Remember last year’s insane pet food recall? Yeah, so do I. I also remember being traumatized by the things I learned about what went into our beloved pets’ food: Animal byproducts, filler food like corn, wheat, and other not-so-good stuff. After that, I began my search for all things pet-healthy…and organic. Now, human food has been taken over by the organic trend; the same can be said for pet food. Immediately after the pet food recall, I started noticing “organic” and “natural” printed on the cover of bags. I swooped in and began paying the extra dollars for “quality” dog and cat food.

The kids loved it, and for months we continued on the same Science Diet Natural food. However, I went to look at the back of the food bags one day and discovered that the first few ingredients in the food were (drumroll please!) – CHICKEN AND BEEF BYPRODUCTS! I was horrified. I mean, what was I paying so much more money for if the ingredients were the same as the regular food? And what the heck does organic mean with meat byproducts?

Confused, I started doing some research and found a few companies that use solely natural products (not byproducts) in their pet food. One of those companies is Paul Newman’s line of pet food, which also includes treats and other goodies. Unfortunately, all-natural pet food is hard to find, and for the life of us we couldn’t find a single store that carried Paul Newman pet food products.

 We must have stumbled across some great luck though, because this past Christmas our local Target actually started selling Paul Newman dog food! Now the dogs are both loving their food, and we’ve even noticed a few changes in their diet: they eat less because the food is more filling (since it’s not full of filler ingredients), and when they do their business, it barely stinks at all!

But the best thing about Paul Newman’s pet food company? They don’t test on animals, unlike a number of the larger pet food companies. Not testing on animals is an absolute requirement for us, so this new food fits right into this little family’s philosophy. Cheers to Paul Newman for his great acting/directing/producing career…and for his great dog food! Let’s also not forget to mention his delicious human spaghetti sauce…wow, what can’t that man do???