wikith, Dianne, and Debbie- you were randomly chosen by my three year old for the Honest Kitchen samples! Send me your mailing info through my contact info and I will get those out to you. I was very sad I only had three samples to share, but them’s the breaks.

But GUESS WHAT? Everyone else wins too!

When they saw my last post, I was contacted by the lovely Carmen over at Honest Kitchen, who let me know that they will be happy to provide a free sample to any interested reader. Just send them a note at questions@thehonestkitchen.com with which food you would like to try and make sure to tell them Brody sent you. (OK, I made up that last part about Brody. It’s just something I’ve always wanted to say.)

Brody’s been munching his way through a large variety of food products lately, both good and bad, so I thought this was a good time to share his latest product review. The folks over at The Honest Kitchen sent us a variety of samples from their dehydrated raw food product line to try out, and Brody was more than happy to oblige.

The food he chose to sample was Embark, one of their two “All life stages” formulations.

1. It starts off looking kind of like green soup mix (it has that bouillon aroma, as well).

2. Then you add warm water, and it kind of looks like green soupy sludge. That’s OK though, it gets better.

3. After it rehydrates, it looks rather like stew. You can serve it as is (like I do), or mix it with fresh veggies and meat like my less lazy clients do. As a person who came close to gagging during my brief foray into the world of a raw vension diet for Apollo, I sincerely appreciate the chicken soup-y non offensive aroma of this stuff. Not that my opinion matters, though.

Did Brody like it?

I think the picture speaks for itself. See the worried look on his face? Despite licking the bowl to a reflective sheen, he is angling to get the remaining bits from the side.

I attempted a video like I’ve done with other product reviews, but trust me when I say we’re all happier without me unleashing it on the blog. It was not my finest work. I had some technical difficulties with the PowerShot, which I’ve never used for video before, and let’s just say I needed a Dramamine to make it through the first 30 seconds. Next time I’ll make my husband shoot it.

Anyway, a little more about the Honest Kitchen product: One of the reasons I like this food, and use it often in my rotation, is the following (from their website):

All our products are safe for human consumption, a requirement for entry into the human food facility where our products are made… Production occurs in a FDA inspected human food facility right here in California, alongside products such as breakfast cereals and beverage mixes for human consumption.

And this: “Our meat and egg ingredients are dehydrated at a high enough temperature to kill any pathogenic bacteria that may be present.” So this is a good choice for someone like me who is interested in raw, but has a hard time with the squidgy factor.

There are lots of other great reasons to check this food out. There is tons and tons of information about The Honest Kitchen’s product line, dedication to sustainably sourced materials, and processing on their website. It’s easy to feel good about and still very convenient.

So let’s share the wealth! I have three samples to hand out: 2 one ounce samples of  Thrive (this is the one I have a big box of for Brody), and a 4 ounce sample of Verve. Leave a comment with which one you’d like to try, and I’ll pick winners at random at the end of the day. Only catch is you must let me know what your dog thinks of it.

Every December, people start making lists. Best of, worst of, most memorable- everyone loves to make little lists that organize the year’s events and data into a nice bite sized chunk. Last week, I stumbled upon CNN’s 50 Best Jobs of 2009. I’m not sure what complicated algorithm they used to come up with this list, but I looked out of curiosity and sure enough, there was veterinarian, smack dab in the middle at Number 25. It’s above corporate paralegal, but below CPA. Sounds about right.

My favorite part of their job description summary is the Quality of Life ratings:

Personal Satisfaction: B

Job Security: B

Future Growth: B

Benefit to Society: A

Low Stress: D

Notice the outlier there? Looks about right, and I think most vets would agree. The grades are pretty spot on, though I will say that “Personal Satisfaction” varies from day to day and leave it at that.

