Friday, January 13, 2012

Poor Cricket does not like poor quality dog food, and Trying a New Way to Get Dog Food in the New Year ;-)

We have had some food woes to start our New Years off with! I have fed my dogs raw for YEARS now, but, last month with the holidays coming up, I was having trouble doing the drive to get one of my staple foods-chicken backs and necks from a restaurant supply store. For a few weeks I was giving the dogs some kibble that I had around the house, I had used the kibble for training and it said GRAIN FREE, so how could it not be a nice high quality kibble? I was still giving the dogs meat and bones in the evening but just for breakfast they got kibble, with some eggs, or yogurt or assorted things like that.

Well, Cricket was just acting funny and lots of dogs were acting funny around her, so a friend had suggested I check for a urinary tract infection because in her experience sometimes when dogs were overly interested in a girl, it might be that she had an infection....

I took Cricket in and her urine had a very high pH, and lots of crystals and lots of gunk. Ughghghg. The vet was pretty sure it was the kibble. Turns out I was using the Costco Natures Domain-Grain Free, I generally trust Costco products.., it was a good price and I guess I equated grain free with really good. Looking closer at the label there is a lot of potato, which the vet felt could cause the problems. The other dogs seem fine but gosh figures how many people feed crap for years and years and their dogs are just fine, but I slack off for a couple of weeks, and we get problems, LOL.

Oddly enough the vet had me give Cricket cranberry, that is not so odd..vitamin C to change the ph, still not so odd...but she wanted me to use pool PH strips and test the PH of her urine and keep track of what it was at different times. So if the neighbors did not already think I am a FREAK, they are now treated to me following my dog with a shallow dish and collecting her urine at all hours of the day and night. Yep I am SURE the neighbors have no clue what to think of me at this point. OOH well.

MR CHEWY-HOW I GOT ORIGINS DOG FOOD SHIPPED RIGHT TO MY DOOR WITH NO SHIPPING COSTS...
Right about the time I was questioning my dog food I got a coupon from a company that I had not heard of before. Mr. Chewy http://www.mrchewy.com/ I thought it was really neat because they had some of the foods that we just can not get in our town I use Origin's dog food for training a lot and for occasional mornings when I don't have anything else to feed, but I usually had to get it when I was in one of the bigger cities around here. I used my coupon for ordering some Origin dog food. They have cat food, some pet supplies,a bunch of treats,cat litter and it even says they offer prescription pet foods, who knew????

I was really curious about how it would work...I ordered the food and in about a week it arrived (it seems the company is on the East coast so I think it took a little longer to get all the way our here), the bag was inside a box, and I think Fed Ex delivered it. I ordered some treats and they came in a different box about a day later. They offer free shipping on any order over $49, I thought that was pretty cool because one has to wonder how much the shipping cost of a 40 lb bag of dog food would be??

So...it looks like you can set up a regular shipment and get your food on a schedule which would be really nice if that was your source of dog or cat food....

The best thing I saw on their web site was that on your first order the company will donate $10 to an animal charity-North Shore Animal League http://www.animalleague.org/ , Best Friends Animal Society http://www.bestfriends.org/, or Bidawee http://www.bideawee.org/

IN ADDITION IF YOU ORDER FROM MR. CHEWY AND USE A REFERRAL CODE...They will donate $10 to the above charities and GIVE YOU A 10% DISCOUNT. You can choose any of those charities to get the $10 donation or ask that Mr. Chewy splits it between the three charities. So the referral code is MOCH2275--and I don't think I get anything from anyone using that code, but you will get your 10% off!

10 comments:

Sam said...

Thanks for letting us know about that website. Because I'm not the only person who feeds Marge, I pretty much have to feed her kibble, but have often considered supplementing with some pre-made raw or something like that. You really do have to be so careful nowadays because there are just too many of these kibbles that are filled to the brim with fillers and icky ingredients.. hope Cricket is feeling better!

Sara said...

You had me laughing about the ph strips!

Hope Cricket is feeling better soon!

Love the name "Mr. Chewy", but gee, should I sue them for trademark infringement?

Kathy Mocharnuk said...

That is so funny because everytime I see Mr. Chewy or typed the name all I thought about was my BUDDY Chewy!!!

Nicki said...

Inevitably the people who feed ol'roy or some other crap end up with a dog that lives to be 17 years old or something ridiculous like that. And here i try to do the best for my pets and my dog didn't even make 15:(

Diana said...

Thanks for the website.
I hope Cricket feels better soon.

Jules said...

Poor Cricket! I hope she is back to normal asap.

I do not envy you trying to collect her urine. Hopefully Cricket doesn't mind!

Chris and Ricky said...

Gosh - poor Cricket getting sick. Sorry the food ended up being bad. Ricky eats grain free kibble and seems to be fine but I do worry.

I was laughing too at picturing you running around the yard with the bowl and the ph strips! What we do for our dogs! :)

kiwichick said...

I have heard that Costco food is not too great. I feed raw to Rift from a local meat packing plant and I also cook dog food for one of my dogs. But good to know about the kibble just in case. Glad Cricket is doing better.

Sagira said...

Poor girl. It is amazing how many people I talk to with Weim rescue that feed crap like Ol Roy and stuff from Walmart and their dogs are fine. I hope she is feeling better now.

I have been hearing a lot of blogs talking about Mr. Chewey, sounds nice but I enjoy going to the stores for the pet food and stuff. :)

Hillcrest Border Collies said...

Curious, was the dog food, that Cricket was on when she got crystals, Nature's Variety?