I tried something different with Savannah's dog food yesterday. Ever since I started ordering this particular food for her (all natural, freshly baked, no fillers) she has not been thoroughly happy with it. When we got Savannah from her previous owners, they had been feeding her a low-quality dry dog food that I didn't want to continue with. We bought some higher quality dry dog food which I thought she liked, but then she started to leave the food in the bowl till she got really really hungry, usually late at night. A very late-night dinner for Savannah also meant a late-night walk for her. I cannot believe how brave I've become, walking up and down this road with Savannah so late at night when all the local wildlife creatures are out there making their rounds. I was not loving those walks in the dark, armed with just one puppy and one flash-light.
Then I started ordering the expensive dog food that we used to get for Gracie... delivered right to the door by UPS, a high quality dog kibble baked from all natural ingredients with absolutely no junk in it. Well, you would think any puppy would love it. Not Savannah. Was she that used to the dog kibble that wasn't very good for her? I started mixing in the older brand with the expensive stuff, and she did eat it, but it stayed in that food bowl all day long till she realized she wasn't getting anything else. To make matters worse, she was using her nose to push that food out of her bowl, probably looking to see if anything better was hiding underneath the healthy stuff.
I got to thinking of my grandfather's dog Major, a huge German Shepard that grew up with my generation of cousins in the 1950s and 1960s. Everyone said that Major probably ate better than all the dogs in New York State. My grandmother would have a big bowl that she would put every bit and scrap of food into all day long... the ends of Italian bread, bits of macaroni or potatoes or sliced meat, vegetables that were left on the kids' plates, leftover French toast (made with Italian bread, of course)... anything and everything that was edible went into Major's bowl. Not one bit of food was ever wasted in that house. After everyone ate dinner, my grandmother would fix Major's dinner... one big scoop of a dry dog food plus all those bits and scraps she had collected all day long. She would mix that all up and then sprinkle a little bit of grated cheese on top of it because she said that Major must be part Italian because macaroni was his favorite food.
So.... maybe Savannah would like a little bit of grated Parmesan sprinkled on top of her freshly-baked with-no-fillers dog kibble? It was worth a try... and that's what I did yesterday. It took about ten seconds for Savannah to make her way from the TV room into the kitchen--- she heard me mixing that grated cheese into her food as the spoon scraped the sides of her bowl. She sniffed that food and took out one piece of kibble, then another, and then another... and she kept eating until the bowl was clean. That was the first time that her food bowl was empty before the sun went down. Happy day.... a clean bowl before dark meant that I wouldn't have to be out there walking her so late at night.
This morning when I put Savannah's food down, I again sprinkled it with a bit of grated Parmesan cheese and used a spoon to mix it all in and make sure all the kibble was lightly coated with cheese. Savannah's bowl was empty at noon-time. Happy, happy day.
I will have to decide whether to keep ordering that expensive food now or just buy the best brand of dry food that I can find in the supermarket. Either way, I think Savannah likes the grated cheese, and truly, that expensive delivered-to-the-door food is better than anything I can find in the store. I think I'll just stay with the good food and keep using the Parmesan cheese to make it more palatable to Savannah's Italian taste buds.
My grandfather's dog Major lived for 16 years.... possibly due to all that Italian cooking and the grated Parmesan.
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