August 19th, 2009 by admin

Renowned author and consumer advocate Tracie Hotchner, author of The Cat Bible and host of Cat Talk Radio, recently shocked her loyal audience by recommending a dry cat food: Halo Spot’s Stew. Just to be clear, Tracie (who is also known for The Dog Bible, Dog Talk Radio, and her appearances on Oprah), is an outspoken advocate of wet food for cats, and she’s long been a fan of Halo Spot’s Stew cans for cats, and Halo kibble for dogs. Certainly, none of that has changed.

But a series of earnest inquires from her loyal followers led Tracie to the conclusion that some cat lovers must feed dry food. And when that’s the case, she felt she owed it to her audience to make a recommendation. In her own words, “if circumstances require dry food, it’s time I told you what you’ve been waiting for: which dry food is best?”

I’ll quote Tracie at length:

“I have recently been singing the praises of Halo’s Spot’s Stew. In fact, for the first time I have chosen it as the DOG food kibble that is head and shoulders above the others and which I am now feeding to my dogs as part of their daily meals. And the reason for the tap of the “Tracie Wand” is all about ingredients. For dogs we want a kibble made with the cleanest possible ingredients and with as high a protein content as possible – with cats this goes double, since their digestive systems are not designed for carbohydrates and they need real meat. Well that is what makes Halo’s Spot’s Stew in a class by itself. … Halo uses only meat that is “fit for human consumption” in their foods. Halo has made a moral decision that they will only use meat that people could eat…”

We’ve long been honored that Tracie Hotchner recommends Halo, and have recently become proud sponsors of her hugely informative web site. But this is an honor that we never expected. Thank you as always, Tracie, for helping consumer read (and understand) ingredients to make the best choices for their pets!

Read the whole story here on Tracie Hotchner’s blog.

August 19th, 2009 by admin

We’re thrilled to be on the homepage of Shop4Freebies today. They’re a top consumer site for free samples, coupons and money-saving consumer tips. It’s the second time they’ve featured this special offer. Simply subscribe to the Halo holistic pet care email newsletter, and receive a free trial store coupon.

My wife and I signed up, and we’ve received some really great samples and coupons from lots of different companies (some of which now count us as loyal customers).

Please tell your friends! Click here to visit Shop4Freebies.com.

August 19th, 2009 by admin

This video of Aiden the amazing Afghan comes from Sharon Ferraro in Montauk, NY, who writes that “Our dogs love the Halo food!” Who needs Madison Avenue advertising firms when Halo customers send us videos like this? You don’t want to miss it!

See the video here.

August 19th, 2009 by admin

Q: I just am in the middle of switching one of my cats over to Spots Stew dry food. My cat’s name is Nipper and he was a stray, I took him in almost two years ago (he’s probably about 5-6 years old) and he seems to have an obsessive anxious disorder. My vet wants to put him on Prozac (he was checked and the vet didn’t find anything physiologically wrong with him). Nipper tends to lick his fur off, his ears flicker, he gets very nervous at times and goes into almost a seizure like state at times. It breaks my heart to see him like this. He is overweight and I’m trying to get him to lose weight by exercising and playing. The vet recommended a high protein, no grain diet and I have had Nipper on Evo, the ancestral diet for cats, but so far no luck with weight loss or losing the anxiety–and I do not even feed him the amount recommended on the bag!

Are their any vitamins or supplements that you can recommend for him that might help with the anxiety or his compulsive behavior of eating his fur off? He is very loving and seems very comfortable around my dog and the other cats. He gets very jumpy hearing neighbor’s dogs bark, people walking by the house, any noises that are unfamiliar to him, make him nervous.

A: Thanks for your questions–lets address the weight first. The first thing that is crucial for weight loss, is to determine your cat’s ideal body weight. If you don’t know how to do this, ask your vet to help you. For most domestic shorthair cats, this is between 9 and 10 pounds. Then you have to calculate the amount of calories they need at their ideal weight and only feed 75% of those calories each day. Please read my article Weight Loss Tips for more specific information and calculations. Following this program, I have been successful getting hundreds of sedentary overweight indoor cats to lose weight!

As far as Nipper’s anxiety, there is one specific medical condition that comes to mind. It is called Feline Hyperesthesia Syndrome and Nipper has many classic features of this disorder. It often requires a neurologic evaluation by a specialist to characterize it fully and decide upon the best course of treatment. You can read more about it here Feline Hyperesthesia (FHS).

It is also possible that Nipper may just be a very anxious cat. I would recommend a vitamin B supplement for Nipper as it tends to help calm the nerves. Halo’s Vitamin Mineral Mix is a raw food rich in B vitamins that may really help.

Good Luck and keep us posted.
Dr. Donna Spector