As I mentioned yesterday, I'm doing a series of posts dedicated to the diets of my pets.  I'm starting today with the dogs. This will be a long post.

The foods: Grandma Mae's Country Naturals and Taste of the Wild

The little dogs, Ricky (Chihuahua), Maggie (Miniature Schnauzer), and Ellie (Cockapoo), eat a dog food called Grandma Mae's Country Naturals. When we got Ricky, this is what he was already eating. At the time, we were trying to find a food that Ellie could eat without getting sick. Ellie has several food allergies or intolerances, and it has been a challenge to find a food she could eat. So, when we got Ricky, we decided to try this food for Ellie too. It worked. Ellie doesn't get sick with this food.

There are several things I like about this food. I like that it comes from a small company. I like that they don't use cheap ingredients like corn, animal by-products, or artificial colours or flavours. The food also has no preservatives. I like that the first two ingredients are meat ingredients.

There are a couple of things about it that I don't like. I don't like that the food has garlic in it, even though it is the 20th item on the ingredient list and there is very little in the food. I also don't like the meat to grains ratio. It has mostly healthy grains in it, and Ellie doesn't do well on a completely grain free diet, so I overlook the fact it has more grains than I'd like. I'm also not sure about the sodium selenite that's in it. I'm still researching that.

Overall, I like Country Naturals. It's not the best dog food in the world, but the dogs do well on it, so for now, this is the food they're getting. 

The big dogs, Bella and Jax (both German Shepherds), get Taste of the Wild. They get all of the different dry dog food variations. They have both done great on this food. We tried Ellie on this before we got Ricky, and she did okay for a couple of weeks and then started getting sick. The little dogs occasionally get Taste of the Wild if we feel like giving them something different. Ellie is fine with getting this food only sometimes. Like Country Naturals, Taste of the Wild has things that I like and things that I don't like.

I like that the first (on average) three ingredients are meats. I like that they use meats other than the typical dog food meats. Depending on the formula, the meats include bison, lamb, chicken, duck, quail, turkey, venison, salmon, and "ocean fish" (I wonder what fish that is...). Every formula, with the exception of Pacific Stream food, has more than one type of meat. This might not work for some dogs, but it works well for ours. Another fantastic thing about it is that they do not use ethoxyquin. Most dog foods with fish use this preservative.

I don't like that Taste of the Wild doesn't manufacture their own foods. The food is actually manufactured by Diamond. I'm not too crazy about Diamond Foods or their business practices. I also don't like that Taste of the Wild uses so many preservatives. They also use tomato pomace in their foods. Tomato pomace is controversial. It is what's left after processing tomatoes for ketchup, soup, and juice. Some people say it is perfectly fine and is high-fiber and nutritious, and others say it is just filler.

Despite these things, I find Taste of the Wild to be a great food. I saw improvements when I started feeding it to Bella. Within a couple weeks, she had more energy and her coat was shinier than ever.

Could it be improved? Because the dogs are on a dry dog food diet, there is definitely room for improvement. If I were to feed my ideal diet, I'd feed a raw diet. However, this is not possible right now. I feel that, for now, the dogs are on a good diet. Everybody is a healthy weight and the dogs are healthy.

Things I refuse to feed: I refuse to feed all dog foods you can buy at Wal-mart or any place like that, unless it is an absolute emergency (running out of dog food is not an emergency for me). I won't feed brands like Iams, Eukanuba, Hills Science Diet, and nearly every food you can buy at Petsmart or Petco. There are also the common sense things like chocolate. There is a whole list of foods you shouldn't feed your dog (though I disagree with a couple things on that list).

Helpful things: I read a book called Food Pets Die For by Ann N. Martin. I highly recommend it for any pet owner. If you read the reviews for this book, you will see a few bad reviews where people call her crazy (one of which comes from a vet student...of course they will call her crazy...but I'm not writing about the vet industry right now). I feel the book was well written. There might be incorrect information in it, but I don't think there is. In addition to this book, there are lots of websites. I like Dog Food Advisor and Dog Food Analysis.

I've decided to do a series of posts about what my various pets get fed, including how often, how much, what brand foods, and other things like that. I'll also include reasons for why I feed what I feed and websites I have found helpful.

I'm doing this for a couple of reasons. One reason is that it will force me to look at my animals' diets once again. It will give me the opportunity to reevaluate everything I feed and share my knowledge. It will also make me write down their diets so that when somebody else has to take care of my animals when I am unable to (like vacation), I won't have to write everything down then and worry about forgetting things.

So, stay tuned. I'll be starting this series this week. I'll start with either the dogs or the cats because their diets are simpler than my other animals.

I have several things going through my head right now that I want to do. Here's a list:

1. Clean, organize, and rearrange my bedroom. I went away to school last semester and the semester before, and came home on the weekends. During this year, my bedroom has gotten messy and lacks the organization I like. I got use to my dorm room being clean and neat and organized; I want my bedroom to be the same.

2. Redo the guinea pig cage (again). I would like to make it bigger, and I'd like to start using fleece instead of Carefresh for the bedding. I'd like to do this before Pam's quarantine is over. I may let the two events coincide--new big cage for the pigs the day Prudence and Sadie meet Pam.

