simple.green.organic.happy.

Category: Green Pet

Mr. Chewy Pet Food Delivery: Review and #Giveaway
If you think dogs can’t count,
try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket
and then giving Fido only two of them.

-Phil Pastoret, ‘Our Boarding House’

So, we’re trying to help our overweight dog drop five pounds by watching the amounts of food he gets, and also the quality. I’ve been on the prowl for protein-rich, filler-light food for not-so-active adult dogs, AND I needed to find a puppy chow that was large breed specific (a thing I hadn’t realized existed until the vet asked if that was what Karma was eating, whoops). Luckily, sometimes the Universe (and MrChewy.com) conspire to help a blogger out.

What’s Mr. Chewy? One-stop shopping for hassle-free delivery of pet products: food, treats, litter and competitive pricing on Frontline flea and tick meds (having just been through six months of stubborn flea issues, I’m currently resigned to these as a necessary evil, sorry).

Given the chance to see what Mr. Chewy had to offer, I opted for The Honest Kitchen VERVE Dog Beef and Organic Grains Diet for Jimmy and Avoderm Natural Large Breed Puppy Chicken Meal & Brown Rice Formula for Karma. If you’re in the market for dog food, seriously, click these links and check out the ingredient lists. They are impressive.

The Avoderm is a standard-looking puppy kibble, but once I started adding it to her normal puppy chow (slowly, so as not to upset her stomach) Karma would refuse to eat the chow until I added that bit of Avoderm. I’m thinking that’s puppy speak for “where the heck is my avocado superfood deliciousness?” With an ingredient list that’s full of food names I recognize, plus avocado for healthy skin & fur, I feel pretty good about feeding this to her. Avoderm comes in wet and dry food, for cats and dogs.

The Honest Kitchen VERVE is pretty cool. It’s a 4-lb box of dehydrated raw dog food made with human-grade beef, vegetables, fruits and organic grains which makes 16lbs of dog food. You scoop out however much food you need and add an equivalent amount of hot water, wait a few minutes and voila! Healthy dinner for Jimmy without taking up a huge amount of space in the pantry. VERVE is specifically for senior dogs with (ahem) moderate to low activity levels; there are also formulas for sensitive stomachs, grain-free, gluten-free and cats.

I also couldn’t help but order them some treats. I know, overindulgent mommy. This is why he’s pleasantly plump.

Here I went with Newmans Own Organics Turkey and Sweet Potato Medium Size Heart Shaped Treat Dog Treats (say that 3x fast) and Dogswell Happy Hips Duck Breast Dog Treats (straight up dried meat, looks like jerky).

I love Newmans Own because their products are certified organic, and contain zero antibiotics, hormones, chemical ingredients or artificial preservatives, colors, or additives. PLUS, they donate their profits to charity (in the case of pet foods, those monies go to pet-related charities). Dogswell is one of the few brands of treats that Jimmy will eat, period, but he will totally break free of his usual stern demeanor to dance the meringue for these. No hormones, antibiotics, fillers or byproducts.

*totally gratuitous video of Jimmy doing tricks for Dogswell*

Mr. Chewy has a very impressive (70+ brands) selection of high-quality pet foods, treats, and cat litters— including way more organic, vegan and gluten-free options than any brick-and-mortar pet store or grocery I’ve ever been in. Options like:
- Blue Buffalo (natural, no by-products or artificial preservatives)
- Orijen (grain-free, limited carbs, more fresh meat than any other brand of dry food)
- Taste of the Wild (grain-free, real roasted meats, fruits & veggies for antioxidants)
- Royal Canin Veterinary Diet (specifically formulated for health conditions)
- ZiwiPeak (equivalent to a raw diet)
Yeah. They don’t carry that at SuperFresh. In the week since I ordered, they’ve added a bunch more (I opted in for the email updates and have been notified of brands I might be interested in).

