Usually, I can count on my dog, Otto, being one of the best-behaved and best-trained dogs in the pack when I go out for off-leash hikes with friends and their dogs. When we hike solo, I keep the walk lively by frequently asking him to do “trail agility” – jumping over logs, jumping up on boulders, and even running through culverts. I also frequently ask him to perform spontaneous recalls; he can expect to be asked to do one at any moment, and he enjoys the game. His recalls are impeccable. All of this solo training really pays off when we walk with friends and their dogs are all over the place.
However, we recently got completely shown up when hiking with a newer friend, another woman about my age who also volunteers a lot at our local shelter. She has two dogs, a sharp little blue Australian Cattle dog and a large yellow Lab, and she’s somehow managed to train them to perform a behavior I’m really jealous of.
It’s one of the several times a year that ticks are really bad here in Northern California, and Otto is often covered with them after one of our off-leash jaunts, as he loves to run ahead of us and criss-cross the trail, sniffing for birds and woods animals. I usually go over him quickly before putting him in the car after a walk, and then do a very thorough exam once we get home, looking for the tiny ticks and combing burs out of his fur.
My friend has another solution. She’s taught her dogs to stay on the trail even when they are off-leash and bounding ahead. I don’t know how she did it, but at the moment, I’m green with envy.
I’m comforting myself with the knowledge that Otto has a BLAST running back and forth across the trail, and leaping up and down embankments trailside . . . but I’m thinking on our next hike, I’m going to have to ask my friend exactly how she taught her dogs to refrain from stepping off the trail.
Have any of your friends trained their dogs to do something you are jealous of?
Last week on our Facebook page we posted links for Volkswagen’s two Super Bowl commercials featuring talented canine actors. Dogs are almost always popular in Super Bowl ads – but there are potential hazards to the advertiser if the dogs or their depictions are not handled with sensitivity. Last night, shoe makers Skechers premiered a commercial that featured Greyhound racing – not something most dog lovers want to see, even if it includes a comical and darling French Bulldog wearing tiny Skechers who wins the race, moonwalking across the finish line. Comedy or not, media reports say Skechers is taking heat about the racing Greyhounds.
From our view, the star of the night was Bud Light, for featuring a former shelter dog in a funny ad (the dog, ostensibly named Weego, fetches beer for anyone at a party who commands “Here, Weego!” – or happens to say “Here we go!”) – but also, for going one step further and promoting the practice of adopting rescue/shelter dogs. A link flashed at the end of the ad urges viewers to go to facebook.com/budlight, where information about the rescued canine actor is listed, and people are encouraged to “like” the page with this as the reward: for each “like,” Bud Light will donate $1 (up to $250,000) to Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation. Now that’s how you capture a dog lover’s attention and affection.
A year ago, the only pets in my house were Otto and my ancient cat, Shadow; she passed away last summer, in the middle of an invasion of new pets. A niece’s dog, a Chihuahua we call Tito has come to live with us indefinitely, and we kept the last two kittens of a litter we rescued from abandonment by a former neighbor. So, now there are two adolescent cats and two dogs fighting for petting and lap time.
It started out slowly. It used to be that Otto was the only one who wanted much physical affection. Shadow never liked being picked up, and was one of those cats who liked being near people more than being touched by them. Tito was very withdrawn and handshy when he first came here; he was uncomfortable being picked up and ducked away from petting – but now he craves petting and likes curling up in my lap as I watch TV or read. The kittens used to be more interested in playing than being petted. But as they’ve matured, they now demand face rubs and time in my lap, too.
The effect all of this competition for my affection on Otto? He now responds avidly to my calls to ANY animal in the house, or even just the tone of voice I might be using to address an animal. If I say, “Tito, sit!” — Otto comes running and plants himself between Tito and me, as if to say, “I know how to sit on cue!” If I call “Kittens!” — Otto comes running. And because he’s much bigger than the rest (who are all about 10 pounds) he stomps right up and puts his big head in my lap, wagging his tail in everyone else’s faces. It’s gotten extremely difficult to spend even a moment of time snuggling with any other animal without Otto asking for his share of attention and affection right then.
