Lab-less Lab
Thank you to all of you who have sent such kind notes acknowledging last week’s blog post celebrating our 30th year. You really know how to make someone’s day!
It’s been an intense couple of weeks — college campus meltdowns galore, a presidential candidate on trial and another too old to reliably hold another term, execs we are meeting with worried about continued inflation, stubbornly high interest rates and wondering if the economic improvement they saw in Q1 is going to last. Warring nations. Articles wondering about job loss due to generative AI (the rabbit hole society seems to go down every time there is new tech,) and more.
So, after a celebratory week last week I decided to keep this week’s blog light…. about dogs and about how the democratization of knowledge affords us so much. I’ve written about helicopter news gathering, freemium legal info in news and now kibble and DNA.
So today is a short story about Benson and Bernie our dog and our now new grand-dog. Our first two dogs Keka and Nell died of cancer when they were 10 and 12 respectively. I always say these beautiful creatures find us, dig deep holes in our hearts, and then leave. It is bittersweet and heartbreaking. And yet we persist.
Benson came along about a year before Nellie left us and, on our vets recommendation, we moved Nell and Benson to a diet of ‘human-grade’ food. Between my cooking and Just Food for Dogs we switched things up and Benson for all his five years has been on the ‘real deal.’ Bernie came along and my son adopted The Farmers Dog for ‘the Bernster’s human-grade diet.’
With Benson eating us out of house and home, I did my research. TFD had better ratings online after reviewing several trusted dog-food review sites AND it was about ½ the price. They are 100% direct to consumer and the price savings for equal or better ingredients showed.
In less than 30 minutes online and one call to a 24x7 help line (with real people,) I had signed up for a free box, was able to calculate calories for both diets and figure out Bennie would get more calories for less price and with higher quality ingredients. This my friends is the power of information at our fingertips. There is a ton of scientific data about cancer in dogs, dog food as a possible contributor (not cause) and loads and loads of great insight, facts, as well as sources including consumers if you want to travel that path. Beware — people are passionate about this topic and there is a lot of fake news and rancor. We are talking about our pets after all. Voila — food on my doorstep one week later and texts showing progress every step of the way.
And then with both dogs we were able to run DNA tests through Embark. And with a swipe of a swab and a postage-paid envelope we soon learned that Benson was our lab-less lab. Hah! A fake lab, a lab charade. Our lab-mix was actually a shepherd mix and his 50% Dad genes of german shepherd was met with his Mom genes of ½ cocker spaniel and ½ australian cattle dog. And suddenly the lights were turned on to explain so much about his personality and mannerisms including there was no trace of lab in him after all!
Bernie came to our son by way of a shelter in CO via New Mexico where he was found stray. Suddenly we knew so much about him too! Five breeds the most of which was Great Pyrenees but tempered by four other cattle dog-ish breeds including one that came out of Mendocino, CA. Who knew there was a McNab! And that explained so much about his personality and his size including his mellow nature but his middleish 60 lb size.
We have been told if we pay a bit more, we’ll get their health profile (no thank you.). And occasionally we are gifted with pictures of siblings and cousins; to the degree others do this the dog data grows and the dog world gets smaller. It’s really a modern miracle and more than anything a fun way to complete a puzzle especially for our rescues which is the only way our family brings a new dog home.
So, whether saying goodbye to kibble, changing food brands, looking at health and wellness, or knowing our dog’s DNA — I could say the world has gone to the dogs or it’s a dog’s world. Frankly with the power of information at our fingertips it’s simply a miracle. Like, I said last week — it’s why we get up in the morning 30 years later and do what we do.
