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Stylish, eco greyhound in Ireland

Hemp Flourish Dog Collar by The Modern Pet

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Jesse is a fluffy, handsome guy with a sweet face and temperament, who is currently living in a foster home for Toronto Cat Rescue. He is a little over five and a half years old. No one knows what happened to him before he wound up at the kill shelter where the rescue found, and saved him. He was declawed, and the rescue believes he may have been neglected and/ or abused. He was adopted out once but came back because of litter box issues — which turned out to be kidney disease. A special diet and medication have cleared up much, but not all of his litter box problems. Part of his current inappropriate elimination is no doubt because of the stress he feels in his foster home — there’s just too much going on there for his sensitive nature, and unfortunately, all the other foster homes are full up. Right now, Jesse is mostly living in a cage and he is very unhappy — I cannot say I blame him! The rescue believes that his habits will improve if he finds a safe, quiet one or two-cat household. He will probably never be accident-free 100% of the time, but he will be good enough about it to be a happy, playful companion to a loving, patient human who will buy him the special food he needs and the catnip and string toys he loves.

If you think you might have the right home for Jesse, the rescue will accept a donation of your choice in lieu of their standard $175 adoption fee, plus a generous donor has offered to pay for Jesse’s pills and homeopathic treatment, along with 50% of any future medical bills. Jesse is very much loved by his foster human and the rescue, and they really want him to have a great home.

To find out more about adopting Jesse, click here — and spread the word

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Both chemicals are sold in cat and dog flea products, so read the back of collars, powders, and sprays carefully.

The chemicals kill the fleas by interfering with communication between nerve cells. Unfortunately, insect nervous systems use the same messaging system as other animal nervous systems, so the same toxins affect us all.

In high doses these chemicals can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, wheezing, sweating, and tearing eyes. More severe poisoning can cause muscle twitching, drooling, seizures, and death.

According to the Humane Society, there have been hundreds of complaints of pets experiencing severe reactions or even death from these collars.

Even though the flea collar doses are usually too low to cause acute human symptoms, both chemicals can cause long-term health problems, such as cancer.

Tetrachlorvinphos and propoxur are from a family of chemicals known as organophosphates, which are suspected of causing impulsivity, hyperactivity and learning disabilities in children.  Young children are most at risk because they spend the most time at pet level, playing on floors and putting their hands in their mouths. They also have a developing neurological system that is more vulnerable to toxins.

A 2009 NRDC study found that after three days, 100 percent of pets wearing a propoxur flea collar and 50 percent of pets wearing a tetrachlorvinphos collar had enough chemical on their fur to exceed the EPA’s acceptable dose level for toddlers.

Don’t assume that everything on the store shelves is safe to use around your pets and children. Be and educated consumer and protect your family!

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2. Home Foreclosures and Pets
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Help us design the perfect dog collar!

The Modern Pet kicks off the new year with a contest! Help us design 2011′s perfect collar and win fabulous prizes! Click here to learn more.

We search high and low for unique, high quality, eco-friendly materials for our pet products. We’ve discovered we can do better.

In 2010 we created our newest environmentally friendly collar from the ground up. Our Amusement Park dog collar is made of 100% recycled PET, with our design woven right into the webbing for maximum durability.

Now we want your input!

Help us design 2011′s perfect dog collar.

Submit your original design for our next recycled webbing dog collar. We will sort through the entries choosing our favorite 5 designs. Those 5 designs will be posted on our blog, facebook page, and sent in a newsletter for our wonderful customers to vote on.

The winning artist will receive a dog collar and matching leash with their design and a $50.00 gift certificate to The Modern Pet. They will also be credited on the product tags and with a short bio on our website.

Visit our contest page for rules: http://themodernpet.com/content.php?content_id=1024

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Become a facebook fan and join in our next lecture!

