Kelley Spellman
Owner, EarthWise Pet Easton easton.earthwisepet.com
We're constantly rethinking our diets, so why leave out the smallest members of the household? Your dog or cat could benefit from fresher, healthier food options—Kelley Spellman of EarthWise Pet in Easton explains how.
The EarthWise Way
Spellman and her husband, Robert, didn't intend to open a franchise when they started kicking around the idea of a pet store, but EarthWise Pet offered a unique wealth of resources. EarthWise combines health food store, wellness spa, day camp and training options for our furry friends, with extensive training for its stores' staff in pet nutrition and how to evaluate customers' needs on an individual basis.
Particularly if your pooch is struggling with allergies or other mild symptoms, Spellman and co. can help decide where to start with changing its diet, with a whole Slack channel of experts from EarthWise HQ and other store owners ready to help.
“We may be able to make it so you might never have to step into the vet with alternative choices,” Spellman says, while stressing that they never veer into vet care's lane. “Vets are there for when something is wrong, we're here to keep things right.”
Kibble Quibbles
Typical kibble, Spellman points out, “may be signed off with ‘all the vitamins in it that dogs need to survive,' yes. But if you want your dog to thrive and not be at the vet for various things nonstop, if you feed the dog real unprocessed food it will do better, just like humans.”
The idea is that typical dog food is a subsistence diet often bulked out with corn, wheat and soy, which can be allergy triggers for dogs. Far from the nutrient- and flavor-rich bones, muscle and organ meat that our pets' ancestors enjoyed, we're leaving them with dried-out byproducts. According to Spellman, dehydration is a big issue for pets. Even if you haven't gone so far as to provide a raw meat diet, supplementing kibbles with goat milk, eggs and some ground hamburger, chicken or turkey is meant to improve health and vitality, not to mention happiness!
It's crucial that cats, too, eat a diet rich in hydration: canned food, fresh food, raw options and, of particular importance, free from byproducts and fillers.
... if you feed the dog real, unprocessed food it will do better, just like humans.
Back to Basics
“I see people load up on salmon oil, pre- and probiotics, shiitake mushroom powder,” Spellman says, “but when I ask, ‘What are you feeding the dog?' it's Hill's or some other grocery store brand, which is filled with wheat, corn and soy.”
Rather than add $200 worth of supplements to a diet of plain bad kibble, she'd prefer pet parents start by exploring their pet's basic fresh food options. Changing the kibble to one free from junk and adding some fresh, unprocessed foods is a great start.
If the dog doesn't like lamb, try turkey meatballs. Add some bone broth, try some goat milk and see if whole foods make a difference for your dog before splurging on extras. EarthWise also stocks single-ingredient treats made of nutritious bits like heart, liver, salmon or minnows.
Raw meat can carry an ick factor, but rest assured. “Our meat,” Spellman says, “is higher quality than supermarket brands: grass-fed, hormone-free, treated with high-pressure pasteurization.” They also carry gently cooked and air-dried food.
The Matter of Platters
Having your dog eat from a tidy little bowl is convenient, but it may not provide the best experience for the animal. “Dogs went from chasing, hunting, killing, protecting, all this in the wild,” Spellman says, “to dry crackers in a bowl.” From the obscured eye-line created by bowl edges to the hampering presence of an adjacent wall, eating from a dog dish may be uncomfortable and even cause anxiety.
Just try, Spellman encourages, a flat platter with space around it, allowing the dog to circle its food freely. She sells platters for this purpose with little divots that dogs can lick food from, slowing their pace and calming them. Licking mats are also a great diversion in case of company or stormy weather, with mashed food or peanut butter frozen into the grooves to give Fido lots of soothing lick time.
Chew Treatment
A pet's dental health can be hard to keep on top of, and professional cleanings are quite the ordeal. Spellman's take: “Kibbles are carbs. If you ate crackers all the time, your dental health would be trash.” Most dogs inhale kibble anyway without letting the crunchy morsels abrade their plaque. It's harder chews like raw meaty bones and antlers that dogs grind against their molars. “Even one bone a month makes a huge difference,” she says.
For cats, EarthWise Pet stocks chicken and duck feet that take time to rend, cleaning cats' teeth and offering extended enjoyment to creatures wistful for the hunt.
Published as “Ask the Expert” in the June 2024 edition of Lehigh Valley Style magazine.
