Little Miss FussBucket

It’s no surprise I live with a Princess, or should I say Court Jester, or to be more accurate a Little Miss FussBucket. She’s got her habits and her fits, her routines and her protests. I actually think she’s given me the ‘off with her head’ look a few times. Yet still I do stupid things just to please her. Well, I realized this week that I’d created an absolutely ridiculous situation for myself. Of course I got there because I was digging myself deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of food, and Chili, in Chili form, took full advantage. It’s just the next chapter in the food saga. I was crossing her over to a mix of new food, but in the meantime was still using up the last of the other food and also mixing in a bit of other food just to get rid of it. Her mealtime consisted of a mix of 4 different foods. It was just temporary. Ultimately the plan was to end up with a mix of just NRG and Nature’s Logic. Yeah, that was the plan.

A few nights ago at about 1am, Chili threw up her whole dinner. Poor girlie. The next morning I wasn’t really sure what she would do, but she ate her food mix as usual so I was relieved. At dinner, she sniffed her food, looked at me, then ate it. Uh oh, I knew what that meant. The next morning at breakfast Little Miss FussBucket staged a full on food protest. She wouldn’t even sniff it. She backed away from the dish and looked at me with those, ‘mother, do something about this or else’ eyes. So, here we are at 6:30am, staring at each other. I don’t really have time for this, but what am I supposed to do. I picked a few pieces of the NRG out of the mix and tried hand feeding it to her. She wouldn’t even look at it. OK, no NRG. So I abandon her mix and start taking fresh kibble from the bags and presenting one at a time to her to see what she’ll eat. She turned her nose up at one, but she ate the other two. For now, crisis averted.

At dinner, since I had more time, the master plan was to again present her with all the options and see what she’d eat. Picture this, Chili standing before me as I put taste test after taste test on a plate in front of her. Even as I’m doing it I’m laughing at myself. What has this dog turned me in to? Surprisingly, she turned her nose up at the NRG again, and the Fromm. Luckily she had no issues eating the Solid Gold and the Nature’s Logic. OK, new plan, mix these two until the Solid Gold is done, then just feed her the new stuff. That’s the plan anyway until Chili decides to change it.

Have you ever stopped to think about some of the ridiculous things that you do either for or because of your dog? Some would shake their head at me and call me crazy, and it kind of is. It’s really laughable, a lot of laughs that I wouldn’t have had if there was no Chili. If you have a dog, think about how many times in a day you were just going through the motions then suddenly looked up at a big or little goofball doing something stupid, and just smiled or started to laugh? I know for me, it’s countless. Put it all together and that’s a whole lot of happiness and laughs in my life just because I have a dog.

Yes, although my dog can be costly, can be frustrating, and makes me go damn near out of my mind sometimes, she’s also the best girl in world. Don’t you love how the mere presence of a dog completes things?

Chili Fuel Change

We were a couple of weeks in to the new food when I saw the inevitable signs of a protest to come. I would put the dish down and Chili would give it a sniff, look at me, sniff the food again, then reluctantly eat it. I recognized this pattern. I’ve seen it twice before. It’s her way of telling me she’s not impressed with this food and I better do something about it before she stages a full on protest. Well, she decided not to wait. A couple of days after, she refused to eat it. I had to mix it with an old food of hers just so she would eat. She still wasn’t impressed but she did eat it. I could see her trying to sift through the food to pick out the good stuff. I knew my time was limited because I’ll only get away with this for a few days before she makes me start hand feeding her. All I needed was for her to last until the weekend so I could go back to Your Pet Pals to find something else.

I don’t live by the ‘if you don’t eat it, then starve’ mantra, when it comes to Chili. She’s at daycare all day and with her high energy lifestyle, I want her fueled up. She doesn’t have the option to run up to the girls in the middle of the day and say, “Hey, I’m really hungry, can you give me a bite to eat?” It shouldn’t be their responsibility to manage it anyway, it’s mine. I need to send her to daycare with success in mind. Sending her hungry, well, unless I’m doing it for a health reason, just isn’t right.

