Tuesday, March 27, 2007

How could this backfire?

We understand that some animals are picky eaters. In these instances, quite often a new food is mixed with the old, in an attempt to get the pet to try the new diet. Over time, the old food is pulled out of the mixture, and the animal is, often, none the wiser that its diet has been changed.
When the old food replacement theory doesn't work, then there's always the concept of adding other flavorings through spices and/or gravies. Again, the combination of flavors can get the pet to fixate on a new food, and achieve the intended diet change.

Or, you could always demonstrate to your dog how good the food is by making sure they see you eating and enjoying it yourself.

That was the method Elaine Larabie of Ottawa used to get her dog to start eating a new dogfood. When Larabie's dog started eating, she, to her credit, stopped. Of course, as this is a story for the CSM, the food that Larabie purchased was later part of the large-scale North America recall of pet foods. The dog required veterinary care, and Larabie was hospitalized for, amonst other things, loss of appetite and foaming at the mouth, and lab tests were run to see what else may be lingering. To their credit, Iams (the company behind the food) admitted that that she had purchased from the tainted product, and is paying her medical bills.

We do view this as something of a tragic tale. Not quite along the lines of Oedipus Rex, largely because nobody skewered their eyeballs, but fairly tragic in its own right. A woman, attempting to do what she believed was best for her pet, decided that she would set a good example. Said example ended up biting back on her when she looked like she'd developed rabies. A more heartless person would simply laugh at the notion, but we do feel sorry for her.

We'd also like to point out that, with the recent pet food recall and the troubles of Wolfgang Puck's Oscar party, it seems that food is currently getting something of a bad name. If this keeps up, we can hope that a few years will pass, and Al Gore will release a new documentary, "An Inconvenient Hunger", explaining how bad preservatives and over-cooking really are for people. This will, naturally, be followed by a movie featuring animated penguins engaging in the slow food movement.

Okay, we just scared ourselves a bit. We'll be back tomorrow, after we gorge ourselves on Twinkies and frozen pizza.

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