Dr. Stanley’s Lecture:

• I strongly believe that good nutrition is the cornerstone of health, and every day in practice I see tangible examples of the ramifications of good and poor nutrition.
• Of course, the question is, “what exactly is good nutrition?”
• There are many, many commercial pet foods out there, and all of them seem to claim to provide the highest quality nutrition in the tastiest package.
• Unfortunately, many pet foods are made with fairly low quality ingredients, heavily processed and then filled with preservatives.
• Low quality ingredients are not the only thing to be concerned about —cheap ingredients can also be adulterated (intentionally or unintentionally), as we saw with the chinese melamine contamination that sickened so many animals not that long ago.
• Many of the “lower tier” foods are enticingly marketed, and it can be difficult to tell which foods are better than others.
• For instance, a dog food called “Beneful” from Purina markets itself as being “Healthy Harvest” containing “real, wholesome ingredients.”
• The pictures on the bag are gorgeous, whole foods….
• But the ingredient list tells a different story….
• Ground yellow corn, corn gluten meal, whole wheat flour, animal fat
  preserved with mixed-tocopherols (form of Vitamin E), soy protein
  concentrate, soy flour, water, rice flour, pearled barley, sugar,
  tricalcium phosphate, propylene glycol, animal digest, dicalcium
  phosphate, salt, phosphoric acid, sorbic acid (a preser…vative), calcium
  carbonate, potassium chloride, L-Lysine monohydrochloride, dried
  spinach, dried apples, dried sweet potatoes, choline chloride, calcium
  propionate (a preservative), added color (Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 2,
  Yellow 6), Vitamin E supplement, zinc sulfate, ferrous sulfate,
  manganese sulfate, niacin, Vitamin A supplement, copper sulfate, Vitamin
  B-12 supplement, DL-Methionine, calcium pantothenate, thiamine
  mononitrate, garlic oil, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin
  supplement, Vitamin D-3 supplement, calcium iodate, menadione sodium
  bisulfite complex (source of Vitamin K activity), folic acid, biotin,
  sodium selenite.
• So what we see here is that the first three ingredients are corn corn and wheat…. not exactly the best basis for food intended for a carnivore like a dog.
• The next ingredient is “animal fat.” Not “beef fat,” not “chicken fat,” not “lamb fat” —”animal fat.” What kind of animal? Well, let’s not get nit-picky, now…..
• As you may have guessed, animal fat is a wide open category. Any animal can qualify. It could be road kill remnants from the rendering plant. It could even be dog and cat remains.
• And on it goes —more grains, soy, sugar, and eventually some “animal digest” —again, you probably don’t want to know what that is, but trust me, it isn’t something that you want to feed to your beloved pet!
• I can’t tell you how many well-intentioned people I have met who feed this food to their pets, trusting the pictures and the large-print claims that it is made from wholesome ingredients.
• And those pets are by-and-large overweight, with horrible coats, skin problems, tumors, dental issues, and overall poor health.
• Not all commercial foods are this bad, but many aren’t much better.
• Fortunately, since the melamine scare, more and more people are paying closer attention to their pet foods, and some of the higher quality foods have become more widely available.
• More widely available foods made from higher quality ingredients and with much better recipes include: Prairie, Nature’s Variety, Merrick, Orijen (not available in Australia!), and Innova Evo (recently purchased by Proctor and Gamble, which may not bode well for their quality in the long term).
• These foods are primarily of the dry-and-canned varieties.
• In addition to these sorts of dry and canned foods, there are now fresh, unprocessed, frozen options.
• In California, common frozen options are: Stella and Chewies, Primal, Nature’s Variety, Bravo!, Steve’s Real Food (available at Whole Foods).
• These foods offer ingredients that are much higher quality and unprocessed, without the hassle of making the food yourself.
• Of course, as with any raw food, there is always some risk of bacterial contamination, as evidenced by a recent recall of Nature’s Variety Frozen Chicken dog food for Salmonella. But what you may not realize is that many processed dry dog foods are heavily contaminated with e coli and salmonella —the sad truth is that nobody checks.
• Well, food for thought, at any rate!
• I had intended to do a more general discussion of dog and cat nutritional requirements, but my 10-minutes were up about 50 minutes ago, so I’ll let this first talk be about the hazards of low quality commercial foods, and follow up with nutrition at a later point.

