[Mutts and Cats]

Hi Aimee. Thanks for sharing more information and especially for the quick education on converting to energy basis. That balanceit calculator is great, and I did finally grasp your manual calculation (my brain heated up significantly, but I got it). At first I was puzzled by the 9 in your calculation, but thankfully the footnote on balanceit gave me a hint and I now understand where it came from. What I don’t really understand is how the balaneit calculator is able to do the calculation without the caloric value of the food, since that is not one of the entries. But, I don’t really need to know. Your calculation method is quick.

On triglycerides: My, you are quite knowledgeable when it comes to lab reports too. If there is a limit to the scope of your dog knowledge, I haven’t found it yet. The Lipemia Index was reported on 2 of his 3 lab reports and it shows N, with the footnote: “Index of N, 1+, 2+ exhibits no significant effect on chemistry values.” All 3 of the blood draws were done 7-8 hours after he ate breakfast. So not officially fasting, but quite a while after a meal.
This probably is unrelated, but the Lipase level was within range all 3 times.
Interesting about the movie “First Do No Harm” – I’m going to see if Netflix has it.

You raised the high copper issue and that is the very thing that got me so focused on vitamin/mineral content. Very early in my dog seizure research I stumbled upon an article about a concerning trend of high copper content in dog foods along with a trend of rising liver disease in dogs. So then I started looking at the nutrient profiles for dog foods and was horrified to see some foods with around 100 ppm copper (I also get concerned about Vitamin A around 150,000 iu/kg, even though I know the AAFCO upper limit is 250,000). I had been using foods that were pretty high in both, plus my dog was getting quite a few freeze dried liver treats daily. Going forward, I was very careful that the foods I chose had reasonable contents of both. But now, since I have started feeding so much fresh meat and keeping track of everything on my spreadsheet, I realize that my dog’s diet is getting close to copper deficient. So, he is getting a couple small liver treats a day, which is a change he is very happy about.

I did notice that the SRF Beef is quite high in copper, so I stayed with poultry recipes. When I first started being so concerned about copper I was appalled that some companies were putting food out there with such high levels, and it made me think less of those companies. But that seems to be so common with beef recipes that I had to let it go and just pretty much go with poultry recipes. The SRF issue of high fat recipes being touted as low fat on their website is troubling too. So much trouble for my brain to deal with . . .

And speaking of troubling – the “How many confirmed deaths?” reply you mentioned is so sad I don’t even know what to say. Depressing comes to mind. THANKS. M&C