I try to give him plenty of “just us” time – and strive to frequently call his name and reinforce his quick response with lots of attention. I also try to spend some of my time petting the cats when they are inside and Otto is outside, or vice versa. And I try to not reinforce him with attention when he pushes in for attention that I’m trying to give another pet; I try to just ignore him at that moment, and later, give him individual attention. But frankly, I also find myself saying, “Otto, get back! Otto, off!” more than I should – like when I’m just trying to bend down to pick up a cat or snap the leash onto Tito’s collar.
I’m pretty sure it’s just a phase, and it will pass. But I’m curious: What do you do with a jealous pet?
A crate, or, in other words, short-term close confinement, can be used to help dogs teach themselves two very important skills. The first is eliminating only when and where it is appropriate. The second skill is keeping out of trouble – behaving appropriately in the house. Without these two skills, a dog doesn’t have much of a chance in this world.
When your dog will stay in the crate with the door closed for at least 10 seconds without any signs of anxiety, close the door, latch it, and take one step away from the crate. Click!, return to the crate, reward, and open the door. Repeat this step, varying the time and distance you leave the crate.
For more details and advice on crate training, purchase Whole Dog Journal’s ebook, Crate Training Made Easy.
There’s a common misconception that dogs jump on people to establish dominance. Balderdash! Dogs jump on people because there’s something about jumping that is reinforcing for the dog – usually the human attention that results from the jumping. If you want your dog to stop jumping on people, you have to be sure he doesn’t get reinforced for it. During the training process, your dog is certain jump. If he does:
Apologize/take responsibility. It’s your job to prevent your dog from jumping on people, even when they say they don’t mind. If your management efforts fail and your dog does jump up, apologize.
If in the process of jumping up he puts muddy pawprints on a business suit, snags a pair of nylons, knocks down a small child, or otherwise does some kind of property damage – even if the damage is minor – be responsible and make amends: pay for the cleaning bill, purchase a new pair of nylons, buy the child an ice cream cone, or do whatever you need to do to repair the damage. Then redouble your training and management efforts.
I can’t complain in any way about the rain. We’ve had a freakishly dry winter so far; the last rain we had, until just a few days ago, was around Thanksgiving. But it’s pouring now and has been, on and off for a few days. Which impacts the dogs’ daily plans and our exercise schedules.
My dogs are used to spending anywhere from two to five or so hours outside during the day (ever since Tito the Chihuahua moved in with us, and Tito sleeps indoors, Otto has decided that sleeping indoors every night is for him, too). They patrol for stray cats and UPS drivers, they investigate all alarms sounded by the neighbor dogs and our three hens, they keep a sharp eye peeled for their friend Max, who walks by with his owners once or twice a day and visits through the fence, they doze in the sun (if there is any), and they accompany my husband on his travels from our back door to the door to his office, about 40 feet away. Back and forth, for coffee, bathroom breaks, whatever. On some days, they accompany me two blocks away to my new office, and then patrol the yard at that address for the even more abundant stray cats. Big fun.
At this point, with two well-behaved, well-adjusted adult dogs, I usually take them for two or three off-leash walks a week. The rest of the week, they make do with their outdoor time, the short walk to my office, and whatever spontaneous “chase the ball” or tug of war sessions may break out during my breaks from the computer.
The rain cancels ALL that fun; they want to be indoors when it’s wet, and I can’t blame them. But the boredom brought on by all the cancelled events means there is an even higher expectation and need for a really good off-leash run — which means I’m going to have to get wet. And they are going to get wet. And my car (or at least, the seat cover on the back seat) is going to get wet. And we’re all going to smell like wet dogs. And I’m going to have to wash an extra load of laundry every other day, just for the towels.
They don’t mind taking a walk or run in the rain, fortunately. (I hate the anticipation of being wet and cold; once I’m dressed for the rain and actually out there on a trail with them, I don’t mind it a bit.) I’ve known other dogs who have to be forced to walk in the rain, who trail along sulkily and are reluctant to go potty outdoors in bad weather.
