Category: Pet Food Isle of Wight

We have plenty of flavours available – call 01983 863546 or visit our  website 

online  catalogue @  https://www.shanklinpetstores.co.uk/ 

How well do you know Shanklin? This video is from 2019—see if you can spot what’s different now. Hint: The yellow shop looks completely different today!

• • Streamlined Inventory: We still stock our shelves, but with a more limited, select inventory.
  • Digital Catalogue: Our website is no longer an online shop; it now serves as a digital catalogue to view what we carry in-store.
  • No Home Deliveries: We have permanently ceased all delivery services. 

Christmas Opening Hours:

 Have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!  

The video below is from Christmas  2019—the shop looks a little different now if you step inside! 👀

Oral Flea Treatment is the easiest to administer out of flea treatment for your pets, and also the most effective. Oral flea treatment is 99.9% effective compared to the 88.4% effectiveness for Topical flea treatment. This makes it 11.5% more effective and gives a whole-body protection. Not only is it fast working – in some cases as fast as 15 minutes – it’s also out of your pets system in up to 3 days. This means you can use them in conjunction with other flea and worm treatments.

Different Oral Treatments

It’s important to read what you’re getting. What can seem like a bargain for £1 in the supermarket can actually be useless. This is because different treatments target different areas.

What to look out for:

• If it treats just adult fleas or all ages
• Whether it treats worms and what type – especially important as some only treat Roundworm or Tapeworm
• If it’s for cats or dogs – dog treatment can be toxic to cats so keep an eye out for what you’re giving your pet
• How long treatment works – some lasts up to every 2 weeks
• Whether the tablets need to be swallowed or chewed

The main advantage of oral treatments is that there’s no sticky mess and the doses are better. This means that you won’t leave any dose behind like you do with topical flea treatment. However, oral treatment doesn’t include flea eggs and larvae which will fall off in your house and garden, so your house will need to be treated too to hopefully completely stop any further infestations.

How do you administer?

The key thing to remember when giving oral treatment is that the tablet shouldn’t be crushed. When the tablet’s crushed it becomes less likely to work or not even work at all, making the dose pointless. Try putting the tablet in their favourite food to get them to eat it in one. Equally, try giving hairball paste to your cat frequently. This way you can put the paste on the tablet to get your cat to eat it up with no problem.

Once the pill is consumed the chemicals enter the pets blood stream – which is non-toxic to your pet – and the blood becomes poisonous to fleas. This means that when fleas land on your pet and drink their blood the fleas will die shortly after.

Team Shanklinpets

Raw Food Diet may seem daunting at first for owners, but it’s not as hard as it initially seems! With the right balance of Meat, Vegetables, Fats and Carbohydrates your Dog can have a homemade meal that meets all of their daily needs that most shop-bought dog foods don’t. Besides knowing exactly what your Dog is eating and knowing that it’s fulfilling their daily needs, there are other advantages to feeding Raw Food.

Why feed raw food?

One of the first advantages of a Raw Food Diet is that your Dogs’ stools almost immediately improve, becoming more firm. This is due to no cereals being present in their food so more of the food digested is absorbed in the digestive tract, making the stool firmer and less frequent. Another benefit is that raw food doesn’t get extruded like some pet foods do – meaning that more of the original nutrients is retained and means that supplements don’t need to be added to the diet.

Other advantages include:

• More palatable
• Healthier
• Better looking coat

what does a raw food diet need to contain?

1. Bones

Macro-minerals are the most important minerals within a dogs diet and are needed in the largest quantities, without them your Dog could die. These include Calcium; Phosphorus, Magnesium, Potassium and others. Bones contain enough minerals to mostly cover  these needs. Bones should make up about 12-15% of a Dog’s daily diet.

Meaty bones that are good for this include:

• Chicken or Duck wings, legs, necks or thighs
• Lamb or Goat necks or ribs
• Beef tail bones

 2. Organs

Another good way of getting your Dog all their vitamins is through feeding them organs. Organs contain the most nutrients and without them your Dog could be missing some of the most important vitamins. Organs include Lungs, Kidney, Liver, Brain and other nutrient-rich organs. A third to a half of the Dogs diet should be a kind of a muscle meat from either Beef, Chicken, Turkey, Pork or Lamb. These provide important proteins that help with the build and repair of tissues and also allow new hormones and enzymes to be made.

3. Fat

Only slightly over 10% of the Dog’s diet should be made up of fat. Over-feeding fats can cause malnutrition of vitamins and minerals that other parts of their diet would normally supply. Fat is important for skin health and the immune system so it can’t be missed from a daily diet and is a must for making sure you don’t over or underfeed fat.

