What's the Bzz: Bil-Jac Dry Dog Food #imabzzagent

Before I get started with this post, I just wanted to make it clear that I am a BzzAgent. BzzAgent is a company that helps businesses get the word out about their products. They hook their agents up with products to preview, and then let us loose to share our experiences. BzzAgents are open, honest, and having fun.

We have a 5-year-old beagle named Sawyer. He's generally a very good dog, and your typical chow-hound. He'll eat just about anything. Oddly, though, for the past several months, he'd been ignoring his bowl full of food for an entire day before eating his breakfast. It would get eaten right before it was dinner time. As I mentioned, he's a beagle. Beagles generally are not picky dogs. We're not sure what was up with that, but it seems to have passed now. You see, thanks to BzzAgent, we were able to sample Bil-Jac Dry Dog food. (Well, when I say we, I really mean Sawyer was able to sample it. No humans in this house ate any, at least so far as I am aware!)

We decided to try the 2-bowl challenge. All you do for that is put a small amount of his regular food in a bowl and a small amount of Bil-Jac in a bowl and let the dog pick.

Sawyer barely even considered his previous food. He inhaled Bil-Jac, and suddenly was very much looking forward to meals every day. He still looks forward to meals every day now!

With the exception of his eating habits, I'm not sure I could say he's changed much otherwise. He's in need of knee surgery, and still has regular problems with his bum knee(s). I never expected the food to fix that, of course. I'm sharing that because I think it's entirely possible that the lack of change in his behavior is because of his knees. His coat does appear to be a bit shinier, but that could be simply because I expect that to happen.

For more information on the Bil-Jac food, check out their Web site: Bil-Jac.com.
For more information on Bil-Jac nutrition, check out THIS PAGE.

My husband and I are both quite impressed with this food. Sawyer hasn't been this enthusiastic about his everyday food since he was a puppy!

We'd like to continue feeding this to our dog, but I'm not sure if we will. While it's clearly an excellent product, it is expensive. More expensive than the brand we'd previously fed Sawyer. I'm not sure if Bil-Jac fits into our budget. We'll try to make it work, though – I can say that with confidence.

So, yes, I would highly recommend Bil-Jac dry dog food. (And Sawyer would, too!)

Never Saw It Coming

It's amazing how having babies changes your life - or at least how it changed my life. I'm not talking about the stuff like years of being sleep-deprived, suddenly loving driving a mini-van, having leftover baby fat, or other typical - and somewhat expected - changes. I'm talking other things. Things I never in a million years saw coming.

Seven years ago (I say seven because six years ago I was pregnant with Abby and the changes were under way), I was so different it's amazing. Well, not just me - my life. My husband and I had some close friends with whom we'd stay up into the wee hours of the morning playing games and just hanging out. (We still have those friends, but they moved to another state and we don't see or hear from them much.) Oh, yeah, and I worked second shift as a copy editor - a job I generally hated. I hated reading all those boring news stories, then having to write headlines. I think I've mentioned before that I'm not very good at that - and knowing that made it all the worse, especially when TPTB like puns. I hate punny headlines - so overused - and I could never write them. Well, not never, per say, just VERY rarely!

Seven years ago we had a nice house (we still live in it) with new carpeting and a dinky garage we were hoping to replace in the near future. That garage was so small that one of my sisters thought it was a shed the first time she saw it! LOL Pathetic - and, really, that's all it was worth. We could barely fit a Dodge NEON in it, let alone anything else! In that house, we had one cat and were planning to get another one - we ended up with two more. The first cat, Shadow, was our "first baby" - as I'd referred to her many times. She was a sweet cat, and was my pet before DH and I were married. So, naturally, she was part of the package - marry me, marry my cat. And I was one of those people who doted on her cat. I bought her birthday and Christmas presents (and presents from her for DH) and loved her to pieces. All that despite the fact that she was literbox-challenged to the worst degree. She would NOT pee in a litterbox to save her life. She had had a couple of UTIs, but even healthy she flat out REFUSED to pee in the litterbox. Thankfully, she did at least poop in there, but the pee's almost worse. The smell - and the fact that it's next to impossible to get out! Let's just say I wish we'd gotten rid of her long before we did. It was heartbreaking to do so - she's such a people kitty and really was my furbaby. We gave her to my ILs, who were planning to keep her outside. She's disappeared. :-( I feel guilty - a tiny bit - but less so than I did a couple of years ago. Anyway, what compelled me to get rid of her was - you guessed it - the kids. I was pregnant with Grant when finally I'd had it. I was ready to let her go. By that point, we already had Zeus and Huckleberry - angels compared to Shadow. Well, unless Huckleberry's antics were bothersome - he'd attack the toilet paper, shredding an entire brand-new role when we weren't looking. He'd done plenty of other things, but that's the one that most sticks out in my mind. I think what Dh and I referred to as "the voices" would tell him to do it. Either that or the toilet paper was taunting him! We'll never know, but - thankfully - he has out grown that. My point is I was one of those people who doted on her pets. Loved them and even referred to them as her babies. Until I had babies. Poor cats were forced to take a back seat when Abby was born. I still tried to give them attention and whatnot, but they definitely became second-class citizens. That's something I'd NEVER thought would happen.

