Labradoodle & Goldendoodle Forum
Myth Busters
Karen and I had this discussion this morning about feeding Thanksgiving Turkey to our doods. Can we or can't we? Pancreatitis? Here's the discussion:
Got an email from Adrianne re: if it's okay to give turkey to Samantha for Thanksgiving. I knew I'd read some kind of warning about that, so looked it up. The white meat is okay provided it's free of skin, fat, gravies, etc. The dark meat, organs, and especially the SKIN are dangerous...vets report a noticeable increase in cases of pancreatitis in dogs around Thanksgiving.
Do you want to post a warning...maybe in the next few days before Thanksgiving? Maybe main forum instead of Food Group, more people will see it?
Hi Karen, I was just as surprised as you to read that dogs can't have turkey. I feed ground turkey and from the time I was a kid my mother would take ALL the innards (from that yucky bag from inside the turkey) and put it in a pot with celery and onions and simmer it to make a soupy concoction that she used to baste the bird with and at the end of the day, it all went to the dogs. The heart, liver, gizzards, neck were in that soup. I had never heard of not feeding turkey and pancreatitis.
When I did a google search "dogs eating turkey pancreas" a bunch of nonsense replys came up. Like: "dogtopics, funtrivia, and various blog posts, invisable fense and yahooanswers. My point is not 100% reliable info. I next went to Dr. Pitcairn: no listing in Index under "turkey" but under "Pancreatitis:" "This condition, usually seen in overweight, middle aged dogs, often appears as a sudden, severe illness. Symptoms: loss of appetite, vomiting, diarreah, weakness, abdominal pain. Prevention: a properly balanced natural diet and regular excercise. Do not overfeed, because obesity is a predisposing factor to pancreatitis." No mention of turkey!
I think any human food is OK for dogs in moderation. The problems, like in people, comes from feeding too much fat, in high quantities, for too long. Many of the food warnings, especially old ones were fosered by the dogfood companies to convince people that they should not feed people food to dogs. Any high fat food should be given in moderation. Not just turkey, but ham and fish, too.
Regular Ground beef has more fat than ground turkey. Tuna, salmon and pork have more fat then turkey. For Thanksgiving and Christmas, I will definetly be sharing my bird with my dogs. But for a few days before and after, I will lower the fat. I am wary of putting out general statements like "Don't feed your dog _______." Anything is OK in moderation. I used to have a Samoyed who loved chocolate. I gave it to her & she lived to 16.
It did seem odd to me, too- then I started thinking, of all the protein sources i've seen used in dog food & treats- duck (much higher in fat than turkey)-bison, salmon, venison, rabbit, beef, etc etc- I can't remember ever seeing turkey used, even in the highest quality stuff. So maybe it just has to do with the holidays in general, and people wanting to over-indulge their dogs by sharing too much of the holiday foods. I do know that turkey is higher in trytophan than any other protein source, but in people, all that does is make you sleepy. As usual, you look at things so rationally.
You are right, as usual. The problem is with dogs who are already predisposed to it for various reasons; breed, age, hormonal imbalances, diabetes, and high-fat diets in general. Neither poodles, labs, or GR's are prone to it. Evidently, the dogs who are already predisposed are then given turkey skin & other high-fat "treats' at holiday time and that's what causes a peak in the cases seen at Thanksgiving & Xmas.
Sorry to be an alarmist! :-)
This got us to thinking about many myths about feeding our dogs and how they are advanced by people especially now that the Internet can bring many opinions to you in an instant. When we say RESEARCH everything, it is really true. You can see through our conversation, that you can feed your doodles turkey, but you also need to know about fat content and obesity connected to it.
We wish all of you a Happy Tnanksgiving, and share some of that bird with your doodles!
Can we BUST any other myths?
Got an email from Adrianne re: if it's okay to give turkey to Samantha for Thanksgiving. I knew I'd read some kind of warning about that, so looked it up. The white meat is okay provided it's free of skin, fat, gravies, etc. The dark meat, organs, and especially the SKIN are dangerous...vets report a noticeable increase in cases of pancreatitis in dogs around Thanksgiving.
Do you want to post a warning...maybe in the next few days before Thanksgiving? Maybe main forum instead of Food Group, more people will see it?
Hi Karen, I was just as surprised as you to read that dogs can't have turkey. I feed ground turkey and from the time I was a kid my mother would take ALL the innards (from that yucky bag from inside the turkey) and put it in a pot with celery and onions and simmer it to make a soupy concoction that she used to baste the bird with and at the end of the day, it all went to the dogs. The heart, liver, gizzards, neck were in that soup. I had never heard of not feeding turkey and pancreatitis.
