A few weeks after giving birth, brood bitches sometimes develop a kind of breast infection called canine mastitis. This type of infection is not ordinary among female canines but an owner should still take necessary precautions when their pets are diagnosed with such illness.

I recently received an email asking my opinion about a couple of different types of pet foods - what I thought about the quality of the foods. Both of the pet foods he asked about (which he was feeding his 'family') were what I considered to be very inferior foods. I informed him of this and his response was that they probably couldn't afford a better food.

I took a pet food field trip to Walmart yesterday. It was a discouraging visit. I won't mention any pet foods by name - but the trip provided me with some valuable pet food sales tricks to share with you.

The Salt Lake Tribune recently published an article warning livestock owners not to feed "cheap pet food to livestock". "Utah's state veterinarian is warning ranchers to avoid giving inexpensive pet food to their herds. Earl Rogers says most pet food has ingredients that could help spread an illness in livestock called BSE. It's against state and federal law to give it to cattle." BSE is mad cow disease.

From looking at as many pet food labels as I do, I've been reminded about an interesting but disheartening issue about some pet foods. Many pet food manufacturers produce dozens of different types of dog food and cat food. Besides the typical adult or puppy formulas - there are foods that are marketed to specific needs of pets - such as senior pets, indoor cats, dental formulas, and so on. The problem can be that with these niche marketing pet foods - often times there is no difference (or there is very little difference) in ingredients between the higher priced niche products and a maintenance pet food.

More than likely you have noticed pet food being marketed as delicious and nutritional. Often, these pet foods appear to mimic the human diet with natural ingredients however the food is actually highly processed.

Probiotic: (pro-bi-o-tik) " Living microorganisms that, given in proper portions, can prove beneficial to ones health.