Have you noticed there鈥檚 a lot more Canadian flags around? Everyone鈥檚 talking about 鈥淢ade in Canada鈥� and 鈥淧roduct of Canada.鈥�

I鈥檓 Clancy the golden retriever and I live next door to Pet Treat Bakery, where the delicious all natural pet treats are made by the folks at Beaufort Association for Inclusion (BAI). BAI operates day programs for adults with developmental disabilities and everyone who works at Pet Treat Bakery has a diverse ability.

I was hanging around the other day smelling the great smells of a pet treat processing facility when I overheard Tony the Pet Treat Bakery manager talking about packaging labels. I didn鈥檛 know labels were such a big deal. But with everyone wanting to buy Canadian and fly their flags it is important to read the labels.

Did you know that the difference between "Made in Canada" and "Product of Canada" claims means that "Product of Canada" is at least 98% all Canadian. "Made in Canada" ingredients, processing, and labor is 51% Canadian.

Tony had the Pet Treat Bakery labels redone to make sure that they are always being 100% truthful about where the meat comes from. Now that all the big stores and lots of people are wanting Canadian products, there is sometimes a shortage of grown in Canada meat. In those cases, they鈥檒l make sure they put the right label on so that you know where the beef is coming from.

They鈥檝e also added a bar code that pet stores like Woofies and Bosley鈥檚 are happy about, so their staff don鈥檛 have to make up their own. It has something to do with computers and product scanning that us dogs don鈥檛 care about.

And the new labels have French on them. That鈥檚 great for all the good French speaking people around but for us dogs, all I know is I want my meat to be meat for my special dog treats.

So, when you鈥檙e out shopping locally, remember to read the labels because it鈥檚 important to buy Canadian whenever you can.