When I did a google search "dogs eating turkey pancreas" a bunch of nonsense replys came up. Like: "dogtopics, funtrivia, and various blog posts, invisable fense and yahooanswers. My point is not 100% reliable info. I next went to Dr. Pitcairn: no listing in Index under "turkey" but under "Pancreatitis:" "This condition, usually seen in overweight, middle aged dogs, often appears as a sudden, severe illness. Symptoms: loss of appetite, vomiting, diarreah, weakness, abdominal pain. Prevention: a properly balanced natural diet and regular excercise. Do not overfeed, because obesity is a predisposing factor to pancreatitis." No mention of turkey!
I think any human food is OK for dogs in moderation. The problems, like in people, comes from feeding too much fat, in high quantities, for too long. Many of the food warnings, especially old ones were fosered by the dogfood companies to convince people that they should not feed people food to dogs. Any high fat food should be given in moderation. Not just turkey, but ham and fish, too.
Regular Ground beef has more fat than ground turkey. Tuna, salmon and pork have more fat then turkey. For Thanksgiving and Christmas, I will definetly be sharing my bird with my dogs. But for a few days before and after, I will lower the fat. I am wary of putting out general statements like "Don't feed your dog _______." Anything is OK in moderation. I used to have a Samoyed who loved chocolate. I gave it to her & she lived to 16.
It did seem odd to me, too- then I started thinking, of all the protein sources i've seen used in dog food & treats- duck (much higher in fat than turkey)-bison, salmon, venison, rabbit, beef, etc etc- I can't remember ever seeing turkey used, even in the highest quality stuff. So maybe it just has to do with the holidays in general, and people wanting to over-indulge their dogs by sharing too much of the holiday foods. I do know that turkey is higher in trytophan than any other protein source, but in people, all that does is make you sleepy. As usual, you look at things so rationally.
You are right, as usual. The problem is with dogs who are already predisposed to it for various reasons; breed, age, hormonal imbalances, diabetes, and high-fat diets in general. Neither poodles, labs, or GR's are prone to it. Evidently, the dogs who are already predisposed are then given turkey skin & other high-fat "treats' at holiday time and that's what causes a peak in the cases seen at Thanksgiving & Xmas.
Sorry to be an alarmist! :-)
This got us to thinking about many myths about feeding our dogs and how they are advanced by people especially now that the Internet can bring many opinions to you in an instant. When we say RESEARCH everything, it is really true. You can see through our conversation, that you can feed your doodles turkey, but you also need to know about fat content and obesity connected to it.
We wish all of you a Happy Tnanksgiving, and share some of that bird with your doodles!
Can we BUST any other myths?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Lynne Fowler-Oodles of Doodles on
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I found this interesting about particular breed sized formulas:
How important is it to feed "size-specific" dog food? Here is what I have found...
One of the first major dog food companies to come out with LARGE BREED puppy food stated that there were reduced levels of calcium and phosphorus among other ingredient changes. They claimed that rapidly growing breeds would benefit from "slightly" reduced levels of various ingredients.
The interesting thing is that if you look at the recommended amounts they tell you to feed when comparing their Regular Puppy Food with the new Large Breed Puppy Food, you would see that the recommended amount to feed was slightly MORE for the Large Breed Puppy Food! So where is the effect of the dog getting "slightly " reduced amounts of calcium and phosphorus if the dog should eat a greater amount of the Large Breed Puppy Food compared to the Regular Puppy Food?
So I called the company and asked about this. Their reply was that there really is "very little difference" between the Regular Puppy Food and their new Large Breed Puppy Food. I asked "So why bother to market all these foods and make the retailer stock all these varieties when there are already thousands of types of pet foods already on the shelves? Won't this confuse the pet owner even more?"
Their response was that consumers perceive a certain need for their pets...pet food companies have to respond to that perceived need or the company will fall behind the competition. Most well known manufacturers produce good products based upon nutrition research; and much of the impulse to do the research is driven by pet food consumers who demand high quality, breed specific products. Pet food manufacturers know how to make top quality foods and by necessity, the higher quality products will cost more because quality ingredients are simply more expensive than poor quality ingredients.
Is it possible that some companies will just slightly tweak the ingredients so that they can then label the product "NEW" or "IMPROVED"? Will the consumer think a new product must be better than the "old product". For example, the Iams Company makes...
SMALL BREED FORMULA PUPPY FOOD...for dogs reaching 20 pounds or less as adult.