Love the navigation choices on this site; I was able to break down by breed (cat vs dog), then age, then specialty (in this case, I wanted natural or organic + weight loss). Mr. Chewy offers an automatic subscription service that can be canceled at any time, and you save 15% off your order right now when you select that service. Shipping is free when you spend $49 or more– a significant perk when we’re talking heavy bags of food or litter.

I placed my order very very late on a Thursday night and it arrived on Saturday afternoon, which was awesomesauce. I do think it shipped from close by, though, so your results may vary.

AND, they have a kickass referral program. If someone orders using your referral code, they get 10% off their order AND $10 gets donated to a no-kill rescue or shelter. (My referral code is ROBI7330 if you decide to order. I don’t make anything off of it, just the animals benefit.)

GIVEAWAY!

I’ve got $25 to give one pet-loving SGOH reader to spend at MrChewy.com! You don’t HAVE to spend it on organic products, but if you do and let me know how you like it, I will give you virtual chest bumps and high fives. Just leave me a comment letting me know what breed you’d love as your next pet (don’t front, we all windowshop for new pets! I want an Irish Wolfhound). For a bonus entry, tweet this post and leave me another comment letting me know you did I’ll randomly select a winner on February 12th, 2012.

This review was made possible by Mom Spark Media. Thoughts are my own. All prizing for MSM giveaways is handled by a third party unless otherwise noted. For this reason prize fulfillment can take up to 90 days after the winners information is received.
February 2, 2012
Pet Obesity: How about a New Year’s Resolution for Your Dog?
Diagnosis: OVERWEIGHT.

That’s what it says on Jimmy’s vet visit papers.

Jimmy is 35 pounds, and the vet thinks he should be about a 30 pound dog. That means we’ve been handed the heavy responsibility of trimming 1/7th of his body weight.

He’s not alone, you know. 54% of this country’s cats and dogs are overweight or obese, which more than anything else I see as an indicator of unhealthy practices in the home. With kids, you can blame marketing and school food, to some extent. But dogs and cats depend on their humans for food and exercise.

There are even fat camps for dogs. Check this one out, in Morristown NJ:

Pets are susceptible to all the weight-related issues humans are: diabetes, kidney issues, heart disease, joint pain, osteoporosis.

And, with pets as with humans, the real issues are:
- quantity of food eaten: treats, table scraps
- quality of food eaten: human junk food, overly processed food, dog chow that is mostly carb rather than protein
- exercise frequency and intensity: not getting out enough, not getting to run and play
The thing is, we Eltons get plenty of exercise— outside the house. I go to the gym or to the basketball courts, the kids have practices and games and recess and gym class. Once at home, we’re pretty sedentary creatures, and Jimmy has always fit in perfectly. This dog, I kid you not, goes to bed (BED bed, like even if the rest of us are still up he goes to the bedroom) around 11pm, gets up briefly with Cassidy to eat whatever she leaves in her cereal bowl, then goes back to bed until about 1pm. He just doesn’t have an active nature. Walking him around the block can take 20 minutes because he is content to sniff and meander.

He also tends to get the leftovers from meals and whatever Cass drops on the floor, which is a lot. Kid is a slob.

We’ve recently made some moves to better dog food for him. More details on that over the next few days, but generally speaking, you should look for ingredient lists that have:
- whole meat sources as its top ingredients, rather than corn or grain based sources.
- no generic meats— should read beef, or chicken, or lamb, or whatever, not “meat meal”
- no corn gluten meal, a filler commonly found in lower quality foods
- human grade ingredients, for quality control
- no artificial colors or preservatives
- no sugars or sweeteners
Note, feeding instructions are generally for the “most demanding” life stage, so we may be overfeeding by as much as 25%. And it’s not like most pet foods list calorie counts, anyway. (This website does show calorie counts for pet foods, check it out.)

A quick internet search suggests that dogs will love green beans as a treat substitute. I cannot confirm or deny at this time, but Jimmy loved a few bites of pineapple as an after-dinner treat tonight.