Between Grant and Natalie we got a puppy. I don't know WHAT possessed me, as it was my idea. And, yes, I'm still kicking myself for that one! Grant was 6 months old when Sawyer was born - on Abby's third birthday. He was about 8 months when we brought Sawyer home. The cute thing is they are like buddies. They're growing up together, sorta. It's neat to see their bond. Anyway, Sawyer is a PITA. Now, I grew up with cats. So, perhaps part of the problem is this dog is much needier than any cat I'd ever had. I'm sure I'd have enjoyed him more if we'd gotten him before kids. Now, he's just extra work - an extra kid, if you will. But not an extra kid - they trump him. ALWAYS. I found myself thinking of him today as just a dog, and all of the pets in this house as "just animals." GASP! That's what prompted this post. It made me realize just how much kids change things you never see coming!

I had more on my mind, but it's gone. Maybe having to write between feeding the kids, letting the dog out, and other things is to blame! LOL Yeah, that's it! ;-)

For Crying Out Loud ~ Day 6

I woke this morning to find dog puke in two places in the kitchen. Nice. Good morning to me! At first I thought it was puke in one spot and shit in another, but cleaning up set me straight. It smelled like vomit. That's quite the interesting pile of doggy vomit, that's for sure. And it's enough to kill the breakfast appetite! That is for sure! Yuck. Now Scooba is running, and so far not getting the worse of the two puke spots. Of course! Scooba just might have to do double duty today.

Aside from that, the morning actually went pretty well. I got Abby to school on time for the first bell, which is a first for me I think! LOL Then I took the other two shopping for groceries. It went pretty well - Grant is definitely a morning person. There's no doubt about that. I've never had him so well-behaved in a store before! (Note to self: Always go as early in the morning as possible if Grant's coming!) There's the added bonus of not many people being there yet - that always helps expedite the trip. Plus, shelves were almost fully stocked throughout the store. Nice. Of course, I forgot to grab a frozen pizza, but oh, well. I remembered all of the milk I needed to get - and with three different kinds to get (skim for me, 2% for the kids, whole for the baby) that's quite a feat! ;-)

Well, Scooba needs some attention. So, I'm gonna get going. Plus, Abby gets off school in 30 minutes. Time to start changing diapers in preparation!

Males! Need I say more?

That sums it up perfectly! Doesn't matter what the penis is attached to. To hell with it! Anything - man, child, cat, dog, etc. - with a penis is on my shit list today! (Good thing my dentist is a woman, as I have an appointment today.)

I should've known that it wouldn't be a good morning - I got to sleep in after all! Can't have my cake and eat it, too, you know! Anyway, Grant got up shortly after 7 - it's a MIRACLE! LMAO

After DH left for work, I noticed he neglected to take the trash out - something he had promised to do LAST NIGHT. Am I surprised? Not really. While everyone else in the world seems to think he's wonderful, reliable, dependable, etc., I know better. He's rarely been any of those for me. Well, I take that back - he's good at being wonderful, if you ignore the fact that I can't depend on him for much of anything. He's NOT a man of his word - at least, not for me. I'm willing to bet that at work and elsewhere he is, but not here. Don't get me started. I'll save all of that for another time. Let's just say the trash STINKS to high heaven, and it irks me to no end that he neglected to take it out - especially when I see that he added some old food from our fridge to the mess! OK, onto the rest of my morning ...

Natalie woke about when I fed Grant, so I loaded him up with cereal, fruit, and milk and let him watch TV while eating so I could get - and nurse Natalie. And what do I come back downstairs to about 20 minutes later? Kix ALL OVER THE FLOOR. He must've dumped at least half of what I gave him over the side of his tray! This is NOT the first time this has happened, nor (I am sure) will it be the last. Thank God for the Dust Buster!

Shortly after that, I get Grant down, hands washed, etc. And I go to let the dog in. I call for him. Whistle, etc. Nothing. I step farther outside and see him two yards over! So, I slip on my flip-flops, grab the leash, and head outside. And the dog is so excited to see his leash he comes no problem! LOL Stupid dog! I bring him inside, swearing to kill his sorry ass, only to find my sweet son has made his way upstairs into my bedroom. He LOVES to play with DH's alarm-clock radio! So, I get him back downstairs (crying all the way) and finally get him dressed. Kid pooped and - of course - wants to grab himself. Throws a fit because I won't let him. YOU HAVE SHIT ON YOUR BUTT, BOY! Oh, and he gets one of his feet in it. Thanks, kid! Thankfully, it was a tiny amount, and easily cleaned up. But, now he's whining for his boo-boo (more commonly known as a pacifier).

Oh, and our two cats are male - one pukes so much it's amazing he isn't emaciated and half dead! The other whines and complains constantly, despite having a bowl full of food and fresh water. Ingrate!

This just in: DH is going to have to work late AGAIN tonight. Damn flooding in Iowa! This is the third night in a row. *sigh*

Add to all of that, it's humid as heck here. So humid, I can feel my asthma acting up, and you probably could cut the air with a knife and take a bite out of it. So, I've closed all of the windows and cranked up the a/c. I don't DO humidity.

I don't particularly like how this post came out. I thought about it for a while before having an opportunity to sit and write it out. And, of course, it went much better as I rehearsed it in my head. It was much more witty and entertaining. But, of course, duty kept me from writing it out until now.