WELCOME TO MY FIRST POST OF 2010!!
Wave your fingers in Wayne's World fashion and let's get back to 1999 OR you can plug your DeLorean into the flux capacitator and get it up 88mph to generate 1.21 gigawatts of electricity, whichever method you prefer ...
As any good dog owner would do, we signed up Alexis for obedience classes toot-sweet as soon as her breeder, now trainer, would take her...around 4 months old. So that takes us back to around July 1999. Ahhh the 90's, i remember them well.
Trainings were held in the basement of some big old church by the Bristol County Dog Training Club of New Bedford which Alexis' breeder was part of. Our first training class was just that; a class. All the dog owners sat in chairs with the trainer at the front of the group, kinda like first grade. Hindsight being 20/20 i think this was nothing more than an opportunity for the trainer to weed out the idiots from the half wits and the geniuses. I ain't gonna brag here...i was one of the idiots but at least I knew to keep my mouth shut. One of the topics we discussed was pet nutrition, which by the way was a turning point for me in biblical proportions when it comes to edumckating dog owners about what's in their pets food. I owe the entire life of my dogs to this class and this trainer! One of the first questions she asked was "is it ok to feed dogs raw meat?" I didn't really know the answer so Tar-baby just sat thar ain't sayin nothing! But someone yelled out "no, because it gives them a taste for blood and they'll want to kill." Holy crap were we in the werewolf class or something?? Did i make a wrong turn somewhere in the Whaling City? But in amazement, alot of people agreed..."mm-mm that's right." It was probably all the trainer could do to contain herself and keep from goin all Jackie Chan on that guy but I have a feeling she'd heard it before so for now, his life was spared.
Our trainer was not much of a preacher; she relied more on the power of suggestion. She suggested we all go home and do an internet search on "pet nutrition" and she told us we would be amazed and horrified at what we found. (This was LONG before the days of "google it" ... how did we ever survive!?) That's all she said; that was our homework assignment. No clues, no hints, no indications as to what exactly we were looking for or what we were supposed to find in this Sherlock Holmes-esque assignment. I suppose the people who really cared about their dogs went home and researched it on their big clunky hard wired computers with dial-up internet. The ones who didn't care, well, their dogs have probably left this earth from the various ramifications of poor pet nutrition. NOT ME!! As you all know, Alexis is still here, healthy as a horse, strong as an ox, alive and well, thinking she's 5 years old instead of nearly 11. What did I find out about pet nutrition on the internet, you ask? Dare I leave you in suspense and make you do the very homework assignment I was given some 10 years ago to find your own answers? That would be cruel...and besides I love to hear myself "write." What I found was that the brands of food you buy in the supermarket and many retailers are downright inferior and dangerous; many of the ingredients used are killing our pets! The commercial pet food industry is a sub-industry of the human food/agricultural industry. Anything unfit for human consumption at slaughterhouses such as waste & grain remnants that end up on the floor ends up in our pet food. I bet you never really thought about that did you? Whats worse than that is useless and dangerous, indigestible ingredients are used as fillers in pet food so that these large corporations can save a buck! Whats even double-dog-dare-ya worse than that is research has shown that euthanized animals have been used in pet food. Have I got your attention now? As an answer to sub-standard pet food, premium brands were created by veterinarians, breeders, etc. and use only top grade, species appropriate ingredients that are fit for human consumption. (But beware; some self-promoting premiums are anything but!)
I now give this research homework assignment to every new customer that passes through my door and any one I know with a dog. I tell them to google "pet nutrition" and see what you find. Of course I help my customers along by giving them a printout of my "Pet Nutrition; It Can't Be Found In The Supermarket" article that appeared in two issues of The Pet Gazette last year, which has a mini analysis of the most popular brands of dog food and shows you how to decipher the ingredients list on your package. You can see the entire article at www.dedicated2dogs.com/petnutrition
Pet nutrition has become my soapbox (anything to make me taller, right?) I believe that what you feed your dog is the single most important decision you have to make when it comes to the physical health of your pet. Education is power; don't just take the word of me, your veterinarian or anyone else what to feed your pet. Do the research yourself. Our pets rely on us to take care of them. Pet ownership is a huge commitment that should not be taken lightly. What you feed them should not be taken lightly either. Although many will eat anything, Dogs are not garbage disposals. Dogs (and cats for that matter) are carnivores (meat eaters) and simply lack certain enzymes to digest and process many of the foods we eat such as grains and plant based materials. You can see by their TV commercials taunting us with yummy vegetables and stew-like foods that many of these corporate, commercial brands are trying to fool us into believing that dogs and cats are omnivores like us (meat AND plant eaters). They are not! It's important to make yourself aware of those ingredients and avoid them or I promise you, you are shortening the life of your pet!
Ok I'm stepping off my soapbox now before my head pops off. After you read this blog and my Pet Nutrition page you will be wiser....Use your power for good, not evil! May the force be with you. WOOF!
