10 Awesome life tips

Short and sweet for now. Came across this website and it had some really interesting reads - this being one of them.

10 Awesome life tips

Thought I'd share. Enjoy ;)

Dog food..... who would have thought that something as simple as dry kibble could cause so many problems?

Part of our problem in this economic stricken society is big box stores. People start shopping there as it's a one-stop-shop for everything that you need, at better prices than the other guy. This is great for the short term, I suppose, but in the long term it has some scary consequences.

I own two beautiful dogs whom I consider my children. They are given many more treats than they should probably receive, and I feel really guilty when I'm not at home with them for long periods of time. I'm sure that many dog owners are able to relate. This post is about dog food, though, so I'll get back to it. Last year, I had a bit of a scare when it came to my one dog. I was living across from a soccer field where I'd take my dogs sometimes for a few sniffs and to go to the washroom. This one day I saw a sign saying that they were going to be spraying pesticides, so I tried to stay clear of the areas that they were spraying. Then, a few days later, my dog had a seizure.

I had taken them out, came back inside and was watching tv. My dog was beside me on the couch, and he suddenly got up, jumped down, and led on the floor underneath my coffee table. I didn't think much of it until I heard him scream. There's not many noises that scare me to the absolute core - but this was one of them. He peed himself, and didn't appear to see me when I was talking to him. His body went rigid, and I felt completely helpless. Luckily, he became himself again, was cleaned up, and hasn't had another episode since. After I got over my initial shock, I started to get angry. It must be the pesticides! Something must have gone wrong - they sprayed in an area that wasn't listed, or they changed the day - someone must be accountable!!! Then, I heard about Beneful.

Beneful happened to be the brand of dog food that I was feeding my dogs for the previous few months. I admit - I bought it because it was cheap, liked the commercials, and it was dog food... so how bad could it be? Well, pretty darn bad. You have to take everything you read online with a few buckets of salt - that is, don't believe everything that you read if you see it once. So - when someone told me that Beneful was a terrible food, causing liver problems, seizures, and goodness knows what else in dogs, I got very worried and looked into it a bit. Apparently there are people being affected all over North America by this company - and they aren't helping dogs and their families at all. Taking no responsibility - although it's actually been pretty much proven that the food is the cause of all these problems.

After this little incident, I started reading ingredients in dog food. Go figure - I found that the reason a lot of this food was cheaper is because the ingredients sucked. I therefore changed to a "middle" brand - not the best, but better ingredients than the rest on the shelves. About $37 for a big bag. I thought that it was great, and even when they increased their prices about $5 I didn't complain - it was still the better bet.

Then, about a month ago, my little guy got a bad ear infection. After looking for other reasons, I decided to look at his dog food ingredients. Low and behold, they've been changed. This, I found, to be ridiculous - no warning to the consumer, just changing their ingredients and raising the prices. Here's the letter I wrote to them today:

Hello,

I am the proud owner of two wonderful dogs whom I consider my children. Therefore it hurts me when they hurt - which is the reason I'm writing to you today.

One of my dogs seems to be prone to ear infections. When I talked to my vet about this, he explained that it was probably due to a food allergy - so I should change his food and the ear infections should stop. That's when I found your dog food. I don't like paying an exorbitant amount of money for dry kibble, but I don't mind paying a little more as long as it's good for them. When I found your dry food it was great, as it was reasonably priced and seemed to have good ingredients. Then, about a month ago, my dog got another ear infection. Something made me take a look at your dog food ingredients. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when I first started buying your food, I could have sworn that the ingredients were real chicken, salmon, etc. Now, it's chicken meal, or salmon meal. When did this change?

I couldn't tell you how mad I was. The prices have been raised on this food, and the ingredients have gotten worse. I now need to change foods again, and you can bet that I won't be buying any more of your brands.

I feel cheated and mad - my poor dog is suffering because of your inferior ingredients and the need to make a higher profit. There was no notice of change to the ingredients, it just happened - therefore upsetting my dog's stomachs without me knowing why and now my poor dog has an uncontrollable ear infection which is giving him daily pain and discomfort. If I could afford to go to the vet again to have proper treatment for it I would - but I'm stuck with over the counter topical medication for the time being as I simply don't have $300 sitting around to spend at a vet's clinic because of your product. I am saddened by this - and I do believe I will be changing grocery stores as prices on other items I purchase from you regularly have gone up quite a lot as well. 

Well, we shall see if I get a response or not - but I'm assuming that if I do, it'll be pretty generic. There wasn't even a confirmation of them having received the complaint - so who knows. My whole point is - why is dog food so expensive when there's nothing but garbage in it? I would imagine it has something to do with all the advertising that these companies are paying for - they'd rather spend their money on that rather than good ingredients. It's sad.... but, like I said initially - this is what happens when the world seems to care more about paying less. Unfortunately for me, this means that instead of paying $42 for a large bag of food, I'll be paying closer to $70. I'm kinda miffed about it - but, you wouldn't feed your children garbage, so I'm not going to feed my dogs garbage, either.

Take a stand - and tell these big box stores that we won't pay $12 for a bag of dog food that is going to kill your dog. The whole reason we have these animals is because we love them....