The Canine Caviar Event!

This is what I do the day before any event:

�Packing tshirts, books and other freebies for the event.

�Sorting out what sizes to bring, depending on the crowd.

�Of course I’d always have reliable volunteers and advisers to help…so ever willingly.

�All wheeled out and ready to go this morning.

�We arrived early, as we always do, unless we are waylaid by landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis or unexpected roadblocks.

Bernice and Donovan led the way from Ara Damansara as I had no idea how to get to DesaPark City though we’ve had an event there once. I’m hopeless with roads.

Bernice and Donovan set up the booth as I had just been introduced to Jeff Baker, the founder of Canine Caviar, and we got talking. I asked him lots of stuff since friends had “pesan”ed (that’s the Malay word meaning �”ask something through another person” – why isn’t there an equivalent English word for this?) me to ask many questions for their pets.

�The crowd trickled in in the typical Malaysian “rubber” time. This was a private function, by invitation, so the guests had already registered themselves earlier. But why won’t they come on time?

�Hmmm….who is this? The little girl is wearing our tshirt…

�Why it’s Dr Vijay, one of the vets who have helped us the most, especially with our most difficult cases. He’s also the personal vet of all my pets and rescues. That’s Dharshini, his sweet little daughter.

�Bernice and me – today was indeed a good, good day. All happy and jolly.
Yellow is my colour on Saturdays since our Yellow tshirt came out.

�Don and Bernice.

�That’s Andy Lew, the “big boss” of Canine Caviar Malaysia, and Winnie Low, in yellow.

�That’s the one-and-only Ms Phong, whom we call Chun Eng. She’s the one who coordinated the entire Kuchai Avenue rescue. She has come on board as our volunteer. We’re very lucky to have such a committed volunteer who is meticulous and efficient. Why, she has already bought char siew for the Ah Wong couple. How much faster is that, right? �In animal welfare work, we need fast and efficient volunteers. Delay costs lives.

�Elene was helping me with some tshirt stuff here. I did all this tshirt sizing with no knowledge whatsoever of what retailers do and how they plan their stock. It was really good to learn from an experienced person.

The five photos up there are courtesy of Andrew Mong, who visited our booth with his wife, Elene.

After that, I was just too busy to take anymore photos as there were many enquiries at the booth. I shall update with photos later when we get some from the organisers.

The crowd filled in soon (in good Malaysian rubber time) and the event started with Jeff Baker’s detailed explanation of his research findings and what Canine and Feline Caviar offers.

Please see this:�http://www.caninecaviar.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4&Itemid=24

I’ll definitely attest to Canine Caviar Special Needs Dinner as that is the diet that saved Bobby’s life and remarkable as it was, it turned Bobby around in a matter of days.

In July 2011 -�http://myanimalcare.org/2011/07/31/feeding-bobby/

It is quite coincidental that Jeff’s dog, Moguls, turned around in a matter of days after eating the first “prototype” of Canine Caviar Special Needs, created just for him. Bobby turned around in a matter of days too.

Even now that Bobby is on home-cooked, I still sprinkle Canine Caviar Special Needs on top of his home-cooked food. That’s called getting the best of both words or “kiasuism”! Not taking any chances….

I asked Jeff Baker about the ratio of meat:veges for home-cooked food and he said in general, it ought to be 80:20 for cats and 70:30 for dogs. Dogs needs more veges than cats. According to Jeff, no animal is a strict “carnivore”, so to speak. Carnivorous animals, when devouring their herbivorous prey, would first go for the stomach and the stomach contains fermented plants. In that way, carnivorous animals eat some plants too, but not raw, it has to be fermented. The veggies in Canine and Feline Caviar are all fermented.

I also asked what should be fed for kidney patients and he said kidney patients needs more moisture in their food, hence, he strongly recommends wetfood for them; homecooked or canned. Kibble may be too dry.