MEDIUM BREED FORMULA...for dogs reaching 20 to 65 pounds as adult.
LARGE BREED FORMULA...for dogs reaching over 65 pounds as adult.
If you looked at the ingredients list for these three foods you would notice that the first four ingredients are exactly the same and in the same order of percent of the total. It isn't until the fifth ingredient that there is a slight tweak to the ingredients to make each product very slightly different from the others. Iams is a great pet food company but the multitude of minutely different products being put on the feed store shelves is often overwhelming and confusing to many pet owners.
So...is it necessary to feed size-specific (manufacturers like to use the term "breed specific") pet food to growing puppies? Maybe not, but there are enough pet food consumers who will demand a food specifically targeting their breed of dog and that is what drives the pet food market. There are some concepts, though, you really MUST keep in mind, especially with large breeds of dogs. Please note the following...
* The notion that over nutrition in rapidly growing large breeds of dogs causes skeletal and other growth defects may not be true. It depends on what you mean by OVER NUTRITION! There has been some suggestions that high protein and fat diets contribute to "over nutrition" and cause problems...so some breeders and veterinarians resorted to actually suggesting that rapidly growing breeds be fed a poor quality food with lots of grains (carbohydrates) and low protein and fat. The (erroneous) theory was that this diet would under nourish the dog and thereby slow the growth rate. The dog would grow more slowly but eventually attain its normal stature at a later stage of life and it wouldn't acquire those nasty skeletal defects. Unfortunately this theory benefited no one... especially the poor dogs.
* If over nutrition means the dog is ingesting too many calories for its energy demands and is overweight, then there will be a much higher chance for skeletal problems. Newer research is showing that it isn't the protein or fat levels in a well balanced diet that causes problems but rather the excess weight a pup may be carrying while growing that is the real culprit.
* Never allow your growing puppy to become overweight! I will say it again...
* Never allow your growing puppy to become overweight! I don't care how much it begs for more food. The major problem that is at the heart of these large breed growth difficulties occurs when... THE GROWING DOG IS OVERWEIGHT.
From: www.thepetcenter.com/imtop/nutritioncomments.html -
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From the dogfoodproject.com:
Myth: Pork should not be fed because it causes pancreatitis in dogs
A statement I have encountered quite often recently, unlike any material that substantiates the claim. According to veterinary literature, the most common causes for pancreatitis are
a high fat, low protein diet
obesity
trauma (car accidents, falling)
other diseases (Cushing's syndrome, diabetes)
tumors
some drugs and toxins (e.g. antibiotics, insecticides)
genetic predisposition (hyperlipidemia, e.g. mini schnauzer, cocker spaniel)
As part of a well balanced diet, pork isn't any more dangerous than beef, lamb or chicken. The fat content is key, and many pets suffer from pancreatitis when fed excessively fatty, greasy table scraps - which are not part of a balanced diet. The most susceptible animals are those who don't eat anything but kibble all year and suddenly get an overload of "goodies" on thanksgiving or other holidays.
One other thing that doesn't quite fit the bill is the fact that there is a good number of premium quality dog foods that use pork meal as a protein source. I very much doubt that a single manufacturer out there would risk their excellent reputation by purposefully including an ingredient in their food that is a proven cause of pancreatitis. -
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Permalink Reply by Jacquie Yorke (DRC) on
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It's the Tryptophan in Turkey that can be dangerous to dogs if ingested in large quantities....
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Key is "Large Quantities." Which of anything is not good for dogs or people. Pitcairn doesn't mention the tryptophan regarding pancreatitis. Just too much high fat content foods over time.
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Interesting......You're right about Pitcairn but I was always under the assumption from things I've read that Tyrptophan can cause kidney failure and Pancriatitis because of higher levels of Tryptophan that are concentrated in the "dark meat", the fat layer between the skin and the muscle and the liver and organs of a Turkey and that is why "white meat" is preferred?...Who knows!..My head spins from reading all of the conflicting reports!......I do know that any Turkey meat in any pet food is always put through a process that extracts the Trytophan before it's included in the food...
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Permalink Reply by Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle on
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I questioned this too...I know for a fact that in humans, all tryptophan does is make you sleepy; it's a neurotransmitter that affects serotonin levels in the brain. The levels you need to produce the kind of reactions that caused it be taken off the OTC market could not be consumed through food alone. (In fact for years, I've taken an OTC supplement called 5HTP -which is precursor to trytophan- just before bed, and it's perfectly safe.) I can't imagine it would be much different in dogs, but maybe you have some info on this?
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Here is one opinion....
