) and he can now only eat canned sardines with a certain brand of dried biscuit. He has cooked bones if we have meat in the house. The lurcher no longer has vaccinations as he doesn't mix with any other dogs. I check him for worms & fleas but as with the vaccs he doesn't really get exposed to them. All of my pets are rescues, with the exception of 2 of the rabbits who were OH's birthday present a few years ago.

I compost everyone's poop except for the dog. His is either bagged in degradable nappy sacks & binned or buried (without bagging obviously). We have too much poop for our 2 big giant compost bins to cope with - anyone in Nottingham who'd like some great compost additive? I'm actually thinking of Freecycling it!