I always seem to forget that Your Pet Pals opens at noon on Sundays so I end up sitting in the parking lot for a while. For how often I’ve been there in the past few months you’d think I’d clue in, but I don’t. Luckily Lori saw me and waved me into the store. I knew we were at that point where I had to do something different, even if I didn’t really like it, or to be more accurate even if I didn’t like the potential cost. It’s time be creative.

I sincerely believe that Lori and her staff are motivated by their love of animals. I’ve never felt like I’m just being sold a bag of dog food. They’ve been extremely helpful and patient through our whole food search. Between Chili being a fussy girl, and then having to find a food that won’t bring on a bout of pancreatitis, it’s not been easy. I was starting to feel guilty about how often I was going in and bugging them, but as usual, once I get there, I’m greeted with a big smile and hello and they start quizzing me about Chili. I wasn’t alone in this, they were there to help me and it felt good to have people who were knowledgeable about dog food and nutrition on our side.

As I said, I knew I wouldn’t be just walking out of there with another brand of kibble. You can only do the same thing over and over again for so long before you realize that change is needed to make a difference. Lori suggested I try a mix of kibble and NRG which is dehydrated whole food. To say I was jumping on board right away would be a lie. I was hesitant and not because I didn’t agree with her, only because I didn’t like the costs involved. However, if I’m mixing it with a well-made kibble brand that would help stretch it out and make the cost easier to manage. It would also increase the nutritional quality of Chili’s meals. So that was it, we’ll see how this goes and maybe get lucky.

I sometimes shake my head at the things I do for this dog who seems hell bent on spending all my money. How is it that a stray has become such a bratty princess? Maybe in another life she was a princess. Hmmm, knowing Chili I imagine her more as the court jester.

Fueling the Chill

Food. Something that should be so easy....but isn’t. It’s controversial and at times uncomfortable to even talk about. Yes, I know what it’s like to be given the blank horrified stare because I feed my dog kibble and not raw. I want Chili to get the best, but the best must also be what I can afford. I mean really, we have to eat and live too. There should be no shame in knowing when to say I’ve spent enough. Everyone has their limits. What if someone is feeding their dog a lower quality food but that’s the highest quality they can afford? What if that dog is given the absolute best life in all other ways? Does that make them bad?

To our standards, Chili eats well, probably better than we do. I do a lot reading and ask a lot of questions before coming to a conclusion about what I buy her. Also, Your Pet Pals where I now buy her food only carries well-made, high quality brands. They don’t sell a brand just because it’s popular, they sell what they feel good about selling. It’s like another line of defense in weeding out the bad.

Until this point, I only had to worry about getting Chili a great food that she liked. Now, Chili has mild pancreatitis and it’s imperative to find a diet that will meet her new needs. This is where it gets really difficult. I have never stressed about food more in my life than I am stressing right now. It’s overwhelming. I like to make decisions that I feel good about but I’m finding it difficult to put it all together. The more I read, the more lost I feel. Low fat, low carbs, high protein, raw, dehydrated, and it goes on. Oh yeah, and she has to want to eat it. Add to it that Chili is a high energy dog and needs her fuel. I can’t have her starving. She’s at a perfect weight and doesn’t have any fat to spare.

I don’t think for a moment that I’m the only one who thinks this sucks. Chili is not impressed at all. She’s not impressed when she doesn’t get her chips, she’s not impressed when she doesn’t get her spaghetti, and she’s even more unimpressed when she can’t have her absolute all time favourite Kraft dinner. You’d think we just tortured the beast. To be honest, we miss sharing with her too.

I find myself just staring at her sometimes. Willing her to tell me what to do, watching for signs that I’ve made the right choice, or the wrong choice. If it’s wrong, I hope I catch it quick enough before it causes her any pain. I don’t like this at all, watching and waiting. So, when I switched her food and started noticing that she was chewing on her paws and rubbing her ears and eyes I knew I made the wrong choice. Now we are trying yet another brand of food and the watching and waiting starts over. The girls tell me this particular food has performed well for other dogs with mild pancreatitis so I’m hopeful. I won’t know if I don’t try.