4. Fruit and Vegetables

Fruit and Vegetables are the more optional part of the diet, while your Dog could live without them but they can also source some important macro-minerals such as Magnesium from leafy green vegetables, for example. If you decide to feed Vegetables it should make up approximately 30% of a daily diet.

Finally, don’t forget to give your Dog some variety! The food might be more palatable but your Dog can still get bored of eating the same food every day – even if it is healthier for them.

we recommend VOM complete, find out more about it at https://vomoghundemat.uk/

Team Shanklinpets

Spot-on flea treatment is normally applied to the back of your pets neck, this way the ingredients from the flea treatment can be absorbed into the skin without easy access for you pet. These usually last about a month, but can be different depending on the spot-on purchased.

Advantages and disadvantages:

Spot-on treatment costs less and lasts longer so can be great if you’re on a budget. It’ll also mean you won’t have to get a tablet down your pet’s throat, which to some owners will be a great relief.  Spot on treatment can also be applied any time of the month and only needs to be applied once every 4 weeks, compared to the every 2 weeks for tablets and is also quick to work and easy to apply.

Although it sounds like a winning product, spot on treatment takes a couple days to completely absorb so can be dangerous to children or other pets in the process and can cause skin sensitivities.

Some other examples of disadvantages to spot on treatment:

• Very dangerous if your pet ingests it
• Harmful to humans
• Has to be places in exactly the right position otherwise it won’t work or your pet will be able to lick and scratch at it
• Some treatments need your pets to be bather before and/or after treatment

Efficiency of spot on treatment

Flea spot on treatment is almost impossible to be completely efficient due to a couple of factors. The first hurdle is that the pipette is the perfect dose for an animal of that size, however you’ll never be able to completely get it all out making it inefficient. It’s almost like trying to get all the toothpaste out of a tube – virtually impossible. Also, if your pet gets wet within 48 hours of application the treatment can completely wash off. Treatment can also wash off partially if you wash your pet halfway through the course – even if it’s just a splash in the sea. For the treatment to work the most efficiently, be sure to follow the instructions as close as possible as instructions tend to vary on individual products and keep your pet dry for as long as possible.

varying spot-on flea treatments

Depending on where you buy your treatment will depend on how strong it’ll be and how quickly it’ll work, with vet prescriptions being the strongest and supermarkets being the weakest. It’s best to buy treatments on your local pet specialist’s advice as they’ll be able to sell you treatment that’ll best suit the type of animal you own, including the weight, and also recommend how many doses are needed per treatment.

Team Shanklinpets

The Fleas series pt. 1

What are fleas?

Fleas are flightless insects that live by consuming the blood of their hosts. Female fleas can consume about 15 times their body weight in blood every day. With an 8 inch vertical leap and a 3mm long body, fleas are both hard to catch and see and therefore can quickly become a problem.

The Flea Life Cycle

1. Mating occurs on host
2. Fleas lays 40-50 eggs a day
3. ‘Flea dirt’ drops off host onto environment
4. Larvae hatch from eggs
5. They then consume ‘Flea dirt’
6. Larvae go through 3 stages and then spin a silken cocoon
7. Pupal development begins, taking anywhere from 8 days to 30 weeks
8. Flea waits in place for a suitable host
9. They begin feeding immediately and excrete ‘Flea dirt’
10. Mating occurs on host

Average lifespan of a flea:

• Ideal conditions – 12 to 22 days
• Average conditions – 30 days
• Poor conditions – up to 1.5 years

Why are fleas a problem?

Besides causing severe discomfort including scratching, chewing, biting and restlessness, fleas can cause a number of serious problems such as Anemia and Tapeworm infections. As well as this, a common condition among cats and dogs is Flea Allergy Dermatitis (FAD), so it’s best to avoid fleas.

How to control your flea problem

• Consult your local pet specialist – they’ll quickly be able to spot if you have a flea problem and will be able to give you a subscription to strong and appropriate flea treatments
• Kill fleas on your dog/cat – getting rid of the fleas in your house is pointless if you still have fleas on your pet and vise versa, so it’s vital to rid all of them to stop the problem
• Eliminate fleas in your home – either by contacting professionals to rid your house of fleas or doing it yourself, it’s important to clean every surface and everything thing in your house as fleas will be hiding everywhere and anywhere
• Prevent future infestations – simply by taking tablets fortnightly or weekly in hotter periods, you can prevent another severe infestation

Team Shanklinpets