This is my kind of story
Okay, rather than forward this email on to all of my friends, I'll just post it here. I'd love to give credit to someone, but no name was attached.
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I have 2 large dogs. Recently, I was buying a large bag of Purina dog food at Wal-Mart and was in line to check out. The woman behind me asked if I have a dog. Duh!! On impulse, I told her "No, I am starting on the Purina Diet again. Although I probably shouldn't because I ended up in the hospital the last time. I'd lost 50 lbs. before I woke up in the intensive care ward with tubes coming out of me and an IV in both arms."
I went on to tell her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way it works is to load your pants pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry. The food is nutritionally complete, so I was going to try it again. (By now, practically everyone in line was enthralled with my story, particularly a tall guy who was standing behind the woman.)
Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food poisoned me. I told her, "No, I was sitting in the street licking my butt when a car hit me." I thought the guy behind her was going to need help as he staggered to the door laughing.
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Incidentally, I was just at Petsmart yesterday to buy some more cat food for our cats. Loki had been having some issues that are probably related to a sensitive digestive system (I'll spare you the details) and the vet shoved some Hill's Prescription Diet I/D on us... which seemed to help. But because this new vet that we've gone to a couple times seems to be sponsored by Science Diet, I did some internet research (yay!) and was given the obvious advice to look at the ingredients on the bags of food before I buy.
It turns out that the more expensive stuff, like Science Diet, has mostly corn meal and chicken by-product and pork by-product in it. Also, that stuff called "powdered cellulose?" Sawdust! Always good for fiber.
The cheaper (though not the cheapest) Purina One cat food seemed to be the better bet, because it actually listed chicken by itself as an ingredient. And brewer's rice had a higher billing on the Purina ingredients list than it did on the comparable Science Diet mixes (I was specifically looking for mixes that are good for urinary tract health and sensitive stomachs/hairball control). Rice is one of those binding foods that I eat when I'm a little... um... loose in the intestines. So rice makes sense in a cat food for a cat with a sensitive stomach.
Here is a photo from last Thanksgiving of Loki happily splayed out on my sister's lap. Also, it's an adorable shot of Monique! She's much more photogenic than I am.
I'm also posting this because I miss her... and she's at the tail end of a tiring trip to Europe. Boo hoo, right? Well, she had some brainy conference to attend in Germany last week and spent the past couple days making her way (via Eurail and hostels) through Milan and Venice. She reported this afternoon that Italy is terrifyingly devoid of the internets. I was happy to hear from her after several days of not even an email... which is quite unusual for her, and I was starting to worry. But now I know that everything is fine so I feel better.