Question:
I have always heard that turkey meat is not good for our dogs.......is that just another "rumor" that circulates???
Answer:
From Dr. Claudia Kirk nutritionist at UT:
The comments regarding Turkey being toxic to dogs is mixed both with some truths and inaccuracies. In general, Turkey is a good quality meat that is highly digestible and has good quality amino acid profile. It is not toxic to dogs. Turkey is indeed considered a high tryptophan protein and, as noted, tryptophan is an essential amino acid.
Where the earlier rumor could have been started is that aromatic amino acids (like tryptophan) can build up in the blood during liver failure.
The higher concentration of aromatic amino acids to branched chain amino acids (i.e. valine, isoleucine, and lysine) in blood can result in high brain uptake of certain amino acids that contribute to unusual brain neurotransmitters. This is one of the proposed mechanisms of hepatoencephalopathy: the seizures, and neurologic signs that sometimes occurs with severe liver failure. In other words, feeding a very high tryptophan concentration is typically avoided in animals with liver failure and I suspect this is where the concern arose over Turkey and dogs. On a relative basis (compared to other proteins) - turkey is high in tryptophan, however, it is also pretty high in branched chain amino acids - so the overall effect is not significant for most dogs. I would be more concerned about controlling total protein intake and assuring good protein quality than completely avoiding turkey as a protein source. -
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yep- I think the key words here are:
feeding a very high tryptophan concentration is typically avoided in animals with liver failure and I suspect this is where the concern arose over Turkey and dogs. On a relative basis (compared to other proteins) - turkey is high in tryptophan, however, it is also pretty high in branched chain amino acids - so the overall effect is not significant for most dogs. I would be more concerned about controlling total protein intake and assuring good protein quality than completely avoiding turkey as a protein source
(An interesting side note to this: the 'branched chain aminos' used to be taken in supplement form by bodybuilders- because of the exact effects described above re: unusual brain neurotransmitters & the BCA's, many of these men experienced personality changes (rage, anger, trouble sleeping, etc.) which was originally attributed to steroid use- "'Roid Rage". It is now believed that it was the increased BCA levels which were to blame. This is a great example of why we should never play around with increasing one particular nutrient, be it amino acids or vitamin B6- everything works together in balance in the body.) -
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[CANCER RESEARCH 31
Transitional Cell Hyperplasia in the Bladders of Dogs Fed
DL-Tryptophan
J. L. Radomski, E. M. Glass, and William B. Deichmann
Department of Pharmacology, University of Miami, School of Medicine, Miami, Florida 33147
SUMMARY
Purebred beagle dogs have been fed a diet supplemented
with DL-tryptophan, 6 g/day, a dose which increased their
normal daily intake of this amino acid approximately 7-fold.
Marked focal hyperplasia of the transitional epithelium of the
bladder was produced, accompanied by lymphocytic and
macrophagic infiltration of the submucosa. These effects were
uniformly observed in dogs fed this dose for from 3.5 months
to almost 7 years. No correlation was observed between the
severity of the effect and the period of feeding. These results
suggest a possible role of tryptophan as a cocarcinogen in the
induction of bladder cancer.
Link to complete article
http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/reprint/31/11/1690.pdf -
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Dose-response effects of atropine on pancreatic secretory response to intestinal tryptophan in dogs
J. Vazquez-Echarri, D. Baumgartner and M. V. Singer
In dogs with gastric and pancreatic fistulas, we studied the effect of intravenous infusion of atropine in doses of 0.9, 1.8, 7, and 29 nmol X kg-1 X h-1 on the pancreatic secretory response to graded loads of intraduodenal infusions of tryptophan, given with a secretin background.
link to article
http://ajpgi.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/251/6/G847 -
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All of these studies can be found compiled in this book and directly link bladder cancer and pancriatic deficiancies to Tryptophan consumption.
Historically, the amino acid tryptophan has been considered to play a role in cancer development and the aging process. In recent times, this nutrient has been associated with eosinophila myalgia syndrome - a new human disease that attacks the muscular system. This detailed book examines the implications of the large measure of fresh information gained in recent years. Tryptophan: Biochemical and Health Implications presents an up-to-date, comprehensive view of how L-tryptophan acts and discusses its pivotal role in protein metabolism.
More details
Tryptophan: Biochemical and Health Implications
By Herschel Sidransky
Published by CRC Press, 2001
ISBN 0849385687, 9780849385681
263 pages
http://books.google.com/books?id=qEJ0SXKTZC4C&pg=PA127&lpg=... -
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The point of posting all of this is:
WHO DO YOU BELIEVE?!!??? -
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