The full Vet’s Kitchen range of natural hypoallergenic veterinary foods for dogs and cats, including the Active Sauce supplements is available along with our new-look Joe & Jill’s natural cat food.

We are currently trying to squeeze all the store names and addresses into our poor overworked online store locator so please bear with us on that for a little while – but in the meantime, it’s safe to assume that your local Asda store will be stocking our products.

Dear Donna,

I would just like to thank you again for the brochures you gave to go in our dog information bags and the donated sample food bags for our dog show held on this past Sunday (17th April).www.straysofgreece.org

The day went very well and the weather was very kind to us, which was a nice change as a couple of years running the heavens opened raining cats and dogs(excuse the pun!) and the visitors either all hid in the small marquee or scurried off to their cars and headed home.

It was fantastic that people came at 10am and were still with us at 4pm. Having enjoyed a dog display team demonstration, two RAF police dogs, a barbecue, various entertainment stalls as well as the classes in the dog show.

The reaction to the information handed out was very positive and i hope that now the orders from Dorset and Hampshire region will flood your way!

Hopefully some photos of the show should be on our website shortly

Once the aftermath of the show has settled down i will get Lyn to send across the stories and photos as requested. Your support has been truly terrific thank you so much

Many thanks

Nell Burgess

So what can we do about it? Well there are loads of practical things that owners can do to help keep their pets in shape, from getting out and about to encourage exercise to healthy eating and you can find my top tips on my pet health advice pages on the Vet’s Kitchen website. And specifically for dogs, we’ve got our Vet’s Kitchen Light variety which is the ideal diet to help dogs maintain a healthy waistline, with 20% less fat that our adult diets, L-carnitine to promote fat conversion to muscle, and glucosamine and chondroitin to help maintain mobility. It’s available here online, and also at www.Ocado.com, www.netpetshop.co.uk and in over 100 Waitrose stores nationwide.

The online retailer who deliver Waitrose groceries to millions of households every week have included Vet’s Kitchen as one of their top featured brands and stocked up with our entire range including all of our dog and cat foods and healthcare supplements!

So if you’re a regular Ocado shopper, you can now buy the best food for your pets along with your own groceries – just click here to see our dog food range, or here for cats.

With Christmas only just around the corner it’s time to start thinking about presents – and we’ve got the perfect solution for a healthy Christmas gift for your canine friends!

Our amazing Christmas hampers are filled with our new Vet’s Kitchen range of dog food and supplements, Poochwork natural snacks and a signed copy of my new book ‘Your Dog and You’.  And as well as treating your best friend, you will also be helping to support one of Britain’s best pet charities as we are donating 10% of the sale price of every hamper to The PDSA!

We’ve got hampers for adult dogs, puppies and senior dogs so there’s the perfect present however old your dog!

To find out more, simply follow this link…

This deal saves you a whopping £23.70 on the list price, so hurry while stocks last! Click here to take advantage of this offer in our secure online store.

Old age creeps up on everyone eventually, and of course our dogs are no exception to this. With their life crammed into a much shorter span than ours, their ageing process can sometimes feel very quick to us – one day he’s a lively puppy and then all of a sudden he’s got a grey muzzle and arthritic legs.

The first thing to understand when considering the older dog is ‘What age is old for a dog?’ This is a tricky question, as different dogs tend to age at different rates. But here are a couple of tips that should help you get a rough idea of your dog’s human age.

The first thing to say is that the well-known formula of one dog year being equal to seven human years is no use at all. The best way to work out your dog’s human age is by following one of these formulae:

• For little dogs (up to 10kg) – 12 human years per dog year for the first two years, and then 4 per year thereafter. So a 10 year old terrier will be 56 and a 15 year old will be 76.
• For medium dogs (10-30kg) – 10 human years per dog year for the first two years, and then 5 per year thereafter. A 10 year old spaniel, for example, will be 60 and a 15 year old will be 85.
• For big dogs (30kg +) – A bit simpler – 8 human years per dog year all the way. So an 8 year old German Shepherd will be roughly 64 in human terms.