No self-respecting Top 50 list would be complete without opening it to the floor for comments/ discussion/ disagreement, and this article was no different. It’s always interesting to see who cares about the topic strongly enough to be moved to actually make a comment, and what they have to say. Not to be disappointed, right near the beginning of the comment section we meet someone named Jon, who has this to say about my profession:

“Benefit to society? A? Seriously? It should be given an F for wasting money on useless objects. Benefit to society, more like a thorn in our side. I don’t know how anyone could wake up and be ok with themselves knowing they are wasting all these resources on animals, or how you could take an animal to a vet and spend X amount of money on your pet when there are millions of people around the world who NEED medical treatment and DONT get it. You guys are pathetic and your pets are useless to society.”

Dear Jon:

Yes, well, erm, one can only assume- and fervently hope- that you don’t have pets. From the irrationally hateful tone to this post I take it that your parents own two fluffy Maltese who sleep on velvet bolsters in the master bedroom and eat filet mignon from crystal dishes while you, sad, shoeless Jon, have to live under the stairs and eat cobweb stew.

I could direct you to myriad medical journals chronicling the positive health benefits of pet ownership. I could comment on the role veterinarians play in protecting public health via food animal safety and medicine. I could ask you what you personally are doing to solve the problem of millions of people who need better medical care. But I won’t, because I know you probably won’t listen to dregs such as myself anyway.

I wake up in the morning and I’m OK with myself because I’ve treated a cat, the lone companion of an elderly woman whose husband passed away last year. Because I’ve met dogs who help autistic children function in society. Because had I followed my initial career trajectory, I’d be an MD and stuck treating concrete headed louts like yourself instead of those useless dogs and cats out there who make life better for the pathetic people who are obviously not charitable titans of society such as yourself, you sad, misguided little twerp.

Sincerely,

Dr. V

The parvo puppy is still hanging in. Every day he survives is a victory, and I’m allowing myself to feel optimistic for the first time since he was admitted.

On the second day he was hospitalized, he was struggling. The plasma transfusion we performed had been minimally helpful. So once again, I pulled a Hail Mary and called in the quarterback.

He’s so big now, and the wee pup so small, I barely needed anything to get enough for a blood transfusion. Fresh whole blood has some majorly nice goodies in it- antibodies, white blood cells, red blood cells. Brody was very good. He trusts me and my team, even though we did something uncomfortable. We made it up to him, promise.

I normally wouldn’t have fallen sucker to the lure of the 5 ton rawhide bone, but it’s Christmas, and you have to admit for a puppy only 7 months old Brody has done a lot of good in this world to deserve it.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw the last puppy I used Brody to transfuse. She is three times the size she was back then, happy and shiny and wiggly. Like this puppy, she had a whole lot of negative prognostic indicators that should have meant her demise. The dog we have now is in even worse shape, practically and statistically speaking, but if you think about that too much you give up too soon.

I got a wee bit emotional on Christmas Eve thinking about the universe and the role we all play in it, hoping against hope that lightning will indeed strike twice and I will be lucky enough to pull off something that I shouldn’t be able to.

And by “I”, I mean everyone- the owners who agreed to let us try, knowing the odds were 50/50 at best and committing to pay to treat this puppy they have owned for 4 days. My team, who sat with the puppy doing a multitude of treatments, keeping him warm, talking to him, and coming in on Christmas to do all of this. And my bosses, who gave me lots of helpful advice on the case and never once suggested I recommend these owners throw in the towel.

I asked for a few things this Christmas- a nice scarf, a sweet Santoku knife (seriously, every house should have one) but more than anything I asked for something even Santa couldn’t bring: on this day, if only for a moment, please make Kevin stay at home.

And he did. I do not know what tomorrow brings, but today continued to bring hope, and that is more than I thought I would have. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Lisa asked to have the 12th day- and when I saw her contribution I was so glad she did. Thank you, and I hope this first Christmas without Bailey is gentle on you.

On the twelfth day of Petmas, my puppy gave to me:

12 Years of True Love

and, because I couldn’t resist:

The videocasts were shot a year ago and I’m wondering if they ever will see the light of day. There was some good stuff in there. If they ever get finished, I’ll be sure to put them up.

In the meantime, stay tuned for BRODY CAM, which should be launched in early to mid 2010, and Podcurious- the new pawcurious podcasts, coming as soon as I figure out something to talk about.