3. Build a playgym for the birds. I'd like one that isn't a tabletop gym. I'm getting quite adept with making stuff with PVC pipes, so I'll probably use that. Alternatively, I may just build a stand for the big playgym I have.

4. New tank for Maxwell. He has outgrown his current one.

I think Prudence might be blind or at least has very bad eyesight. How this has escaped my notice for nearly three years I have no idea. Maybe she hasn't been like this the entire time I've had her, or maybe she just manages living with it very well.

Tonight I was holding her and petting her like normal. But tonight I noticed that when my hand gets close to her eyes, she doesn't blink. So I took my finger and moved it closer and closer to her eye. I got less than a centimeter away from her eyeball and she still didn't blink. I held her up to a light and her eyes remained fully dilated. My mom shone a very bright light in her face and her eyes did dilate some. So, she at least has light/dark vision.

I've never noticed her running into anything, but the layout in her cage is nearly always the same. When she's in an unfamiliar area, she moves slow, never runs. I tested this tonight too. I put her on the floor in a strange room and tried to get her to run, but she just walked very slowly, sniffing and wiggling her whiskers.

I'm trying to figure out if she really is blind or has bad eyesight. Pam also let me put my finger extremely close to her eye without blinking. So, maybe that's just a pig thing. If she is blind/nearly blind, it may be the reason why she refuses to go on the upstairs of the guinea pig cage, even when the only food is there. I will have to keep a close eye on her and see if she does anything that indicates that she has poor vision.

I realized today that it has been a while since I did a post devoted entirely to the birds, so here is an update. There isn't much to report, but here's what's going on with them.

Digby is doing great. She still won't step up on my bare skin, but I can pet her, as can my mom. She even let my dad pet her a couple of times. She is getting to be very friendly and is even a little more outgoing than she was. I just can not get over how much she has changed since I got her. I noticed last week that her feathers have become brilliant. I know it has to do with her improved diet.

Lenore, too, is doing good. He insists on me getting him out anytime he can see me. He still doesn't want to play independently when he is out of his cage--we're working on this. He "talks" to me constantly. He's very ornery, but at the same time, he can be quite sweet. He is so much fun to have around.

They are still in separate cages, and probably will be for a while. I'm still looking for that perfect cage for them to share.

Pam has been with us for three days now and she has been busy. Busy with what? Winning people over. She has won everybody over, from my a couple of my nephews to my dad. When I went over to my sister's house last night, my youngest nephew (four years old) asked me, "Why didn't you bring the giggy pig?"

But most of all, Pam has won me over. Okay, sure, she did that before we even got home with her, but she has just flat out stolen my heart. She comes when you open her cage, she cuddles when you hold her, and she is so curious and playful. I mentioned before how sweet she is, but let me reiterate. She is the sweetest pig ever.

I had forgotten how much fun baby guinea pigs are. She gets so excited about the silliest things--Oh! Look! I have food in my dish! Yum! I think I'll popcorn. *popcorns* Oh! Look! There is that silly cat looking in my cage again! I think I'll popcorn for her! *popcorns* Yum! That water from my water bottle sure tastes good! I'll popcorn because it's so good! *popcorns* (The aforementioned "silly cat" is Delilah of course. And for those of you living in guinea pig-less households, this is popcorning: video #1: watch the littler one, video #2--this little piggy needs a bigger cage though, video #3--watch the little one again.) 

Pam reminds me of my very first guinea pig, Babe. I was no more than nine when I had Babe, maybe even younger. He, like Pam, was a very sweet little pig. He loved to be held and played with and he loved his veggies! He looked very much like this pig. He died of heatstroke one year when our air conditioner died. He was the guinea pig that started it all.

We took Bella to the vet today. She has a spot on her back that hasn't healed. She also had something last fall in the same spot that took forever to heal. It came back a few weeks ago and hasn't gotten better. Her father, our first German Shepherd, had cancer. I was very worried that Bella had skin cancer, given the sore that wouldn't heal.

The vet, however, took a good look at it and assured us that it wasn't cancer. Bella has a cyst that has caused a sore. She pulled the scab off and examined the area. She shaved the hair and cleaned it up. She gave Bella a shot of an antibiotic and gave us some antibiotic pills to give to her. She told us we could put Neosporin on it if Bella leaves it alone.

We also talked to the vet about Bella's hips, asking if there was anything else we could do for her since some days she seems fine and some days they really bother her. She prescribed Deramaxx and told her to keep her on it for two weeks, and then we can give it to her every other day, give her a half a dose everyday, or give it to her as we see it being needed. Tango, Bella's father, was on a medicine towards the end of his life that really helped him; I'm pretty sure this is what it is. I really hope it helps Bella.

The vet is also doing a full blood panel so that we can put Bella on Deramaxx and for future reference. If we keep Bella on the Deramaxx, she'll have to get bloodwork done every 6 months.

Bella, like always, did great at the vet's office. When my brother decided to stay in the waiting room while we went back, Bella kept looking out the door of the room and was on very high alert, obviously bothered by the fact she couldn't see my brother. When we made him come back to the room, she relaxed. She let the vet do whatever she needed to do, as long as I held her head and reassured her. She hardly complained even when they were taking blood.