Proud mom bragging

My youngest son is starting his own business and I am very proud of how hard he has worked to do that. He is a WOSTEP certified watchmaker and has been working at Breitling for the past couple of years, but they started laying people off this summer. He returned to Texas and is starting his own watch and clock repair business. He will start by contracting with jewelry stores instead of dealing directly with the public. He is very driven and self-disciplined and I think he will be very successful. He doesn't have a web site up yet, but can be reached currently at info.keeperoftime at gmail.com.

How healthy is dog food?

Believe it or not, this is something I've been pondering a lot. I feel fairly certain that if I ate exactly the same thing twice a day, day in and day out, no matter how nutritionally complete it says it is--I probably wouldn't be very healthy.

So why is it different for dogs?

I've started giving mine little bits of fresh veggies, small amounts of plain yogurt with live cultures, a little shredded cheese, a little hard boiled egg--just a little something mixed with their dog food to wake up their taste buds. I must say, it has certainly perked up their appetites. Even my picky eater is eating now.

I've learned from experience that when my old dog eats some brands of dog food, he has seizures. He is now on Purina One and has not had a seizure since I switched him to that, and it has been many, many years now. He was seizing once or twice a month before then. Another dog had bouts of diarrhea until I put him on the same dog food. I'm not promoting a certain brand of dog food by any means--this just happens to be the one that seems to work best for my dogs after much trial and error and they eat it, unlike some of the pricier brands I got from my vet.

So I am wondering--how good is it really to keep your dog on one food day in and day out? Is there any real research to support that? (this is my doctoral training talking here)

An update on hard water and dishes

I finally found a product that removes the hard water stains in the dishwasher. It is called Lemi Shine and I am here to tell you that it works!! I can finally use my dishwasher and not have to soak everything in vinegar when it comes out. The manufacturer does caution you about putting painted dishes and some other things, but for my every day Corelle dishes and glassware, it works just great.