Pap en sous

I think we'd all agree that feeding your dog mielie pap with a bit of fat from the pan is not a good diet. Our SPCA tells people not to feed their dogs only pap, and we can all easily see this is not a well balanced diet, especially not for mostly carnivorous creatures that have limited ability to process grains of any kind, nevermind mielies. I mean, even we humans can't do mielies easily, as anyone peeking in the loo after a nice braaimielie can attest to, and we're omnivores in the true sense of the word!

Despite this, do you really know what's in your dog's kibble?

Most supermarket food is pretty much exactly that, mostly maize, with a sprinkling of meat, fat, flavourants, colourants and a host of preservatives. But, luckily, many pet owners have seen the benefits of feeding a higher quality kibble (smaller poop, less gas, better fur, more energy, brighter eyes, it goes on for some length, this list). This is partly on recommendation from your vet, which is normally a fairly good place to get some advice on your dog's health and care. If you're still feeding Purina, Bobtail, Pedigree or the like, I strongly suggest googling around a bit. None of these are really things a dog should be eating, the health benefits (and fewer vet visits) plus the smaller portions of a better quality food means the price is not that much higher.

I want to take a quick look at four of the most commonly fed higher end kibbles available to us, the thought being that now that we've moved our pets to a better food, we've gotten rid of the pap and sous, and gotten to the good stuff. The price surely should indicate this, especially on the first four of the five I will be looking at - Hill's Sience Plan, Eukanuba, Royal Canin, Montego and Vet's choice.

To be able to read ingredient labels you need to know a few things. Firstly, the ingredients are listed in order of the weightiest component to the component with the least volume. The first five ingredients are often taken as a good way of knowing what's mostly in the product. Secondly, the ingredients are listed before processing, which means meats that lose up to 70% of their mass during the kibble making process are still at the top of the list, despite actually being a fairly minor part of the kibble in the end. Thirdly, a lot of fairly commonly used ingredients in dog food are hotly contested, so any info needs double, triple and quadruple checking before you make up your mind as to what you find convincing.

Because reproducing the whole ingredient list is really not fun reading, I'll stick to the first five ingredients myself of the above kibbles - they are all certified 'nutritionally balanced' by many different organisations, so none of them need to be checked for whether your dog will develop nutrient deficiencies on them.

Let's start with the Science Plan, Adult Dry food (lamb flavour, because why not?).

First things first, this food is pricy. Due to the high price, we want the very best here. And the bags sure do claim that they are the best thing ever...

But:
Lamb meal, brewers rice, brown rice, corn gluten meal, whole grain wheat...
Well, well, well. So the largest ingredient is lamb meal, but that's truly about all the meat in this. The rest is all starches. Rice is sometimes considered better than corn, because it is more easily digestible, but it may also contain arsenic, so the jury is out. Corn gluten meal is a source of protein that your dog cannot really digest - it's bioavailability is rather low. Overwhelmingly, this is (expensive) pap en sous.

Next up, Eukanuba dry dog food. Also expensive, and like the Science Direct, it comes in so many types it's overwhelming.

The first five ingredients are:
Chicken, chicken by-product meal, corn meal, ground whole grain sorghum, brewers rice...
Hey, two proteins at the start - the chicken will be mostly lost during kibble making, but we're already a step ahead of Hill's. The rest is back to pap, though. In general, I'd say this is a slightly better food... but really, that's partly a reaction to how Hill's markets itself.

Right, Royal Canin. Since I'm a puggy person, we'll look at the mini adult type.

In here, we have:
maize, maize flour, dehydrated poultry meat, animal fats, maize gluten...
Am I seeing a trend here? Pap en sous indeed! At least this one is a little less expensive in most cases, but those are a horrible set of five ingredients.

Then, Montego. A good ol' South African brand, specifically the Montego Classic Adult dog formula.

On this menu:
cereals (4% rice), meat & animal derivatives (includes ostrich), cereal derivatives, fats & oils, natural flavouring agents...
A much more ambiguous list of ingredients, but much cudos to them for being honest, and clumping cereals into one category, so it goes where it should, at the front of the list. Of course, we'd need to know a bit more about what on earth meat & animal derivatives are to really judge anything here, especially with the recent inclusion of feather meal as a potential dog food ingredient. But, this is a much more affordable option, and is still a much, much better choice than anything in a supermarket!

Lastly, Vet's choice. Also a bit less pricey than the first three, inside this kibble you will find:
Cereals, meat and animal by-products, vegetable protein extract, oils and fats, minerals, vegetable derivatives, vitamins, amino acids...

We fed this for quite some time, in fact, after discovering how truly horrid the Pedigree and Purina puppy food was that we started out on. At the time their recipe read a bit differently, including more meat.