If I don’t manage to take them for a good long run in the rain, they get drawn into way more squabbles with the adolescent cats, there are far more things that require alarm barking and investigation than usual, there are far more balls dropped on our feet and noses nudged under our elbows . . . no one gets to work hard and solidly until the dogs get their rainy run. Which means I need to go suit up now!
How does the winter weather affect your dog’s life? What accommodations do you make for rain or snow?
How does your dog react to the rain or snow that this season drops on our heads? Some dogs thrive on it while others refuse to go outside. We would love to hear about your pup!
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Dog food manufacturers are supposed to list specific names for each ingredient in their formulations. Each food, vitamin, mineral, or other chemical (preservative, color, flavor, binder, etc.) that has been approved for use in a dog food is supposed to be listed in a certain way on the product’s ingredient list. There are formal descriptions of each ingredient – and all of these are listed in the annual “Official Publication of the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO)”.
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However, we’ve noticed that some companies get a little liberal with their ingredient lists; they add a few enticing adjectives to make their ingredients sound even better than (perhaps) they are. Some of the ones we saw when we were typing in the first 10 ingredients of the highlighted products on our 2012 “approved dry dog foods” list:
Red Delicious Apples = apples Sun-Dried Alfalfa Meal = alfalfa meal Whole Ground Brown Rice = brown rice
Of course, the adjectives listed above make no difference to your dog at all. The embellishments are there to appeal to you, the consumer.
If a company leans out too far and actually makes the ingredient sound like something it’s just not, a state feed control official can issue a warning, or even order the product off the shelf until the company takes steps to remedy the label.
A few other adjectives do actually possess some legal significance:
Boneless, Deboned = These words, each with its own definition, indicate an animal protein product with less bone than if the adjective were not used. Most of the “meats” used in pet food actually contain quite a lot of bone, along with skin, fat, connective tissue, and muscle meat. If the ingredient specifies “boneless” or “deboned,” it obviously contains more meat than one that does not include this modifier. “Boneless” is defined as “the flesh resulting from removal of bones from accompanying flesh by means of knife separation.” “Deboned” is defined as “the flesh resulting from removal of bones from accompanying flesh by means of mechanical deboning.” Human-held knives, presumably, can remove more bone from flesh than machines can.
Natural = Here is the actual AAFCO definition of this word: “A feed or ingredient derived solely from plant, animal, or mined sources, either in its unprocessed state or having been subject to physical processing, heat processing, rendering, purification, extraction, hydrolysis, enzymolysis, or fermentation, but not having been produced by or subject to a chemically synthetic process and not containing any additives r processing aids that are chemically synthetic except in amounts as might occur unavoidably in good manufacturing practices.”
Organic = Must be certified as such by a third-party audit.
In every one of Whole Dog Journal’s canned and dry dog food reviews, we tell you how to identify the hallmarks of a top dry dog food as well as the attributes of a low-quality food. In “Whole Dog Journal’s 2012 Dry Dog Food Review,” we tell you what specific parts of the dog food label you need to scrutinize to make sure the product is a high-quality, “complete and balanced” diet. We also list some 48 companies that make, between them, hundreds of foods that meet all of our selection criteria for a top-quality dry dog food; those products are listed, each with a highlighted example, in the February issue.
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Now it’s time to look at the label of the food you’ve already been feeding to your dog. How does it compare to a top dry dog food?
If you bought your dog’s food at a grocery store or a big box store, or it was one of the lowest-cost foods you were able to find, it will probably compare very poorly to the foods on our “top dry dog foods” list.
Now take a good long look at your dog. Is she the quintessential “picture of health”? Lean, fit, mentally sharp, with a glossy coat, clear eyes, and a reasonably pleasant odor? Are her poops medium-firm, neither rock hard nor gloppy piles of goop? If not – if she’s fat or too-thin, her coat is a smelly, greasy, or patchy mess, and she’s prone to itching, sores, incessant self-grooming, weepy eyes, endless farting, constipation or diarrhea, you need to choose a new food! All of these are unhealthy conditions that will improve with a better diet.
You can use the information in the “2012 Dry Dog Food Review” for tips on what you should look for in an improved diet for your dog – or look out for, in the case of undesirable attributes. (You could also use our list of “approved foods” as a reliable source of good candidates for improving your dog’s health.)
