Westside Messenger - August 8th, 2021

PAGE 4 - WESTSIDE MESSENGER - August 8, 2021
Ever-changing technology and business
strategies keep our fast-paced society moving
forward in countless ways on a regular
basis. With each new breakthrough, it’s
easy to overhear comments echoing off
walls everywhere, “it’s going to be so much
easier now.” At the same time, bouncing off
another wall, you’ll just as often hear, “oh,
I miss the good old days when everything
was so much simpler.” I must admit, with
each passing day, the more I fall into that
latter group and sometimes feel like shouting
out, “stop the world, I want to get off!”
Only a few things seem destined to
remain as the same needless chaotic mess
of stress they were years ago and probably
always will be as our politicians avoid any
true attempts at simplifications like the
plague. The complexities of taxes and
health care come quickly to mind.
The computer age has given us incredible
powers but also a never-ending flagged
notification that the recently updated program
we struggled to input is already obsolete,
and we must again install and learn a
new revision. For years I kept up with the
computer madness at work and at home.
But in my retirement, I now continue to
rapidly lose ground.
Today’s new cars have become more
complicated than James Bond’s cars or the
International Space Station. I just want a
little zip, a good stereo and a/c. I could care
less about all the confusing frills that have
become expensive standard items. I’m betting
I’m not the only one who is ignorant
about what half the buttons and switches
are for or the many new state-of-the-art
computerized features just waiting to be
used but probably never will be. One needs
an engineering degree to drive today’s cars.
But with all the changes coming from
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every angle, none has been more conspicuous
to me than what I’ve seen in the pet
food industry. I’ve had dogs all my life but
having the responsibility of another dog to
raise from puppyhood to hopefully his senior
days has brought to light just how complicated
life has become in the pet food
realm.
You can equate it to the changes in the
grocery store. In days of yore, you’d see a
small section of an aisle for cereal. You’d
have the standard handful of different
cereals to choose from. Today, you’ve got at
least an entire aisle with every variation of
a flake, nut, piece of fruit or disguised as
cereal sugar you can think of. Then, on top
of that, the store has its own cheaper
generic brand that’s often even better quality
than the big-named brand that people
waste their money on. As the saying goes,
you can spend a week one day in the cereal
aisle figuring out which is the best for the
money.
Same with the ice cream aisle. Years
ago, you had just a few options for flavors
and brands. Today there’s an entire aisle
with a multitude of both to choose from
with the store’s generic brand thrown in to
make the decision even tougher.
When I was a boy, you’d basically throw
a bowl of dry food on the ground and the
slobbering dog would devour it in seconds.
Dog food in those days had the nutrient
value of a bag of chips or cookies. There
were no quality controls. But dogs didn’t
complain, they gobbled it up and nobody
thought twice about it or the nutrients they
were getting. Today, if you put a bowl of
some of the healthier food options on the
floor, they’ll give you an evil stare, as if to
say, “you expect me to eat that slop. I won’t
and you can’t make me. You eat it and see
how horrible it is.”
Then the pet food industry began its
explosion. Before long, an entire aisle at
the supermarket was dedicated to dogs.
There were many varieties of dry or wet
canned food with enticing names to catch
the human eye. It became important to
shop on a full stomach because some
sounded better than what you’d be having
for dinner and you didn’t want to be seen
drooling like a dog in the aisle.
Dog food became specific, puppy food,
adult or senior formulas, grain-free, for
sensitive skin, diet, easy digestion, high
protein, breed size, more flavors to choose
from than picking out a donut at a donut
shop, skin and coat, high-energy, glutenfree,
chicken-free, organic, vegetarian, high
fiber. On and on, there was even fresh and
frozen choices. It took no time for the
industry to utilize that marketing trick,
raise the price and shrink the bag. Today,
if you buy anything with any nutrient
value at all, you’d better have smelling
salts nearby at the checkout counter. That
saying, ‘it’s a dog’s world’ has taken on new
meaning.
