DEAR READERS: Pet food safety advocate Susan Thixton has been battling with pet food regulatory agencies for the past 10 years to try to improve pet food quality and safety through her websites truthaboutpetfood.com and associationfortruthinpetfood.com.

Each year, she puts out a list of pet foods that she trusts to feed her own pets as a fundraiser for her advocacy work. She just released her 2017 list. If you’d like to learn more about it, visit truthaboutpetfood.com/the-2017-list.

She writes: “Selecting a pet food should be just like selecting your own food. Pet owners should be able to depend (on the fact) that the image of roasted chicken or grilled steak on the label is used in the pet food. And pet owners should be able to read the ingredients and nutrient information on pet food, just like they do with their own food. Unfortunately, selecting your pet’s dinner is nothing like selecting your own dinner.

"Unlike with human food, the (Food and Drug Administration) allows pet food to violate law. The agency allows pet food to ‘recycle’ some highly inferior ingredients, everything from diseased animal material to rotting, molding foods -- with no warning to the pet owner.

"Truthaboutpetfood.com and associationfortruthinpetfood.com are dedicated to improving pet food quality and safety for the good of all, including those better manufacturers in the 2017 list.”

DEAR DR. FOX: I have a terminally ill 10-year-old female bouvier. She has inoperable osteochondrosarcoma on her skull.

I opted to do a course of palliative radiation treatment, which just ended. I am not confident that she is not experiencing pain, even though she is not exhibiting the classic signs (panting, pacing and not eating). She sleeps all day, but eats enthusiastically.

I have received very little information or guidance from our oncologist, and I do not know what to expect or whether she will be or is in pain. Any insight you can offer me to help make the end of her life as comfortable as possible would be very much appreciated. How do I know when the end should come? I do not want things to be dire for her. -- B.B., Madison, Virginia

DEAR B.B.: I am sorry that you and your poor dog have gone through this ordeal of bone cancer treatment. With your vet, discuss providing cannabis medication for your dog. For more information, and to purchase, visit cannaforpets.com.

I am sending you a short article with a quality of life assessment, which I will be posting on my website in the near future, and which you may wish to share with your veterinary oncologist, who should be providing you with some palliative or hospice care guidelines.

You can also go online and find a set of guidelines by Dr. Alice Villalobos at pawspice.com/q-of-l-care/new-page.html. Quality of life determinations are an essential part of caring for terminally ill animals and for others with various conditions. The veterinary profession is beginning to address quality of life in a systematic way, animal pain and suffering being difficult to objectively determine in many instances.

POSSIBLE THIAMINE INADEQUACY PROMPTS CAT FOOD RECALL

A number of 9Lives, EverPet and Special Kitty canned cat foods have been recalled because they may contain inadequate levels of thiamine. Over time, thiamine deficiency can develop in cats that do not consume enough of the vitamin, causing serious neurological issues.

Follow @AVMARecallWatch on Twitter to stay up to date on pet food recalls and alerts and, learn more on AVMA's website, avma.org.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox's website at DrFoxVet.net.)

DEAR READERS: Treating impulsively aggressive and fear-biting dogs takes expertise and expense. This can mean that animal shelters that are unable to deal with such dogs and with a “no-kill” prohibition on euthanasia may ship them from shelter to shelter to avoid euthanasia, putting handlers and veterinarians at risk, or adopt them out, putting the public at grave risk.

I found the following report unbelievable and would like to issue a call to action by all responsible parties:

From "Aggressive pets adopted out in quest to save animals’ lives: Has no-kill philosophy gone too far?" by Phyllis DeGioia for Veterinary Information Network:

"A man was mauled to death by a Rottweiler he'd adopted three hours earlier from the Jackson Madison Rabies Control shelter in Tennessee, local media reported last November. Anthony Riggs, 57, was said to be an experienced dog owner who had previously owned a Rottweiler, Doberman and wolf hybrid.”

The following letter by a man dedicated to trying to help such dogs is a warning to all well-intended animal rescuers and dog rehabilitators.

DEAR DR. FOX: Concerning some "no-kill" animal shelters adopting out dangerous dogs, I would like to share my experiences working in such a shelter.

I worked mainly with pit bulls, many being very adoptable, adorable and safe, but others with post-traumatic stress disorder, who needed rehabilitation, and a few who were unstable and dangerous.

I recently had to resign from the shelter where I was employed as director of dog behavioral evaluation (or director of rehabilitation) because of this sort of thing. I would assess a dog and deem it too aggressive for adoption and dangerous to shelter staff, but my supervisors would take no action until the dog had caused great bodily harm to my staff and friends.

It still happens to this day. I get phone calls all the time asking for guidance and insight into dogs who I would recommend for euthanasia based on potential aggression toward humans. For instance: Some sweet gal will try to walk a trained guard dog, only to be mauled violently. I'm not sure how to fix that situation, but I do know that "no-kill" shelters fall victim to the paradigm that human abuse and fear are the only root causes with every aggressive dog. I wish that were true. Unfortunately, many dogs learn to use aggression as a means of dominance with the staff. It's simple control.