Once you know how to identify a top dry dog food, it’s important to choose the right good food for your indi-vidual dog. Dogs, like us, are individuals; what works for your overweight Labrador will not be appropriate for my high-energy hunting dog. Your dog may have an allergy or be unable to tolerate a certain ingredient or even several ingredients. The point is, you shouldn’t buy just any good food; your purchase should be customized to your individual dog’s needs. The following are some conditions that require a particular rationale for your purchase:
-If your dog is overweight, you may not want to switch to a grain-free food that contains (at least) 30 percent fat! Instead, it would make more sense to look for a food with a higher protein content (but not high in fat) than the one you currently feed. The goal is to replace carbs with protein, without increasing fat. Though pet food makers are not required to list the caloric content of their foods, many of them report this information voluntarily, and this can help you determine whether you might need to feed more or less of a particular food.
-If your dog is itchy, look for a limited ingredient food (a single protein and a single carb source, preferably not a grain) that contains none of the ingredients that his current food contains.
-If your dog is too thin, look for a food with a higher fat content, particularly if the food you’re feeding now is low in fat.
-If your dog seems to be losing condition as she ages, look for a food with more protein and higher-quality protein sources than the one she’s eating (chicken and/or chicken meal, rather than chicken by-product meal or corn/corn gluten).
-If your dog is having digestive problems, try foods with less fat, a different protein source, or no grains, de-pending on what works for your dog.
-If your dog is a couch potato, don’t feed high-fat foods.
-If your dog acts hungry all the time, look for a food with higher fat content (and maybe more protein as well).
-If your dog is a picky eater, try rotating foods more often, and offer foods with different protein sources to see which are most appealing.
Adjust As Necessary You may have been told that it’s bad to switch foods, or you may have had a bad experience when your dog ate something different and unauthorized (by you) and erupted in gas or diarrhea. With most dogs, the more you change foods, the more robust and capable their digestion becomes. When fed a limited diet, the breadth of their production of digestive enzymes and the variety of the bacteria in their guts are reduced. You can speed the adjustment by adding digestive enzymes, probiotic, and prebiotic supplements, to help the gut recolonize itself with digestion-aiding agents.
Then, watch your dog! Let her tell you how the new food works for her. Keep track of what you’ve tried, so you can continue to make adjustments and big improvements in your dog’s diet – and, we hope, huge improvements in her physical condition, mental acuity, and overall energy level.
1. Lots of animal protein at the top of the ingredients list
Ingredients are listed by weight, so you want to see a lot of top quality animal protein at the top of the list; the first ingredient should be a “named” animal protein source (see next bullet).
2. A named animal protein
Chicken, beef, lamb, and so on. “Meat” is an example of a low-quality protein source of dubious origin. Animal protein “meals” should also be from named species (look for “beef meal” but avoid “meat meal”).
3. An animal protein meal in a supporting role when a fresh meat is first on the ingredient list
This is to augment the total animal protein in the diet. Fresh (or frozen) meat contains a lot of water, and water is heavy, so if a fresh meat is first on the list, another source of animal protein should be listed in the top three or so ingredients. Fresh or frozen meats do not contain enough protein to be used as the sole animal protein source in a dry food; they contain as much as 65 to 75 percent water and only 15 to 25 percent protein. In contrast, animal protein “meals” – meat, bone, skin, and connective tissue that’s been rendered and dried – contain only about 10 percent moisture, and as much as 65 percent protein.
4. Whole vegetables, fruits, and grains
Fresh, unprocessed food ingredients contain nutrients in all their natural, complex glory, with their fragile vitamins, enzymes, and antioxidants intact. Don’t be alarmed by one or two food “fractions” (a by-product or part of an ingredient, like tomato pomace or rice bran), especially if they are low on the ingredients list. But it’s less than ideal if there are several fractions present in the food, and/or they appear high on the ingredients list.
5. A “best by” date that’s at least six months away
A best by date that’s 10 or 11 months away is ideal; it means the food was made very recently. Note: Foods made with synthetic preservatives (BHA, BHT, ethoxyquin) may have a “best by” date that is as much as two years past the date of manufacture.