Visit The Modern Pet’s selection of organic an grass-fed treats here: www.TheModernPet.com

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Bodhi & Juniper

1. Make sure your dog knows the commands SIT, DOWN, and STAY. Use lots of praise and positive reinforcement to get these commands rock solid before the baby is born.
2. Your dog must learn that guarding objects is unacceptable behavior. When the baby comes, he won’t know which toys are babys and which are his.
3. Try to find a soundtrack of a baby screaming to get your dog used to the noise.
4. Familiarize your dog with your baby’s sent by bring home a blanket or towel that your baby has used. Speak encouragingly and in an upbeat voice as your dog smells the item.
5. Let the new mom enter the house first and greet the dog without the baby.

And a few things we learned through our experience…

When Juniper went through a rough colicky patch, my husband would hold her and kick a ball for Bodhi, our dog. This bounced the baby, which she loved, and made the dog happy. Now when the baby cries Bodhi actually gets excited and brings us a toy.

For the first few weeks it was really hard to get out of the house making Bodhi bored and depressed. We had our dog owning/loving friends steal Bodhi occasionally to keep him from going stir crazy.

Both Juniper and Bodhi love going on walks now, so it’s a great bonding opportunity and we get them out together as often as we can.

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Give a gift that makes a difference.

50% of all sales from our limited edition Valentines’s Day Dog and Cat collars will be donated to The Animal Relief Coalition for Haiti (ARCH) through the ASPCA.

Order your collars here.

At The Modern Pet we passionately believe that we can change the world one collar at a time, and sometimes being “green” is just not enough.

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3. How Could You?

While I always prefer to be as natural as possible, sometimes, especially with pets that have bad allergic skin reactions to fleas, we need to use more powerful, synthetic flea medications.  It is important to remember that “natural” does not necessarily mean “non-toxic.”  Mercury, lead, arsenic, and uranium are quite natural, after all, and quite toxic too!  We want to get rid of the fleas while using the product that is least toxic to our beloved pets.  The common, old-school pesticides (mainly organophosphates and pyrethrins) are toxic to everything —fleas, dogs, cats, people— which means that you can’t put enough on to kill the fleas without having toxic effects on your pet.  That’s not what we want.

Fortunately, there are a couple of products that are extremely effective against fleas, and actually quite non-toxic to mammals. The active ingredients in Advantage (imidacloprid) and Frontline (fipronil) kill fleas by blocking channels in the flea’s nervous system, but don’t fit into the mammalian versions of those channels.  As a result, they are very safe for dogs and cats (not to mention the people who snuggle up with them in bed at night!).  I have seen some reactions to Advantage and Frontline, generally in the form of hair loss or irritation at the site of application, but that is unusual.

But be careful —there are many “spot-on” products that are much more toxic, and which are marketed to make them seem “just like” Advantage or Frontline —but there are no other non-toxic products currently on the market, so don’t be fooled; those products may be cheaper, but they are going to be less effective and much more dangerous.

This article was generously contributed by Dr. Stanley of House Call Of The Wild.

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1. Fleas: Eradicating Them Naturally
2. Fleas and Ticks and Mosquitoes- Oh My!
3. Say NO to flea collars: Protect you, your pets, and your children

Enjoy 15% off until Jan. 5th 2010 with code 15OFF2010

Enjoy 15% off plus free shipping on orders over $50.00 until Jan. 5th 2010 with code 15SHIP2010

*This offer does not apply to wholesale orders.

This year we will be introducing tons of new collar styles, expanding our grooming line and adding even more new I.D. tags, so keep an eye out!

We’re also going to spend the year focusing on becoming even more “green” by expanding our hemp lines, adding organic cotton, and using webbing made from recycled soda pop bottles.

Happy 2010 from The Modern Pet family!

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