Q: How do I transition my dog or cat to a new food?

A: Most pets require 7-10 days to adjust to a new food because their intestinal tracts contain unique bacteria and enzymes that need to adapt to the proper digestion of a new food. It is recommended that dogs and cats eat a combination of dry and canned food every day. Their bodies are made of 75% water and they rarely drink enough water to support excellent hydration and organ function. I recommend that 25 to 50% of their daily calories come from canned food. You can feed it all at one time during the day or break it up into 2 meals…whatever is easiest for you.

Follow these guidelines for either dry, canned or preferably a combination of Halo food*:

Click here to read complete article.

Tracie Hotchner, author of The Dog Bible and The Cat Bible, helped listeners with dogs who eat things they shouldn’t be eating, such as poop or rotting animal parts. One of her tricks? Keep Halo Liv-a-Littles protein treats in your pocket as the ultimate reward when your best friend responds to “come!” and “drop it!” As Tracie reminds us, don’t forget to lavish the verbal praise when Spot responds!

Visit our News page for a direct link to the audio.

Pig ears and beef hooves manufactured by Pet Carousel may be contaminated with Salmonella and should be avoided until further notice.

Keep current on human and pet food safety, food recalls, tips on how to handle food safely and news from governmental food regulatory agencies at Foodsafety.gov. This recently launched consumer website allows you to receive e-mail and RSS alerts on recalled or potentially unsafe food–for the health of your entire family!

Ellen DeGeneres and Halo donated to 10-year-old Annabelle Held’s favorite charity – Our Pal’s Place animal shelter – in an inspiring spot on the Ellen Show.

Click here to see our first blog post about Annabelle.

Click over to our News page to see the clip.

“There are two types of people in the world, passive and active,” says Jessica Harris, head of adoptions at a Louisiana shelter, “passive who want to know what their community can do for them, and your active people wonder what they can do to better their community.”

Emma Foster, 13, is one of those active people.

Emma, a winner of Freekibble.com’s Kibble Krusaders Kontest, where kids were asked to write why their shelter was special, won $1,000 worth of Halo Dinner Party for Harris’s shelter, the St. Tammany Parish Humane Society in Covington. “I feel like I’ve actually done something that will contribute to the animals that people don’t usually think about,” says Emma, an eighth grader from Abita Springs. “I felt like a guardian angel when I got the email (that she won). They deserved some love, just like people do.”

In her essay to Freekibble.com founder Mimi Ausland, Emma writes of adopting her family dog Peppi — who she calls the “best dog we’ve had” — and how the shelter was inundated with pets following Hurricane Katrina, pets who still — after five years — need a loving home. “Most of the animals lost in Katrina were people’s pets, not strays… because of this, most of them were older, and are no longer wanted,” she writes. “STPHS does their hardest to make these pets feel like they are still loved, even if nobody wants them.” Click here to read Emma’s entire essay.

Emma herself has four dogs including Peppi, a chihuahua-papillon mix. “I don’t think he’s a dog, I think he’s a gremlin,” she says, laughing. “He is really cute.” She also has about seven cats, and plans on volunteering at the STPHS to earn service hours for school. Despite her love of animals, Emma plans on becoming a medical examiner, thanks to the hit TV show C.S.I.

Mimi received almost 500 Kibble Krusader entries, and picked Emma’s for its sincerity. “She put a personal note in there, that she got the best dog ever to her,” Mimi says. “You can tell that she took awhile to write it, and I love the hurricane Katrina part. This one stood out, it was a little more personal and I appreciated that.”

As does Harris. The STPHS has, on average, 100 dogs and 50 cats at a time. Harris says that the shelter pets “absolutely love” the Halo Dinner Party on their food, and she is sure they are grateful to Emma. “To write an essay to help their humane society goes above and beyond,” says Harris, “to put herself out there with the incentive to help the animals, not to help herself but to help the animals.”