What You Don’t Want to Buy:
– Meat by-products or poultry by-products
Higher-value ingredients are processed and stored more carefully (kept clean and cold) than lower-cost ingredients (such as by-products) by the processors.
– A “generic” fat source
Such as “animal fat.” This can literally be any fat of animal origin, including used restaurant grease and fats derived from roadkill. “Poultry” fat is not quite as suspect as “animal fat,” but “chicken fat” or “duck fat” is better (and traceable).
– Added sweeteners
Dogs, like humans, enjoy the taste of sweet foods. Sweeteners effectively persuade many dogs to eat foods comprised mainly of grain fragments (and containing little healthy animal protein).
– Artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives (i.e., BHA, BHT, ethoxyquin)
The color of the food doesn’t matter to your dog. And it should be flavored well enough to be enticing with healthy meats and fats. Natural preservatives, such as tocopherols (forms of vitamin E), vitamin C, and rosemary extract, can be used instead. Note that natural preservatives do not preserve foods as long as artificial preservatives, so owners should always check the “best by” date on the label and look for relatively fresh products.
When you think about it, most of us dog owners do it all backward: We get a dog, and we feed him whatever he came with, or whatever we can find to feed him that day. And then we tend to keep feeding him that same food. Only later – perhaps after he’s developed some health issues, such as incessant itching and scratching, recurrent ear infections, or dramatic weight gain or loss – do we start to think about what we should feed him.
Don’t worry if this describes you; you have to start somewhere. But once you realize that you ought to steer the ship of your dog’s vibrant good health, instead of towing it off the rocks every so often, you need to know which is the best direction to start looking toward. High-protein? Grain-free? Small breed? Senior dog?
The absolute first step you should take should be across the threshold of the best-stocked independent pet supply store you can find. If there are none in your area, the next-best option would be a chain pet specialty store such as Petco or PetSmart. You need to be able to look at a lot of dog food bags – and not just the pretty pictures on the front. Bring your reading glasses, because you need to read the fine print on the backs, sides, and even the bottoms of some bags. You’ll be focusing on the parts of the bags that are required by law – the most informative parts. We’ll describe them below, and tell you what to look for.
-Ingredients panel. All the ingredients that are present in the food are required to be listed in this panel. If there is something in the food that’s not on the label, there are supposed to be serious consequences for the company whose name is on the label. (However, surveillance, testing, and enforcement varies widely from state to state. Sigh.)
The ingredients of the food are listed in order of the total percentage of their weight as they entered the giant mixing bowls at the dog food factory. So, there is more of the first ingredient on the list in the bag than anything else, right? Right – with one important exception. Fresh meats, such as chicken, pork, fish, etc., contain a lot of moisture, which is relatively heavy. The water in that meat will evaporate out of the food in the cooking and drying process. What’s left in the finished product may not be present in the highest amount of all the ingredients.
That’s why most companies who include fresh meats in their formulations also include a meat “meal” – a grainy powder made from meat (and bone, skin, fat, and connective tissue) through a process called “rendering.” For example, chicken meal is mostly made from chicken “frames,” the carcass of the chicken without the head, feathers, feet, guts, and most of the big pieces of meat (these are mostly stripped off for human consumption). The frames get ground into a pulp, and then the mass is cooked in giant vats, with most of the fat getting skimmed off and the rest getting heated until most of the moisture in the product evaporates. The result is ground again for a consistent powdery, grainy texture: chicken meal!
Fresh meat generally contains about 15 to 25 percent protein, and about 65 to 75 percent water. Meat meals contain only about 10 percent water, with about 65 to 70 percent protein. The inclusion of fresh meat really increases the dog food’s palatability – but to get the food’s total protein levels high enough, the formula is generally bolstered by, ideally a “named” meat meal (see sidebar, page 5) or another protein source.
-Guaranteed analysis. In this section of the label, you’ll find values indicating – roughly – the amount of protein, fat, fiber, and moisture in the food. Why “roughly”? Because the amounts listed for protein and fat are minimum values; the amounts listed for fiber and moisture are maximum values. The protein and fat levels may be higher than what is listed on the label – and we’ve found that in many “premium” foods, the levels are much higher. The fiber and moisture levels, in contrast, are usually close to the guaranteed amounts.