Thankfully, controls have also tightened
up a bit. In theory, the USDA, FDA and
FIC are all involved in ensuring the
integrity of the pet foods. However, recalls
are in the news all too often along with sad
losses of loved pets. There are many studies
that rank the brands. They list the pros
and cons of each, best and worst with rankings
as five stars down to one star, etc.
Some ingredients all too often come from
overseas where proper controls are lacking.
It’s difficult to find one that doesn’t have
some significant ‘but has…in it’.
As the grocery store pet food boom took
place, competing specialized pet stores
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The pet food industry sure has changed over the years
Years ago, I wanted to keep chickens on
my acre-plus property, but like many good
plans, it was not meant to be after a wise
chicken farmer pointed out amateur mistakes
I was bound to make.
For months I scoured do-it-yourself project
pages for a coop I could handle. Well, I
should say that my daughter and I could
handle because she has a natural ability to
assemble, fix or repair things. She would be
my executive chef in construction and I
would be her construction sous chef.
I showed her various designs from a
structure worthy of a Victorian manor to
something little more than a frame covered
in chicken netting–plain and functional,
but not for me.
Hitting a happy medium, I found a simple,
charming house for hens with an
enclosed white clapboard structure, ramp
and a suitable protected outdoor run.
Nothing extravagant, just manageable.
I researched the care of poultry and
skipped over information on breeding. No
roosters in my henhouse. While I can
appreciate an early morning chicken wakeup
call–I probably get up earlier than a
rooster–I did not want to worry about
weeding out fertilized eggs.
I decided to start out with a trio of
hens–three seemed like a manageable
number and I sought the advice of a farmer
before deciding on which breed I wanted to
purchase after we built the coop.
Her first question after I shared my
plans with her: “What are you going to do
with the hens when they stopped producing
eggs?”
Huh? Chickens stop producing eggs
after a few years? Well, I’ll just get more.
She again asked, “What are you going to
do with the chickens that no longer lay
eggs?” before frankly laying out my
options–build a bigger cage to accommodate
more hens or serve the non-producers
for Sunday dinner to make way for fresh
hens.
What? Kill the chickens after they provided
eggs for my family? No way. I’m sure
they would all have names and how can I
dispose of a creature with a cute name, who
spent her productive life feeding me?
“Well, then you’re going to eventually
end up with a coop full of chickens with
names that no longer lay eggs,” I was told
in response.
It was at that moment I saw in my mind
my beautiful white coop filled with aging
non-productive chickens living out their
lives while my refrigerator was stocked
Guest Column
Dave Burton
have sprung up
everywhere. I read
where the pet food
U.S. market is
expected to be $30
billion by 2022. It’s
already over $100
billion globally.
Perhaps the
greatest recent
innovation I’ve seen in the pet food industry
is the ability to now order your total pet
needs online from huge website specialized
vendors, for dogs or most any kind of pet.
You can order food, treats, leashes, toys,
basically anything you need, even pharmaceuticals
with a prescription from your vet.
Order one day and it usually arrives at
your doorstep the next day. No muss, no
fuss, no lugging and loading or unloading
on your part. The minimum for free shipping
is basically the cost of a bag of dry dog
food.
Yes, online is a great enhancement for
the customer, although I’m sure it’s been
difficult competition for the grocery and pet
stores. The only drawback, or benefit to
some, I’ve found is the complexity factor of
having so many choices is still present. I
went in to order the other day and there
were 1,373 options listed under the ‘adult’
dry dog food category. You can get lost
cruising amongst the choices. If dogs could
only talk to help us out.
Dave Burton is a guest columnist for the
Columbus Messenger Newspapers. He
lives in Grove City.
My idea for keeping chickens flew the coop
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Linda Dillman
with store-bought cartons of eggs.
A nice idea, but not the end result I
wanted. So, I threw my design clippings in
the trash and told my daughter the chicken
coop plans that I held close to my heart for
so many years would not happen.
A few days later, for the first time since
we moved into our house, two ducks landed
at the back of our property and wandered
around for the afternoon. I took it as a sign
from Mother Nature that she was giving
me a couple of egg laying creatures to enjoy
for the day since I will never have my own.
The earth is always at equilibrium.
Linda Dillman is a Messenger staff writer.