Shadow's 28 Day Eukanuba Challenge

About a month ago, I received an invite to participate in a 28 Day Eukanuba Challenge. I was informed that during this time, I would receive free food for my dog if I agreed to feed it to her and blog about it. I accepted. I will be blogging about this experience during the next few weeks ...

First off, it was very nice not to be excluded for living in Canada. There are SO many product review opportunities that I am asked to participate in and as soon as they find out I'm in Canada, they thank me for my time and send my on my merry way - product-less. It is nice to find a company who is willing to include Canada in its surveys.



In fact, the contact person - Christina Kwan - was great about the fact that I live in Canada. When I notified her that the food hadn't arrived, she tracked it down (since it was over a week late) and confirmed that it was on its way. She mentioned that it might take a bit longer to get over the border but it will get there ... she was right! It has arrived and this weekend marks the beginning of Shadow's 28 Day Eukanuba Challenge ...

Let me begin by telling you that Shadow is 10 years old. She is a Border Collie/Australian Shepherd mix. She has had super severe allergies since her first birthday. Her allergies include food and environmental nasties. When Shadow has an allergic reaction to food, her face swells, gets itchy, her hair falls out and it will often begin to bleed. When Shadow has an allergic reaction to environmental nasties, her whole body experiences the reaction mentioned above (she gets bloated and itchy, then her hair falls out, then she bleeds from all sorts of sores). We have used many different products and procedures to control "the allergies of Shadow". Listening to her cries of pain and frustration during a reaction is heart wrenching. We take every precaution necessary to prevent outbreaks. Although I have agreed to test this food, I will stop feeding it completely if Shadow shows any signs of an allergic reaction. (We do already know that she can eat the Naturally Wild formulas so I don't anticipate any issues but that doesn't mean we won't be watching like hawks!)

When I went to the post office to pick up the food, the post lady said that she didn't know what was in the box; that they'd all been trying to guess at what it was; and that it was too heavy for her to pick it up so could I please come to the back and get it. (Ok, so I live in farm country ... the post office has been run out of someone's house ever since I can remember ... everyone knows everyone else and the post lady knows ALL ... they were quite perturbed that they couldn't figure out what was in the package! Snoopy ladies!)

The ladies at the post office weren't the only snoopy ones because as soon as I brought the food box home, the ACD thought she might like to participate in this challenge too! Sorry Kosha ... we only received ONE bag of food for ONE dog ... !

It was a challenge just to get the food out without the help of all three dogs! Pah!

Over the next 28 Days, Shadow will be eating Eukanuba Natural Lamb and Rice Senior Formula.



This was the only picture I could get of her that didn't show her crawling out of her skin with excitement that there was another bag of food in the house. (As it was I had to put the other two in a down/stay on the other side of the room to keep them out of the way!)



The other dogs are going to be jealous. They are already jealous. They always are when one of them has something different. They don't care if it is better or worse ... they are too concerned that they might be missing something to rationalize.

The new food has been poured into our air tight dog food storage bins. The bin on the right (the full one) is the new food. The bin on the left is our old food.



When I poured the contents of the dog food bag into one of the storage bins we use, I noticed a distinct difference about the smell of the kibble ... most IAMS products smell like play-doh to me. I don't know what it smells like to dogs. I've had some foster dogs who refuse to eat IAMS products. I don't normally like the smell of IAMS kibble. This kibble is different though ... it actually smells like dog food! It smells good ...



The other dogs are pining for the food and I actually caught the cat yesterday and today climbing into the food bin to steal dog food! Crazy, no? I wonder if I will have to buy a bag of this stuff for everyone in my house just to keep the four legged arguments to a minimum??