#this is genuinely how I eat nutri grain

[wra1th-k1ng]

cROnChHh

[derpinathebrave]

tag game

thanks for the tags @abliafina-18782 and @awkwxrdapple !! I love you awesome nerds

name: Derpina

pronouns: She/her

where do you call home? Australia

favorite animal: It's gotta be sharks. Closely followed by rabbits.

cereal of choice: I don't usually eat cereal but I do like Nutri-grain

are you a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner? Auditory

first pet: Uhhhhh I had cats and dogs and fish and horses and chooks from a young age.

favorite scent: genuinely vanilla

do you believe in astrology: yeah, a bit. They're like the pirate code. I think they're good guidelines but not rules.

how many playlists do you have on spotify/apple music?I don't use either of these. But on my music app of choice I have 20 hahahaha Some are really old that I never use

sharpies or highlighters? Ugh I can't choose. But Sharpies I suppose

song that makes you cry? Who Knew - P!nk. If you know, you know

song that makes you happy? The Middle - Jimmy Eats World

and finally, do you write/draw/create? Sometimes I write stuff. Not lately though

Taggles: @elfangel94 @biomark @blackidyll @pollyna @saibowtie @sweetlittleladybug @ anyone else that wants to I'm tired lol

[doberbutts]

Hi back on my bullshit once again, you followed me and now you have to deal with me

In talking to a Chi breeder while conducting my research, we got on the topic of hypoglycemia and what steps they take to avoid it. While I spoke briefly about the topic in this post, the breeder also gave me some tips that I wouldn’t have otherwise known. Remember that while I’ve always liked the various terriers of the world, I’ve never personally owned one. My grandfather’s JRTs never needed anything like this, nor did my sister’s (admittedly large at 12lbs) chihuahua, nor did any of the small dogs owned by various roommates prior to this.

I had always sort of rolled my eyes when warned about the risk, thinking that the problem would be easily mitigated if only the owner was feeding a proper high protein diet to make up for the higher metabolism and not feeding their dog so much junk... until a client dog of mine was given plenty of sugary, fruit-based, carb-heavy treats during class and sugared out at home. He was thankfully okay- after his owner spent several thousand dollars at the emergency vet to figure out why his dog had a seizure and then went completely unresponsive (that dog also later developed diabetes according to an update sent to me from his owner, could have been related considering he was a “teacup”) but that was the first time I saw an otherwise-healthy tiny dog go through a sugar crash. When I got Tiki, one of the first things we did was swing by my store to grab some Nutri-Cal, so I could pull her back from that abyss if need be.

We chatted a bit about that, and then the breeder said something I’d never even thought of. They said they don’t ever wean the puppies onto mush or canned food, because they find that both of those are fairly sugary and are more likely to make one of their young weanlings crash. They wean directly to kibble supplemented with fresh eggs and veggies from their garden and chickens, and at the pup’s own pace. This creates puppies that are not picky, that are hungry for their food, and that have significantly less chance of sugaring out. They do keep sugary syrup on hand just in case, but since starting to do things that way they’ve noticed they don’t have to worry about it as much. They try to keep treats as meaty and low-sugar (and low-starch) as possible, and their chews are generally things like horns and hooves rather than kongs filled with (sugary!!) peanut butter.

While I do have some leftover cans and (frozen) freshpet that I plan to stuff into kongs, this makes sense to me. I’m a big fan of lower carb, higher protein foods anyway as a carnivore’s diet is going to emulate that- regardless of grain in or grain free (and this breeder feeds grain in) a carnivore’s stomach is adapted to eating more meat-based proteins than anything plant based. Even the taurine-deficient DCM is causing an issue because of a lack of digestible taurine, an essential nutrient found in red meat, not carbs and starches and sugars. Regardless of what form of food I feed, I always choose meat-heavy foods with as minimal starches as possible (unless feeding raw, certain canned foods, or certain dehydrated foods, zero starch and carbs is impossible because meat powders in the processing and so something must be added to create a “solid” appearance) (this is where you see the prevalence of grain-free foods having absurd amounts of peas, legumes, lentils, and potato come into play- cheap ways to artificially boost the protein percentages and an added bonus to use it as a starch) (also why I have always sought foods with low starch percentages, as these have been known problem ingredients well before the DCM crisis hit)

This is interesting to note for me, because I genuinely had not been sure what “the best” thing to feed Tiki would have been. She ate kibble, canned food, freshpet, the various fresh foods from various companies, and never really seemed to have any complaints about any of them. Towards the end she was canned only as she wouldn’t eat anything else, but how much of that was due to the fact that she was literally dying rather than anything to do with her personal preference? And I would have never connected the dots, though it definitely makes sense as quite a few canned foods are quite heavy on the carbs and starches (so are some kibbles, though not the particular kibble this breeder feeds). 

It also, idk, just sort of made me happy to know that these folks treat their dogs like... dogs. They’re definitely more of the dress up the tiny dog and tiny dogs belong on laps and carry my tiny dog around everywhere with me type of people on the surface that I would initially be comfortable with, but in actually speaking to them it was nice to hear them say how they hate the stereotype of picky little dogs and won’t feed into that, they give their dogs chews and toys, they temperament test and are constantly out training and competing (when covid’s not happening), their more drivey higher energy dogs they go out and compete in performance sports even if they just do fun-runs and don’t actually title just to do stuff with them. The amount of people who come into my job who, when I suggest something correctly sized for their tiny breed, say “oh my dog is a chihuahua they can’t do that” makes me nuts, even more so now, because I spoke to someone with more than a decade of experience breeding chis and their dogs chew bones and play fetch and compete just like any other breed out there.

Just, something about the “oh we don’t do sugary snacks just in case with hypoglycemia, so we give the dogs hooves instead” made me so happy to hear strictly because so many people at my job won’t even consider buying a chew for their tiny dogs. I have to argue with people that greenies and fresh kisses are not going to break their little dogs’ mouths if they chew on them unless that dog has a pre-existing dental issue, meanwhile this hoard of chihuahuas gets a whole hoof each to gnaw at when they’re being terrible monsters.