That said, though, while this is (was?) a more meaty pap, it's still not really getting away from the problem - lots of stuff in this food that the dog cannot easily digest. Now, grains aren't bad, per se (there is a case to be made for the immediately available energy they can provide), but I don't think they should be the majority of what a dog eats, with vitamin supplements to make up the rest. I am one of those cooks that thinks maybe dogs should eat healthy food, not just healthy supplements.

What do we feed nowadays? Earthborn Holistic grain free. It's hard to find at times, and it's expensive (I doubt this will be possible for people with many, or large dogs). We're looking at finding us some premade raw (doing it myself is beyond me and my kitchen at the moment - yet it is very affordable, and in many ways really the very best you can do for your dog).

Honestly, tough, it's tough finding dog food that sounds like it's actually food.
I do know though that pap en sous is not it.

Walking with Talos

One of my great pleasures is walking, specifically walking in places that make me forget I'm in a city. By some great stroke of luck, walking, especially in 'wild' places, happens to be one of a little puggy-lady's favourite things as well. Neither of us are super energetic, athletic beings, but neither of us are true couch potatoes either. Long walks suit us perfectly, and so, last week, to celebrate the removal of her stitches, we took to a smallish nature reserve in the city of Pretoria.

The walk starts off amongst long, dry grasses. It's winter now, so everything is a dusty brown, with a blue sky overhead.

The hill shows off the natural foliage of the Pretoria region very nicely. Grassland on the flatter areas, switching out for shrubs and small, stubby trees (not even up to my shoulder) as you climb. The rocks, for those interested, are volcanic in nature, mostly granite (pinkish in colour, often seen in kitchens), with some quarts seams as you climb higher.

It does not go up the hill in the background immediately, but in stead winds through a small shaded area along a stream.

The stream is the Moreletta Spruit, nearly unique in still having water even in the middle of winter. It will keep getting drier until about mid September, when we expect our first rain again.
The water is so polluted that no frogs can survive in it any more, and no insects hang around either. No swimming for dogs or people. Sadly, a great many people rely on this stream as their only source of water, more and more so as publicly accessible taps become a thing of the past. The counterpoint to this is that you are warned to not walk alone or with any valuables, as the park can easily be entered by hopping a fence (to avoid paying the nominal entrance fee). As a teenager, a friend and I did this often.

The park is well used, especially on weekends, which leads to erosion.




This is especially troublesome so near the stream, but it makes for a happy puggy who can bounce and climb as we go along.
My pictures show nothing of the foliage, but it is mostly an invasive creeper heavily covering wild fig, black wattle (another invasive species) and bushwillows.

 Soon enough the path winds us up the hill, or perhaps I should call it by it's proper name, one outcropping of the Magaliesberg (Magalies mountains). They hardly warrant that name, being but a hundred meters or so of steep uphill to the top. The city center is nestled between two rows of these 'mountains', and both of these rows are mostly nature reserve. The suburbs and slums have swallowed the surrounding area for many kilometers, but here, near the city, wildness remains.

Talos and I climb upwards. She enjoys the loose footing quite a bit more than I do...
 

... I, in turn, enjoy the scenery more than she does.

The imposed sit on a bench allows me to catch my breath, I am hardly the fittest I've ever been, and admire the view. The little Empress tolerates the bench with the poise of one of her station. She has such a proud bearing.

The granite here is old. These are fold mountains, creases in the earth from when the continents separated. Even such a very durable stone shows its age.

Talos here has climbed a chunk of quarts. It is important to me that these walks are communal. She cannot choose to come here, but she can choose which way we turn, and which rock to climb if she is so inclined.

The path walks you along the crest of the hill, and here, an old friend sits and waits for us in a red bushwillow bush:




A female grey hornbill, birds that have been in gardens, in wild places, everywhere throughout my life. Zazu, from Lion King fame, is a yellow-billed hornbill.

Talos must be the only dog to know a 'shush' command that means stop making panty snorty noises, not stop barking. I often need her still and quiet, to observe a bird or small creature near me, and if luck is with me, to take a picture. It is a hobby and a vain ambition to one day have my own picture of every species of bird in South Africa.

On the way down, in the shade of a bush, we take a last break before the three odd mile path concludes its roundabout trip and lands us back at the gate. I can confide anything to my dog, and she listens, patiently and attentively. I often don't even have to speak to her to manage to feel like I've shared my innermost thoughts with her. We found ourselves in such a meaningful silence in our patchy shade.

What is she listening to? Could it be my thoughts? No, I'm exaggerating, it's likely the surrounds. Still, the feeling of a very deep companionship is there.

As I've said, winter is brown. But in it's own way, this is quite beautiful. The brown has such varied textures, and everywhere there are flowers. Yellow ones, nearly the same colour as the dry grass, and tiny purple flowers.

It feels like this dog and I have been together for many years, but the calendar tells me it's just a few months, approaching half a year. It's amazing how they creep into your soul.

I love walking with Talos :)