Again, that is so true, based on my experience with Indy. Remember how Indy almost died in December 2011? Dr Susanna klonked me on the head and told me it was because of the prescription diet (kibble) I had been feeding him. I switched him immediately to wetfood and homecooked that very day (well, he was hospitalised on drips, so it was AD while he was there), and in time, Indy recovered. Indy is a suspect pyelonephritis case; he had a very bad start in life. Picked up from the drain at one month with bladder, eye and ear totally infected with green pus. The vet thought he was not going to make it. I called him “Indy Jones”. He made it, but with many heart-stopping moments in the first two weeks where he lay motionless.

It all kind of make sense to me now. What made me suspect Indy had a kidney problem was the fact that he was licking feverishly from the running tap. Feverishly, as in for five minutes each time. Maybe the body wants to heal itself, so it made Indy drink water like crazy. Kidney cases need moisture. Ever since he switched to homecooked, he doesn’t lick water feverishly anymore. Maybe Indy still has a kidney problem, and we all know there’s nothing much we can do with kidney problems except to manage it….with a diet that is moisture-rich.

Even for healthy animals, Jeff recommends protein rotation – kibble, wetfood, homecooked. Don’t stick to just one type. Always rotate. That’s really sound advice to me. That’s what I do now – rotate. My brood has all three. For homecooked, �we know what we put in it. For wetfood and kibble, we have to learn to read the labels and decide which is the most suitable for our pets’ needs. I think it’s worthwhile going for quality ingredients. There is no substitute for good health and good health is dependent on species-appropriate quality food. Just think of the vet bills that are going to cost us whenever our pets fall sick. It pays to take care of the most primary need – Food.

I also asked about raw food, and he said this is highly dependent on the animal’s digestive system itself. Some can take it, some can’t. One might worry about the bacteria and parasites in raw food too.

Jeff said once opened, the Canine and Feline Caviar kibble does not need to be kept in the fridge because it contains no live organisms.

Before I continue, a disclaimer first: The above is based on my understanding from what I asked Jeff Baker. I may have misunderstood certain things he said, so please make further enquiries at the appropriate sources for verification before trying any of the above.

I forgot to ask him if it is okay that my cats LOVE Bobby’s Special Needs food! They actually do. Now, all 7 are on Feline Caviar kibble as their treat. Homecooked is still their staple food. They get wetfood when I’m too busy to homecook.

Jeff said a new line of wet canned food for cats will be out soon (Feline Caviar), hopefully coming into Malaysia in June. I’m really looking forward to that. He showed me photos of the food on his phone. It looked very appetising.

The second speaker was Jimmy Lee, who talked about his mainecoons and how to care for them. Neotrix, who is the Feline Caviar ambassador, came with his brother.

I was the third speaker and by then, I guessed everyone was quite tired, so I resorted to story-telling, which is what I usually do when the crowd seems tired. I mean, I would be tired too, if I just sat down listening for hours. I think the crowd liked the stories, because after that, they came to the booth and made enquiries. They bought tshirts too.

Canine Caviar sponsored our tshirts for those who asked questions during the Q&A of all the talks. All you had to do was to ask a constructive question and you’ll get one of our tshirts – any size, any design – your choice. The tshirt would be sponsored by Canine Caviar. That was very generous of them – thank you very much!

The fourth speaker was Ryan and he talked about pet grooming and how you could do it by yourself at home. This was very useful as the crowd was mostly pet-owners.

This was not the usual “friends of stray animals” crowd so many of them had never heard of us before. That was good, because it gave us a chance to reach out to another crowd and audience and spread the awareness. A few of them came by later to tell me about their experience with strays.

We definitely made some friends today, and yes, it was, as expected, a good, good, good day!

Thank you, Canine Caviar, for the opportunity at creating awareness and helping us promote our cause.

Thank you to our volunteers for today – Bernice, Donovan, Winnie and Chun Eng who did a marvelous job at manning the booth!

Source: http://myanimalcare.org/2012/04/22/the-canine-caviar-event/

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