# Like Talking to a Brick Wall !!



## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

This is why it's almost impossible to convince the 'average person' to feed their dog a better diet. I was out shopping with my sister this week. This is the person who corrects me on every piece of human food I buy and constantly tells me what I am eating wrong. She also buys into every new quack healthfood and medical theory being promoted and tries to get me to go along for the ride. 

She wanted to stop at Petsmart to pick up dog food for her little dog. I figure..'this should be interesting' since I haven't actually stepped foot in a Petsmart in quite awhile. I was actually curious to see what my sister was going to pick out for her dog. 

We go into the pet store and I ask her what brand we are looking to buy. Her answer 'I can't remember the name but it's in a green bag and it's healthy for her. I'll know it when I see it'. So, this is how the average person buys dog food...by the color of the bag and the picture on the front !! We go up and down the aisles and she spots it "Aha...there it is ...NUTRO!". I was really good and didn't burst out with my first reaction 'you feed your dog that bag of cr&^% ?". I just calmly said. "that's not anything that I would feed my dogs' and pointed out what was wrong with it. Her answer was 'well, I can't afford to feed my dog real meat like you do ' to which I replied "it's actually cheaper then dog food'. Then she countered with "well, I'm not going to COOK for a dog!" to which I replied "you don't cook it, you give it raw". She had no answer to that so she just asked me what she should buy that she could get in Petsmart. 

This was a problem, finding something in Petsmart that I would be willing to put in a dogs mouth. I finally pointed her to either Innova Senior Plus (has more meat then some of the other Innova) or Blue Wilderness as the only two brands in that store that she should get. I also talked her into adding Innova canned food to the dogs diet to up the meat level. She didn't know that canned food was good for the dog so she was willing to try that. It helped that they had coupons at the check out so she got a can free and $1 off the bag of kibble. Maybe with the coupons, she may actually keep buying it and not go back to Nutro or Iams (her previous food). 

Now, if it was this hard to convince my own sister just to switch from Nutro to Innova, what chance is there to convince any other people!!


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## whiteleo (Sep 7, 2008)

I don't know Chowder, that didn't really sound so bad, as far as convincing goes. My brother and his fiance, well there is another story, I've given them all the info and even the books, but they are feeding now Science Diet, breed specific kibble.


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## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

whiteleo said:


> I don't know Chowder, that didn't really sound so bad, as far as convincing goes. My brother and his fiance, well there is another story, I've given them all the info and even the books, but they are feeding now Science Diet, breed specific kibble.


Well, you know Science Diet is recommended by vets!!! :biggrin:

It wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't had the same conversation with them just 6 months ago. It lasted just one bag of food before they went right back to the same old garbage and couldn't even remember the name of the food I had given them to try. I mean, how hard is it to read the name on a bag of dog food!


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## CavePaws (Jan 25, 2011)

Lol. I was in a pet store buying crickets yesterday as I'd run out of my bulk crickets and I nearly had a conniption. This very very old woman in front of me in line, at the only register open (as this is a very small mom and pop store) was arguing with the young woman at the counter about getting a refund on her bag of food since the dog hadn't liked it. Well, I got her dogs life story on kibble. The dog is very picky apparently. And the woman refuses to feed the dog anything that it does not enjoy. So the young lady at the counter says, "Well, I don't know what to tell you. It seems like you've tried all the kibbles in the store" and the old woman goes on to say, "No. There must be one or two I haven't tried." My head nearly explodes, this goes on for quite a while as I patiently stand behind her, the only other customer in the store. Finally, the girl checking her out gives her the refund, but this is NOT enough for this woman. She wants a recommendation on what kibble to feed the dog, and the girl finally suggests Royal-Canin Chihuahua. This is getting to be too much for me, as the young woman behind the counter goes to get this specific bag of kibble for this very old woman, she turns to me and ask's me if she's holding me up. I just smiled and said, "Yes...But it's okay, I will go find the manager to check me out. I can see you've got quite the situation on your hands here." So, off I go, to get the manager of the store. She finally checks me out and I walk out of the store wishing I had the time to educate that old lady on feeding her dog a raw diet. I wanted to tell her the entire time, "FEED YOUR DOG RAW!" because I'm pretty sure her dog would not turn down a nice chunk of raw meat. 

Ugh...I feel like I could have solved her problem in very short order. The explaining was more than I had time for though...Heck, I didn't even have the time to wait in line there through her kibble issue. 

Good on you, Chowder. At least you got her to add some canned food to the diet!


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## Tobi (Mar 18, 2011)

I was at petsmart a few weeks ago looking for something for my Grandma, i happened to walk through the nutro isle... sigh...

Two ladies were standing there talking about nutro and how GREAT it was, one of them even went as far as to say that it was one of the best ones with Innova sitting right behind her.

Now were passing by and Tobi wants to say hi and they want to say hi to him, one of the ladies comments oh pattens dog! you're beautiful what do you eat!? and she looks at me....(here goes this can of worms) I simply said a Raw diet. ?!?!?!?!?! 

huh? Raw? 

YUP exactly what they would eat if they were wild. 

Well I don't have the money to spend on that.

meh, its only about 99c per 50lb dog per day, much cheaper than the dogfood you're looking at.

Other lady chimes in, why do you feed raw?

Simply because it is the most healthy natural food they can get, they don't get their systems overloaded with carbs that they can't readily process as well as leaving out the sugars and the grains.

Oh you should write a book about this stuff!

I said "you should read one about this stuff"!

I excused myself as they were still hellbent on buying nutro vs the same priced innova behind them which i pointed out and recommended as well as Blue Wilderness. From now on i really don't try unless they really want to know. I've had several people take my number down if they had questions i've also refered them to sites, taken time to write it down for them, hell the only thing i didn't do is feed their dog for them, yet... they still have no desire to to what is right for the animals that depend on them to make sure they get proper nutrition.


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