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<DIV>
<DIV>Alas.</DIV>
<DIV>6 years of rehabilitating hounds here at Daphneyland, day in and day
out. That's a lot of hounds!!</DIV>
<DIV>When we started this whole concept 6 years ago (Anniversary date: July 20)
- I was in a quandary - what to feed to hounds?? My hounds were at that time,
and still continue to be fed a home cooked diet - however in the best interests
of a rescued hound, it would not do them well to be detoxed from commercial
grades of food - and fed a healthy diet - only to have an adoptive family revert
to a lesser grade commercial food. What should we do? In those days
Nutro was still a fairly good product, and shelter hounds eat what is referred
to as the $9.00 box O 'wonder - which is basically overfill of various brands
sold for $9.00 in tubs of 100 pounds.</DIV>
<DIV>Hounds arriving from shelters commonly have ear infections, yeast
infections, and hot spots among the problems rescue groups have to clear before
a hound can be rehabilitated for adoption.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>After a load of research, we began by mixing Canidae down with Nutro - less
of a system shock if we decreased the higher quality of Canidae with the lesser
quality Nutro. 3 years ago we went to straight Canidae and have
maintained that ever since. Canidae has done a remarkable job with the
hounds - which average daily 100 here - until last week.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Daphneyland in conjunction with the assistance from Marilyn Bickell, Sandy
Gaston and various other hound friends is currently reviewing all commercial
grades of food for the following factors:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>1. What is the top quality food available today?
(There have been many manufacturing changes in the last 6 months - your
veterinarians are not canine nutritionists - they do not actually know the best
foods out there, why they don't tell you that is beyond me.)</DIV>
<DIV>2. What will we do about the Canidae recipe and
manufacturing plant changes? - can we continue to feed Canidae? Can
we find a better quality food that is affordable to feed to 100 hounds
daily?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Canidae has up until now been AMAZING to us. Great quality, great
information and good friends - we may end up finding that Canidae is still the
food we recommend, we may not. I am however extremely disappointed that
Canidae made a recipe change AND manufacturing location change without advance
warning to their customers - and at 4000 pounds (-2- Pallets) a month of
kibble, and 15 - 20 cases of canned monthly, I would think we are a fairly
good customer to put it mildly.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>For anyone feeding Canidae - a word of caution.....</DIV>
<DIV>The new recipe absorbs water to 5 times its dry size. In our breed
this is a drastic increase in the risk of bloat (gastric torsion). PLEASE
SOAK THE KIBBLE WELL BEFORE FEEDING!! You want that expansion to
occur OUTSIDE THE STOMACH - not inside. You will also want to add pumpkin
to their food thru the change, as I can firmly attest - 100 hounds with runny
stool is one very yucky week.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Continuing on the quest for food education - the never ending battle</DIV>
<DIV>Dawn of the West</DIV>
<DIV>Foodslave of Daphneyland</DIV>
<DIV><A title=http://www.barniatdaphneyland.org/
href="http://www.barniatdaphneyland.org/">www.barniatdaphneyland.org</A></DIV></DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">Get the scoop on last night's hottest shows and the live music scene in your area - <A title="http://www.tourtracker.com?NCID=aolmus00050000000112" href="http://www.tourtracker.com?NCID=aolmus00050000000112" target="_blank">Check out TourTracker.com</A>!</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>