If you’ve decided that your dog really is old (roughly speaking, over 50 in human years as calculated above), there’s plenty you can do to help them cope with their advancing years:

A new bed!

However old your ageing dog is in human terms, there’s no doubt she’ll appreciate a comfy bed, as older dogs are often prone to aches and pains, especially when the weather is cold and wet. So to make sure your ageing dog is as comfortable as possible, think about upgrading her bed and positioning it somewhere which is totally draft-free and nice and cosy. You can buy a top quality pet bed from your local pet shop, or, if you want to save a little money (and not go quite as extreme as the bed in this photo!), why not try a little lateral thinking?

One clever idea is to buy a cheap ‘egg-crate’ foam mattress, cut it in half and place one half on top of the other to give a thick, smooth mattress which you can then cover in a washable fabric. Or for a really big dog, why not drag that old inflatable camping mattress out of the garage and cover it in a thick blanket – as long as she doesn’t chew a hole in it, it will make a super soft bed for her!

Gentle exercise

As your dog gets older he’ll probably get a bit slower and less keen to go racing off after squirrels and rabbits. This doesn’t mean that he’s not enjoying his walks though – just that he’s taking life at a slightly slower pace. The best way to keep an older dog fit and happy is to make sure he gets plenty of regular walks, but keep them fairly short and try to make sure he doesn’t overdo it. Keep ball throwing and stick chasing to a minimum as this puts a lot of stress on the joints and heart, and concentrate on quiet rambles in the countryside or park.

Teach an old dog new tricks!

Here’s a great way to rekindle the spark of life in your old dog – take her to a training class and teach her some new tricks. Don’t go for anything too adventurous; just try to teach her some interesting new tricks or commands such as rolling onto her back, or covering her eyes with her paws. Use healthy treats to encourage her when she gets the new trick right, and you’ll soon find that this new focus has put a puppy-like spring back into her step!

Blood tests

As your dog gets older, he might continue to look fit and healthy on the outside, but this isn’t always the whole story. Internally, things can be starting to go wrong, and if left unchecked, these underlying problems can suddenly turn into full-blown, life-threatening illnesses. In order to combat these internal problems, which can include kidney disease, liver disease, cancer and diabetes, you need to find them before they become obvious, by which time it’s often too late. When your dog reaches middle age (perhaps 50 in human terms), ask your vet for a general blood test. This will check all your dog’s internal systems and will either give him a clean bill of health – or enable you to tackle any problems that exist. Repeat these tests every few years as he enters old age to make sure nothing is missed.

The best way of making sure your older dog is getting just the right mix of nutrients he needs is to feed him a top quality dried complete food. Choose one without artificial additives like preservatives and flavourings, and aim for a protein level of around 18-24% (adult dog foods usually have about 22-28% protein).

Our new Vet’s Kitchen Senior food is ideally balanced for older dogs, with fresh salmon, added omega 3 fatty acids for healthy skin, coat and immune system, added taurine for cardiac health, prebiotics for the digestive system and nucleotides for the immune system. The recipe also contains high levels of glucosamine and chondroitin to help maintain mobility in the older dog.

As well as a feeding a top quality complete food, you can also supplement this with some tasty home-cooked recipes and here are some of my favourites for older dogs:

White Fish and Rice

Dog food doesn’t get much healthier than this, and the added coriander will help tickle the older dog’s taste buds. It’s got a moderate level of protein, which is all highly digestible, meaning less work for the kidneys.

To feed a couple of hungry hounds, you will need:

250g white fish fillet
300ml milk
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon olive oil
1  tablespoon fresh coriander
125g brown rice

Put the rice on to cook as brown rice takes a good half an hour. Then cover the fish with the milk, bring to the boil and then remove from the heat, allowing the fish to cook in hot milk for about 5 minutes.

Then remove the fish from the milk and crumble it into a dish with the lemon juice and oil. Mix in the cooked and drained rice and finally add the chopped up coriander.

