Welcome to our blog!

Alex is Alexander Trebec Cat, and Linda is Linda Stephens. Together, with other members of our team, Rosie, Poky, Angel (the Devil Dog), George and Helen, we'll talk about pets and pet sitting. Today we're going to talk about our experiment with organic pet food.

The canine members of our team are Rosie and Poky, who are sisters, half Bichon and half Chihuahua, and Angel, who is a small terrier of a mystery mix. Rosie and Poky are 9 years old and Angel is 6. They are all small dogs, and had for years eaten a prescription dog food because Poky had a digestive defect. Her vet had recommended a predigested dog food and it was easier to feed everyone the same food than to try and feed one dog something different. Dinner time was not an exciting event around our house, cause dinner was not exciting. Same old thing, every time. The girls would sometimes just not eat it, leave it in the dish overnight, maybe take a day to eat one serving. They did get excited over whatever Linda and Helen were having for dinner, no matter what it was, cause it sure smelled better than their food. Alex and George eat on the counter, because cat food is ambrosia to dogs(more protein). There was a lot of unhealthy snacking, with the dogs eating things that weren't good for them or to them. Poky was overweight and moved slowly, with hip problems and occasional diarrhea.

This year we all made a resolution to eat better, so we decided to go organic. Helen and Linda started eating organic food. After a week or two they felt better, and were amazed by how much better everything tasted. Helen read a wonderful book, by Martin Goldstein, DVM, called 'The Nature of Animal Healing'. Dr. Goldstein is a holistic vet and made a study of pet food, and some of the things he found were pretty disgusting. So Helen started to make her own dog food,using organic ingredients.

Rosie, Poky and Angel were started off with a mixture of rice and meat, and gradually other ingredients were added. Within a week, Poky was friskier, and the chronic joint pain which had plagued her for the last year was better. She lost weight, and her digestion improved. In a month, everyone has gotten healthier and happier, and they all look forward to meals. The dogs are walking a mile every day, and love going to the park.

Alex and George, on the other hand, are not so adaptable, and we're still working on getting them to go organic. George especially is not fond of change. He wants things to stay the same. Alex eats a little canned food, but prefers dry food, and has switched over to an organic brand, but George is our holdout. We're experimenting with mixing the good stuff with what he's used to eating and making the change slowly. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

If you have tried organic food let us know. We have some good recipes.

That's it for today, and tomorrow we'll talk about dog massage.