-“Best by” date/code. We also recommend looking for the stamped or printed code that tells you when the food should be purchased by. Fresher food is better; fats go rancid over time and many vitamins start to lose their punch.
Ideally, the code also includes the date of the food’s manufacture, so you know exactly how long it has been formulated to last. Naturally preserved foods don’t last as long as foods that contain artificial preservatives. Most companies that use natural preservatives indicate that the products are best if used within a year of manufacture, although we’ve seen some with “best by” dates that were 18 months later than the date of manufacture. We wouldn’t knowingly buy and feed foods that were close to their best by dates.
-AAFCO statement. If a food has met its state’s requirements as a “complete and balanced” diet, it is re-quired to say so on the label. (For more information about the various methods that a food maker can use to get its foods to qualify for this statement, see “Whole Dog Journal’s 2007 Dry Dog Food Review,” WDJ February 2007.) AAFCO stands for the Association of American Feed Control Officials, and its suggested standards are the basis for formulating a “complete and balanced” diet for puppies, breeding dogs, and the maintenance of adult dogs. If the diet is not complete and balanced, it might be labeled as suggested for “intermittent or sup-plemental feeding.”
-Contact information for the pet food company. It shouldn’t be difficult to reach a human being when you have a concern about your dog’s food. Food labels are required to include the company’s name and location; including a toll-free number and website address ought to be another requirement. Of course, there should also be an informed person at the other end of the phone. It’s no use if you can only leave messages for a company, and no one ever calls back.
Assess and Compare Now it’s time to go home and look at the label of the food you’ve been feeding to your dog. Note the in-gredients, and the protein and fat levels in the food. How do they compare to the foods you saw at the pet supply store? (If you want to have some real fun, check out the labels on foods in grocery stores and espe-cially the lowest-cost foods at big box stores. What a contrast, yes? The stuff in these locations barely re-sembles food, once you know what real foods look like.)
Now take a good long look at your dog. Is she the quintessential “picture of health”? Lean, fit, mentally sharp, with a glossy coat, clear eyes, and a reasonably pleasant odor? Are her poops medium-firm, neither rock hard nor gloppy piles of goop? If not – if she’s fat or too-thin, her coat is a smelly, greasy, or patchy mess, and she’s prone to itching, sores, incessant self-grooming, weepy eyes, endless farting, constipation or diarrhea, you need to choose a new food!
Use the information on the right for hints about what you should look for – or look out for, in the case of undesirable attributes.
We’ve used the same information to assess the product lines of all the 48 companies, representing hun-dreds of different dry dog foods, that appear on our “approved dry dog foods” list, beginning on page 6. All of the products listed there meet our basic selection criteria for top-quality foods, and could potentially form a list of good products that you could try for your dog.
Please note that the products are NOT rated or ranked; they are listed alphabetically by company. So, for example, if you are looking for Origen, look under its maker, Champion Pet Foods.
Don’t choose a new food for your dog just because you like the look of the bag. You should have some rationale for your purchase. For example:
-If your dog is overweight, for example, you may not want to switch to a grain-free food that contains (at least) 30 percent fat! Instead, it would make more sense to look for a food with a higher protein content (but not high in fat) than the one you currently feed. The goal is to replace carbs with protein, without increasing fat. Though pet food makers are not required to list the caloric content of their foods, many of them report this information voluntarily, and this can help you determine whether you might need to feed more or less of a particular food.
-If your dog is itchy, look for a limited ingredient food (a single protein and a single carb source, preferably not a grain) that contains none of the ingredients that his current food contains.
-If your dog is too thin, look for a food with a higher fat content, particularly if the food you’re feeding now is low in fat.
-If your dog seems to be losing condition as she ages, look for a food with more protein and higher-quality protein sources than the one she’s eating (chicken and/or chicken meal, rather than chicken by-product meal or corn/corn gluten).
-If your dog is having digestive problems, try foods with less fat, a different protein source, or no grains, de-pending on what works for your dog.