With pet food as with so many things, as a nation we’ve caved to the cult of cheap. Cheap pet food is full of non-nutritionally-sound corn fillers that are make for round little bellies. Add that to a chronic lack of exercise and we have a nation of fat cats and dogs.

It’s not like cats and dogs can run out to the store and buy better food. Or hit the gym on their way to work. They depend on us for the quality of their lives. And the quantity: an obese dog is just not going to live as long as one that’s a healthy weight. Just the facts, ma’am.

So, Jimmy is getting a better diet, getting kicked outside more often, and once the weather warms I’ll be taking him to the park for walks. Because frankly we’d like to keep him around for a few more years.

If your New Year’s Resolution was to drop a few pounds, or live a healthier life, maybe a better way to achieve that (by taking the focus off YOU) is to be conscious of your pet’s health: switch to healthier staples, incorporate more real unprocessed food, exercise frequently with bursts of intensity, and play regularly.

I’ll check in with Jimmy’s progress. You keep me up to date on yours.

Got a pet that could stand to lose a few?

Tell me about it. Please. I feel guilty.
January 29, 2012
Saint Bernard Puppy Update

Saint Bernard puppy

surprised by her first snowfall

camera? inside.

Yeah, I wrote you puppy haiku.

Late last Friday night was Karma’s first snow. If you weren’t outside that night, it was that really cold snow where each fallen snowflake is perfect and whole; so crystallized that you could hear the snowflakes colliding with each other and crashing to the ground. Karma was afraid to come outside at first and then spent ten minutes snapping ineffectually at the swirling air. I hadn’t realized it was snowing before I opened the door to let her out, so no camera on hand. It’s a real bummer. I wish you could have been there.

Anyway, I’ve had a number of people asking for more Saint Bernard Puppy updates

Thankfully, Karma eventually overcame her urinary tract infection. Housebreaking was successful, and she now sleeps for six hours straight without wetting anything. THANK EVERYTHING THAT IS HOLY.

In related news, Jeff tore the carpet out of half the house.

Karma is so very cute and sweet, but she’s mischievous as all get-out too. She is very routine-oriented; if I try to hit the snooze button on my alarm she yanks the covers off the bed. And she has decided that once the kids go to sleep, it’s Mommy and Puppy Playtime, which is immensely frustrating when I’m trying to get something done so I can get to bed at a decent hour. But I hate to tell her no.

The nice thing about Saint Bernards is that their disposition mellows in proportion to their size. If this dog was this big and still nipping and raising Cain I don’t know what I’d do. Our Zooey (black lab) was a hellion until he was at least five, and up to no good until the day he died.

Karma loves Cassidy with an intensity that is almost frightening. Jake comes home an hour before Mav and Cass do, and she is generally pleased to see him, sitting up to watch him come down the hill and wagging her tail. But when she hears the brakes of that later bus, boy howdy, she is up, she is ready, she is coiled and throws herself at the door, hurtling up to give Cass hugs and kisses.

Which is quite a spectacle when the dog is as big as the girl.

You see. Remember the little puppy?

That’s her at the vet last week. She weighed in at 80 pounds.

“Oh, Robin,” I can hear you sighing. (I can hear it very clearly, which is odd because no one ever actually calls me by name. Even Siri on my iPhone calls me Honey Badger Mom.) “That picture doesn’t give me any perspective on how big she is.”

Perspective? You want perspective?

OK. Jeez, all you had to do was ask.

Well, here she was as a puppy with Jimmy, aka The Dogness. (I’ve decided Karma is the Duchess of Dog, if anyone needs to update their spreadsheets.)

And here they are now.

Here she is with Cassie and Jake at 7 weeks–

And with Cass now at 7 months.

She’s a big girl.

_____________________________

Hey, this blog’s going to the dogs!

I’ve got a few more pup-related posts to close out this week, including a giveaway.

So y’all come on back now, you hear?

January 26, 2012