Once again, dogs prove to be very much like humans in the personality spectrum. Almost all dogs are victims of our system, but some truly are criminal in mind. Though these dogs are extremely rare, I have seen them in my time as a trainer. I suspect that this Rottweiler was one of these. A dog has tried to kill me more than once. It is terrifying. -- P.S., St. Louis

DEAR P.S.: Bad breeding, bad rearing and handling and bad nutrition all contribute to the growing problem of our dogs becoming dangerous and injuring, even killing, us and our loved ones. Breeders must be more cognizant and screen to eliminate aggressive parent dogs and any whose pups later develop impulsive and uncontrollable aggression.

Researchers at the University of Zaragoza in Spain have found that blood serum levels of serotonin are lower in dogs aggressive toward humans, and especially in English cocker spaniels showing impulsive aggression, than in non-aggressive dogs; they also have higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

Puppy owners must teach proper care, socialization and basic obedience. Many dogs on the edge of being unstable and aggressive can benefit from a high-tryptophan diet, such as turkey, and supplements that increase brain serotonin, such as the product NutriCalm, which can be prescribed by vets. Over-the-counter options include Animal Health Options’ ProQuiet and PetzLife’s @-Eaze.

Research has also indicated that SSRI drugs improve the aggression problem in combination with behavior modification. There has been enough demand for Prozac for dogs that Eli Lilly has created a beef-flavored version of the medication.

The “bonding” hormone oxytocin and calming music may also facilitate the assessment and decision to euthanize or socialize these poor, disturbed dogs -- some with temperament-changing thyroid disease, painful old injury, human abuse and PTSD -- back to never behaving aggressively toward humans and other animals.

Regardless of no absolute guarantees and legal liability from owning a once-aggressive dog, all dogs with severe cases of impulsive aggression should be euthanized if there are no veterinary behavioral services available, rather than being permanently incarcerated in “no-kill” shelters, as I have witnessed, or adopted out, which is insanity. There are circumstances when the decision of euthanasia is a kindness, since these unstable dogs would otherwise be imprisoned for life.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox's website at DrFoxVet.net.)

DEAR DR. FOX: I was very surprised to see your mention of fragrant scent spots on dogs in your recent column. I have a 5-year-old miniature black and tan dachshund, and several years ago, my kids and I discovered a spot on her that we later came to describe as her "sweet spot." It is located on her breastbone. I can only describe it as a very subtle flowery smell, but I can't put a flower name to it. -- L.B.

DEAR DR. FOX: We rescued a blue brindle greyhound. She smelled like baby powder until the day she passed. There didn't seem to be any particular area on her body from which the smell emanated, but we loved to stick our noses in her soft, silky fur and breathe in her scent. Of course, the noseful of hair was a drawback. Subsequent greyhounds have remained scentless. -- G.C.

DEAR DR. FOX: Our German shepherd, spayed at an early age, had a very pleasant flowery smell on each cheek, like your new dog. It seemed to fade with age. I've had many dogs in my life, but she was the first female and the only one with the flowery smell, almost like a delicate perfume. -- B.E.

DEAR DR. FOX: We had a Scottish terrier who had that wonderful puppy smell on the very top of his head all the years he was alive. You know -- that wonderful scent that usually goes away early on. He kept it only on the top of his head. Lovely. -- R.W.

DEAR DR. FOX: I presently have shelter-adopted mutt mother dog Sunnie, and her son Danny. Danny smells like brown sugar. He is now 7 1/2, and the smell is a bit fainter, but still there, mainly along his neck but also a bit on his chest. No matter how long we go between baths, he never smells doggy. His mama smells feral. Not doggy -- feral. She has a faint musky odor; your nose has to be in her fur to notice it, but it's there. Too long between baths, and she will feel a bit oily.

And yes, they do have popcorn-smelling feet, too. My 12th birthday gift (oh so many decades ago) was Sandy, a basenji, and her stomach smelled like rosewater and her feet like popcorn. -- B.W.

DEAR RESPONDENTS: Thanks to you all for sharing about your dogs' scents. I can see some dogs feeling surprised, or thinking "it's about time!" for their human companions to really start sniffing them.

Our noses can give us rapture with certain aromas or alarm when another's familiar scent has changed, even making one want to vomit with the sensation of something going sour or rotting. Veterinarians and others caring for animals use their sense of smell as a diagnostic tool, just as dogs are now being employed after selective training to detect the presence of bladder and other cancers in humans, using their noses that are some 100 times more sensitive than ours.

SOME OF MY FAVORITE QUOTES

-- Founding father of ethology, the science of animal behavior, Dr. Konrad Lorenz: "Far from seeing in man the irrevocable and unsurpassable image of God, I assert (more modestly and, I believe, in greater awe of the Creation and its infinite possibilities) that the long-sought missing link between animals and the really humane being is ourselves!"

-- Ethologist Frans de Waal, Ph.D., has concluded: "The more self-aware an animal is, the more empathetic it tends to be."

-- Anthropologist Loren Eiseley wrote: "One does not meet oneself until one catches the reflection from an eye other than human."

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox's website at DrFoxVet.net.)