Want a Happy Dog? Don't Feed Them Eukanuba, Iams, and Especially Wal-Mart's Ol' Roy

When my Husky-Malamute mix, Kramer, became a member of the household in 1996 at 7 weeks old, I consulted more than one vet about the kind of food to feed him. I had tried Purina puppy chow and even Wal-Mart'sOl' Roy with less than satisfactory results. You see, both, especially Ol' Roy, seemed to go right through K-man, he ate constantly, and worst of all, his waste stunk to high heaven. I asked a couple of vets and they both told me any savings would be offset by his eating more and possible health problems.

I switched him to Pedigree on their recommendation and have kept he and his companion Jewel, a Shepherd mix adopted from the local humane society a few months later, on Pedigree ever since. In those 10 years plus, neither of the two has ever had any major health problems, and neither has diahrrea the way they often did on Ol' Roy in particular.

Kramer, named for the now disgraced Seinfeld character, (much to his chagrin as documented in an article of mine a few months ago, Kramer vs. Kramer) does have epilepsy, but I have been told by his vet that it has nothing to do with diet and is a trait common to his breed. Otherwise, he has been as healthy as the horse he resembles.

Now, I'm not going to tell you that his turds smell like cherry blossoms or anything, but the volume and odor are much, much less a problem than when I experimented with the cheaper brands. Pedigree isn't all that much more expensive, and many of the bags of dry food come with coupons of a dollar off the dry and a dolllar off six cans of the canned variety, making the price difference not much at all.

This is not an anti- Wal-Mart diatribe, by the way. As a former Wal-Martian myself, I have some strong opinions about the company and the way it is run, but that is a separate article. More on that later. Anyway, I often buy the Pedigree food at Wal-Mart or Sam's Club, not as a political statement but because their prices are more reasonable for the same items.