The Necessary Nature of Picky Puppies

Well, as this is the inaugural post of the Picky Puppies blog, it seems only right to begin at the beginning! It was never my intention to become a baker of dog treats. I never had an early-morning epiphany wherein I realized that I would develop recipes for the most picky of all pups. No no, this all started with a little pup named Bowser.

I've always been the sort to love animals. My parents were typically the sort to encourage that only insofar as the pets concerned were fish or birds or guinea pigs, animals easily contained and cleaned up after. So it began with Sebastian the fish and then Sebastian the Second, because I was five and that was as far as my imagination extended. After the two fish, there was the much-loved Sunny, the canary. After his passing came the less-loved Sky and Luna, a pair of hideously screeching lovebirds. Then there was a parade of sickly hamsters. And then, finally, my ever-growing heard of guinea pigs, which began with Schmendrick. He was the greatest guinea pig to ever live and I miss him to this day. He died when I was nineteen and I am not in the least ashamed to say that I cried for a good two days.

But when I moved out, got married, discovered my hatred of cats, and got the landlord's permission, it was time for a puppy. My husband and I went to a wonderful local shelter, the Sterling Shelter, fully intent on falling in love with a pup. I'd looked at all the available puppies online and saw one or two that I thought I might love. But when it came down to it, we were hooked by a puppy I don't even remember seeing online. We walked into his kennel, picked him up, rubbed his tummy and his ears, looked at each other and said, "I dunno. Maybe we should see the other pups?" But when we tried to leave the kennel, we realized that neither of us wanted to walk away from him because someone else might adopt him. That's all it took. There is nothing like the feeling of being "chosen" by a shelter pup. It's the most wonderful feeling in the world.

This is Bowser and I leaving the shelter.

It is appropriate at this point in the story that I explain why we went to a shelter for our first pup. We had at first made the decision to search out a breeder for a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. I loved, and still love, this breed with a vengeance. But after a very bad experience with a breeder and then lots of research into the breed's health concerns, and out of an intense desire to become a dog owner, aid a dog in need, and avoid the health problems inherent in most purebreds, we decided a mutt was the way to go! Where the latter reason is concerned, we got quite the shock with Bowser.

Bowser was an absolute love from the moment he came home. Not much of a barker, patient with children, easily crated, good with the cats, he was a total dream. But he was a picky eater and seemed to always have red spots on his belly. Those red spots were the start of Picky Puppies, though we didn't know it yet. What began as a battle with demodectic mange turned into an ongoing struggle with allergies. 

It took a solid year to find out that Bowser's issue was food allergies and about twenty different kinds of dog food. In the meantime, Bowser was so itchy it was hard for him, and us, to even sleep. Constantly red, scabbed, cut, my poor baby looked like a victim of a dog fighting ring. I hated it. I hated trying to explain to people that I was doing everything I could do for him and to please not try to give him treats.

Bald, scabby, skinny. This was heartbreaking for me.

Salvation came in the form of a holistic pet store called Compatible Canine. The woman who owns the place, Kathy, was a lifesaver, a fountain of information, and the most patient woman I've ever met. I told her Bowser couldn't have corn, soy, wheat, oatmeal, barley, chicken, or egg. After an elimination raw diet, then supplements, then local honey, then briefly cyclosporin, and then onto a grain-free fish protein dry food, Bowser is just about up to snuff! He still has his flair-ups. But for the most part, he's a good-looking little dude.

So where do the dog biscuits come in? Well, Bowser may be doing great but it's still difficult to find any kind of treat for him. Sure I can buy dehydrated bites of salmon or sweet potato but never any standard dog biscuits. The treats he can have are never exactly cost effective and he can't share them with his little sister, our other pup, Ripley. 

We live in a culture, now, where every sort of dietary restriction has been catered to. It made sense that I could find a way to make treats for a pup with dietary restrictions. Trial and error led to the treats that now make up Picky Puppies! These treats make both Bowser and Ripley happy and don't cause flair-ups! And once I discovered I could make something delicious for my own babies, it made sense to offer them to you!