Buffalo may seem like a bit of an unusual protein to feed your dog, but it’s a good choice! High in protein, low in fat and loaded with iron, Buffalo is a true nutritional powerhouse. In Australia, buffalo is sustainably wild sourced from NT, so it’s an excellent ethical protein for dogs with food sensitivities and allergies.

Before we jump into how buffalo can help your itchy-scratchy dog, let’s take a quick look at why buffalo is so wonderfully sustainable in Australia.

BUFFALO IN AUSTRALIA

A grand total of 80 buffalo were introduced to Australia between 1825 and 1843 in order to provide meat to remote communities. The settlements that the buffalo supported were abandoned in the mid-1900’s, ultimately resulting in their population exploding. The buffalo have since colonised the swamps and springs across the Top End of the Northern Territory and Queensland in huge numbers.

As of 2019 there are at least 161,250 buffalo roaming wild across the Top End of Australia, and that number is growing by around 27,000 a year.

This large population of feral buffalo are an environmental catastrophe. Their movements cause soil erosion and the channelling of floodwaters across the Top End. It’s these “swim channels” that are the problem, as they result in salt water being injected into freshwater wetlands. Many plants and animals do not tolerate salt water, so this intrusion kills natives like crocodiles, barramundi, turtles and birds.

The only viable solution is to cull the buffalo population in as humane a way as possible. This is why buffalo is such a great sustainable choice in Australia - they need to be culled for environmental reasons, so there is quality protein readily available. We are very happy to put the meat to good use for your dog!

Buffalo also grow twice as fast as cows while emitting less methane. And growing up to a whopping 1.2 tonnes in size, the high yield per animal make buffalo meat an ethical choice as well.

Whoa Nelly! is all about making the best environmentally conscious choices possible, so using wild buffalo dovetails perfectly with our mission to be an ethical and sustainable dog food producer.

Which leads to the next question: how can feeding buffalo help food allergic or sensitive dogs?

BUFFALO FOR FOOD ALLERGY DOGS

A food allergy or sensitivity is an immune reaction the body mounts in response to a specific protein in the diet. This happens when your dog misidentifies a protein as a harmful invader instead of food. This immune reaction manifests as intense itchy skin and redness that is a misery to dogs and their humans alike.

The solution to this problem is to feed food which does not trigger the immune response. These foods are called “novel proteins” as they have not been fed to your dog before. Because your dog has never encountered the protein before it does not misidentify it, which means there’s less inflammation, redness and scratching.

INTRODUCING… BUFFALO & FISH

We have just launched our new Buffalo & Fish recipe, specifically to help dogs with food allergies and sensitivities. It combines wonderful wild buffalo with anti-inflammatory fish (sustainably sourced salmon) to try to remove immune issues at their root cause. It also contains organic spirulina and local raw honey to help alleviate the itching and scratching.

We ran a trail with the recipe for several months and had amazing feedback. We are very excited to have it as a part of our regular line-up of recipes and hope that it makes a massive difference for the allergic dogs of Brisbane and Sunshine Coast.