Qi 4 Paws Int.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) looks at food very differently than we are used to in the West. From a TCM perspective, every food has a number of effects on the body. This way we can find a suitable diet for every patient and for every pattern (imbalance). For example, if a patient has a shortage of yang (too little heat), we give this patient more foods with a yang (warming) property.

There is truth too it... 🤣

Did you know that a lot of regularly available snacks for dogs and cats are not very healthy? In this blog I share five snack ideas that are yummy and healthy. Check it out!
www.qi4paws.nl/blog/en

It's time for Q&A. Ask me anything! 😃

Spiky had severe neck pain. Pain medication didn't help enough. Luckily I was able to help him with acupuncture.

Do you agree?

In a recent study, scientists gave octopuses a painful injection in the arm and placed them in a room with a specific pattern on the walls. When the animals were later given a choice between two rooms, they stayed away from the room where they had received the injection. According to the researchers, this suggests that octopuses consciously experience pain like mammals.
Read the entire article here: https://www.demorgen.be/.../als-een-octopus-een-kamer.../

A recent interesting study looked at nutrition given at a young age (2-6 months) and the risk of developing epilepsy later in life. You can read about it in this weeks blog:
www.qi4paws.nl/en/blog

If you feed kibble and you have been looking on the constituents on the package of your food you probably have seen that the percentage of carbs isn’t on there! You can calculate the amount of carbs in there.
The amount of carbs is: 100 – protein – fat – fiber – ash - moisture.
On both of these labels the amount of moisture isn’t given. We know that most kibble contains 10% of moisture.
In the yellow (upper) label there is 100- 21 – 12 – 7 – 2,8 -10 = 59,2 % carbs
And in the other bag there is 100 – 33 – 19 – 4 – 9,5 – 10 = 24,5 % carbs
To really compare we should be calculating the amount of carbs as a percentage from the amount of calories in the food. That is because a animals needs to eat different amounts of the food depending on the energy density. I did this for you. And in the yellow label food the amount of carbs is 54% of total calories and in the brown label food it is 23%.

The only way to truly solve a problem is to find the cause and fix it. In TCM we call this the root of the problem. And even though it sounds so logical, unfortunately it is often forgotten in practice and people often consciously or unconsciously opt for medication that solves the symptoms but does not actually solve the problem. For example, a painkiller will help to improve lameness, but if it is caused by a harness that does not fit properly, it is of course much more effective to use another well-fitting harness. You can often solve a recurring bladder infection in a cat with anti-inflammatories, but if the cause is stress, it is much better to do something about the stress.
So always ask yourself: WHY? What lies beneath?

Do you recognize this? That well-known "bucket". You had a funeral yesterday and today you had a bad day at work. You come home and your partner asks you a question and you completely lose it. Something you normally wouldn't do, but now your bucket was full and this was the final straw.

Dogs have a bucket just like that. A stressful event can quickly fill this bucket. It may then take at least three days before the bucket is empty again, or the stress hormones are low again.

Was your dog stressed by the fireworks? Please keep this in mind during the first days of the new year. Don't do things that are stressful for your dog, but make it quiet days to rest and recover.