-If your dog is a couch potato, don’t feed high-fat foods.
-If your dog acts hungry all the time, look for a food with higher fat content (and maybe more protein as well).
-If your dog is a picky eater, try rotating foods more often, and offer foods with different protein sources to see which are most appealing.
Adjust as Necessary You may have been told that it’s bad to switch foods, or you may have had a bad experience when your dog ate something different and unauthorized (by you) and erupted in gas or diarrhea. With most dogs, the more you change foods, the more robust and capable their digestion becomes. When fed a limited diet, the breadth of their production of digestive enzymes and the variety of the bacteria in their guts are reduced. You can speed the adjustment by adding digestive enzymes, probiotic, and prebiotic supplements, to help the gut recolonize itself with digestion-aiding agents.
Then, watch your dog! Let her tell you how the new food works for her. Keep track of what you’ve tried, so you can continue to make adjustments and big improvements in your dog’s diet – and, we hope, huge improvements in her physical condition, mental acuity, and overall energy level.
Thanks to the companies who sent samples for WDJ’s annual dry dog food review.
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Since 1998, the Whole Dog Journal has published a review of dry dog food in its February issue. This timing causes some difficulties, as I need to receive samples and literature about pet food companies and their products during the holiday season in order to complete the review in time to be printed in the February issue. Lots of company employees take annual vacations at this time, and they or their replacements are difficult to reach. Shipments get delayed, lost, or the request for them gets buried beneath a sea of “real” orders. The holidays themselves meant that shipping companies were closed on certain days.
I wish I could change the timing of the review, but it’s in my publisher’s hands. In the past, I’ve solicited the samples sooner – but then I’m literally tripping on bags of dog food in my home and office for weeks and weeks. I’ve also tried soliciting them sooner and, as they came in, examined, photographed, and donated them to my local shelter – but every time I’ve done that, I’ve found myself wishing I had the label to look at one more time after I’ve sent the bag away. It actually got to the point where I discouraged companies from sending samples; instead, I learned all I could about each company’s products from its website, the literature it sent me, and answers to the questions I sent them.
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But this year, I was determined to do better. It really does help me get a sense of what a company is all about to see its actual packaging. The amount of nutrients on its guaranteed analysis, the location and prominence of its “best by” date, the label claims and descriptions of its ingredients – it’s all very revealing.
Plus, this year, as a member of the Board of Directors of my local shelter (the Northwest SPCA in Oroville, CA) and frequent volunteer there, I’m acutely aware of how scarce donations have been this past year – and how many more dogs (and cats) have been surrendered to the shelter by their owners than in an average year. I donate all of the samples that I receive to the shelter – to Otto’s and my husband’s dismay. (Otto would like to “try” everything that comes in; he loves smelling the packages that arrive. My husband doesn’t fully understand why I continue to buy dog food when so much arrives “for free!”) I was determined to make this a banner year for both the food review and donations to the shelter.
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In the letter I sent to each company whose products are on WDJ’s “approved foods” list (asking for updated information about their products and manufacturing), I explained that every sample they could send would be donated to the NWSPCA – and that while larger donations wouldn’t get them a better review, they could at least rest assured that the food would do a lot of good. The NWSPCA serves the city of Oroville (where I live) as well as all of the unincorporated areas in Butte County, which is one of the poorest in California (per capita).
This year, I hired an assistant to help me shepherd the samples — from all the companies on WDJ’s “approved” foods list, through the holidays, into the editorial office, and back out of the office and into the Northwest SPCA. With her help, and the generosity of the companies on our “approved foods” list, we collected 1,100 pounds of pet food (some companies sent samples of their cat foods, too!) for the shelter. It was enough food to require the shelter to make two trips to pick up all the food.
Our thanks, and thanks from the NWSPCA, to all of the companies that sent samples for our review.
I recently fostered a dog who first greeted me at the shelter that I sprung her from by jumping up on me. I spent the first two days with her almost exclusively working on preventing her from jumping. When I introduced her to a friend, my friend immediately held her arms out and greeted the dog’s enthusiastic jump up with a big hug, petting, and cooing