Chicken, Spinach and Sardine Mash

The combination of the easy-to-digest protein from the chicken, with the good quality carbohydrate from the sweet potato, and the vitamins from the spinach make this recipe super healthy – and the sardines add in essential omega-3 oils as well as a bit of extra taste.

You need:

250g chicken mince
400g sweet potatoes
250g spinach, shredded
1 tin sardines in oil
½ teaspoon egg shell powder (see recipe 3, Fishy Delight) or 1x1000mg calcium supplement, crushed.
1 teaspoon brewer’s yeast (if available)

Boil the sweet potatoes in their skins until tender (about ten minutes), and then drain and mash them. At the same time, gently fry the chicken mince without adding any fat, until it is cooked through, then add the spinach and cook for a few minutes until reduced down.

Finally, add the sardines, along with all the oil, to the mince and spinach, and mix it all together with the mash in a mixing bowl. Add in the calcium or egg shell, and the brewer’s yeast and form into egg-sized balls.

Arthritis is one of the most common problems of older dogs, causing pain and immobility to a high proportion of elderly dogs. There are many causes, ranging from badly formed joints (such as hip dysplasia) to simple wear and tear, but whatever the original cause of the problem, there’s a lot you can do to help. Here are my top tips for looking after an arthritic dog:

1. Early diagnosis is vital, so look out for the first signs of arthritis, which include stiffness after exercise, reluctance to jump or climb stairs, lameness on one or more legs and general lethargy and depression.
2. Regular short walks are much better than less frequent long periods of exercise.
3. Weight is crucial as every extra pound on your dog’s waistline puts extra pressure on the painful joints so try to get that extra weight off with a lower calorie diet.
4. Your vet can prescribe anti-inflammatory drugs which help to reduce swelling and pain.
5. Foods and supplements which contain glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate help the joints repair themselves and reduce pain. Our Vet’s Kitchen senior food contains high levels of both of these active ingredients, and our new Active Joints Supplement is a veterinary-strength formulation containing glucosamine, chondoitin, hyaluronic acid, collagen and MSM.

Deafness

Deafness is another common problem for older dogs, but it rarely causes serious problems – apart from that selective type of deafness which enables dogs to ignore commands out in the park but hear the slightest sound of a tin of dog food being opened from a hundred yards away!

If your dog is starting to lose his hearing, there are a few important tips that will help him – and you – cope with the problem

• Use sign language as much as possible when giving commands. Get him used to responding to visual signals rather than just verbal commands.
• Thump the floor with your foot to get his attention through the vibrations of the ground.
• Don’t surprise him! Make sure you approach him where he can see you, so as not to give him too much of a shock when you touch him.
• Keep him on a lead. If he can’t hear you, and goes too far away to see your visual commands, he could easily get lost, so it’s best to keep him on a long lead in the park.
• Accept that his hearing will inexplicably improve whenever there’s food about!

Tackling the problem requires a range of approaches including advising owners about healthy exercise regimes and cutting out tit bits and high calorie treats – but probably the most important way in which owners can easily help their dogs lose weight is by reducing the calories in their main food.

And the best way to do this is with a properly balanced ‘light’ diet where the levels of essential nutrients such as vitamins and minerals are maintained while the levels of calories and fat are reduced.

With all this in mind, I am really pleased to announce the launch of our new Vet’s Kitchen Light recipe food. Made with top quality chicken, brown rice and oats,  Vet’s Kitchen Light Chicken & Brown Rice is ideal for helping pets achieve and maintain their ideal weight, in conjunction with a healthy exercise regime. Additional natural ingredients including l-carnitine to promote fat breakdown, increased fibre to reduce hunger and glucosamine and chrondroitin to maintain mobility.

And being from Pets’ Kitchen it has obviously not been tested on animals other than willing volunteers, it is free from artificial additives and ingredients likely to cause allergies,  and is made in the UK using ingredients sourced as locally as possible.

You can order Vet’s Kitchen Light food here on the Vet’s Kitchen website – simply follow this link.