Bailey enjoying an afternoon nap.

If the spinning wheel is here, she can't be far away.

The commercial pet food problems are really scary. Anyone who loves a pet and reads these stories has to be concerned and puzzled as to what course of action to take. My husband and I are ridiculously devoted to the pup who frequently shows up on this blog, Bailey. I've been searching for our personal solution to this dilemma so that he stays healthy.

Years ago our sheltie, Dusty, was accidentally or intentionally fed something by a stranger which made her sick enough to almost die. The result was that for the rest of her life she was unable to eat commercial dog food. The vet I went to at that time gave me a recipe for making my own dog food. I'd make giant batches of the stuff and freeze it. I think, it was a long time ago and I have a lousy memory, but, I think that I supplemented that food with chewable vitamins. Dusty lived to be a healthy 15 1/2 years of age. That diet saved her life.

Since then we've had several pets who lived long and healthy lives and did eat high-end commercial food...but, our two Abyssinian cats died within three months of each other and it was kidney failure that killed both of them. I asked the vet how that could happen and he was at a loss to explain but since the discussion came up as we were struggling with the decision to have the last cat, Sonoma, put to sleep, we didn't followup on it. I wish I'd asked more questions then.

This new problem with pet food has made me more suspicious about the way our cats died and caused me to wonder if the extremely expensive food I fed them was the cause. I truly hope that I didn't inadvertently kill them with that food I thought was the best stuff out there.

But, I don't want to take a chance with Bailey.

I have a couple of recipes that I got from the internet and I checked with the vet about the right thing to do. I expected a pitch for continuing to feed regular dog food but got a list of vitamin supplements and no suggestion that I was rushing to judgment in making this switch. I've already made a batch of dog biscuits that are kind of stinky with garlic which Bailey loves. This afternoon I made up a bunch of brown rice and carrots and roasted some chicken thighs. After it all cooked and cooled a bit, I threw in some cooked peas, a bit of garlic, some ricotta cheese, some wheat germ and mixed it about 50-50 with some of the shredded chicken. Bailey seemed to love it.

Had to order the chewable vitamins the vet recommended online but they were not very expensive and they should arrive within the week.

If you read this and are interested in making your own pet food, it needed not be expensive and there are a ton of recipes on the internet.

What would we do without the internet?

At least we'll know that we've tried our best.

The picture? The view from my studio french doors. Spring is definitely here in all its glory.