No matter how much you think you already know, every dog is different and what they respond to is different. Like with training, you take the experience of others, mix it with some of your own, add some new information and hope you’ve made the right choice. Chili doesn’t expect anything more. I have to try. She’s not going to improve if I’m not willing to make changes and trust myself. A part of that is accepting that I might make the wrong decision sometimes but at least I made it with good intentions.

Mild Pancreatitis: Really?

About a month ago, Chili had her blood taken before she had some dental work done. A couple of days later I come home to a message from the vet asking if I could call her to discuss the results. “Aw hell”, was the first thought that came to my mind. I was right. Her blood tests showed that she had mild pancreatitis. The vet explained that I should change her food as soon as possible to a low fat gastro. She recommended MediCal Moderate Calorie Gastro. You know, the stuff that all the vets sell. I was skeptical. I’ve never really thought much of the vet brand foods. No, I’m not a nutritionist nor a professional, but I do know that I should question things. What I do know is, if it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. It didn’t feel right. It was time to do some research.

What I found out, I didn’t like. Pancreatitis comes in two forms, acute or chronic and it can be mild or life-threatening. Great. The vet just said Chili had mild pancreatitis, she didn’t mention anything about acute or chronic. To get it in hand, it seems that the best thing to do is first give the pancreas a rest and fast the dog for at least 48 hours. Chili was not impressed by this. A change in diet is also required. I was not impressed by this. It took me forever to find a brand of dog food that was high quality and Chili liked, and can you believe I just spent $80 on a bag of food not 2 weeks earlier. Figures. The new food should be high quality, low fat (about 10%), low carb, and grain free. Many sites recommend feeding raw. AND the final nail; we had to stop sharing our food with her. None of us were impressed by this. We all enjoyed the ritual of sharing.

Honestly, I don’t really want to believe. I don’t want her to be sick. After throwing my own little tantrum, I face the facts. Not that it was going to go any other way, but I just had to protest a little bit. I gather my food notes, take one long look at that almost full bag of food, shake my head and go directly to the pet store. For something like this, I have to go to a place where I trust, Your Pet Pals. From experience I know they are very knowledgeable and they only sell food that they have thoroughly researched and trust. When I tell them about Chili, everything they said about the food requirements was almost exactly the same as what I had researched. Right away I rule out raw. I’ve never fed her raw before and I really wanted to stay as simple as possible. I wanted to get her on the right diet, then get her blood rechecked in a couple of months, then take it from there.

The girl starts checking out the different foods. All the bags that she looked at said senior and weight management. What? Then she finally settled on one brand; Amicus, Small and Mini Breed Dog Food, Senior and Weight Management. Everything about this was anti-Chili. She’s not small (80lbs), she’s not mini (she’s a truck), she’s not a senior (she’s only 3 ½) and she’s not overweight (she’s very athletic and solid). It didn’t matter. The food met the criteria.

So, there it sits. This little bag of food (it doesn’t come in the large bags because it’s meant for small dogs), next to the large and full bag of Fromm (that still chokes me). Chili seems to be happy enough with it so that’s something at least. I don’t really know if it’s doing anything though since Chili didn’t really have any signs that I could gage it by. Or did she? Every now and again she would throw up, seemingly out of nowhere; or have diarrhea, out of nowhere; when she drinks, she really tanks up; she was very fussy about her food; just around the time when we had her blood taken, she had stopped eating, starting throwing up, and had diarrhea. I don’t know if all of that is relevant, but I do know that some of it is.

Now, we wait. Wait to see if this food change makes a difference and wait to see the next step. I really hope this works or at least is taking us in the right direction. I’m uncomfortable being at the mercy of the vet and their recommendations. I know I can do internet research, but that doesn’t make me a vet. Add to that, I just want my girl to be healthy. She deserves to be healthy. I don’t like the pressure of making these health decisions, what if I make the wrong choice. Obviously this won’t be my last post on this topic. I’ll let you know how it goes when it comes time to get her blood taken again.