raw food

Allegra, Ruby and The Taste Test

Pawgevity_raw_rabbit_cat_food

September 2022 update:

Back in 2012, friends of mine started a small company making safe, locally sourced pet food. They were involved in every aspect of the food they made, from farm to bowl. Their meat and produce was sourced from local farmers who follow humane practices. Pawgevity owners Carole and Norman King personally visited each farm they work with. Sadly, the company didn’t survive.

Back then, I had an opportunity to visit Pawgevity’s offices. Located in a refurbished former railroad depot, the offices featured giant high ceilings, whitewashed brick walls, dark wood floors, a cozy seating area for visitors, and, of course, a freezer full of their products. I got to visit their spotless kitchen, where they prepared the organic produce that goes into the food. After a tour of the premises, and chatting with Carole and Norm for a while over ice cold lemonade, I was delighted to find out that they are adding a new line of rabbit food to their product offering.

Pawgevity_raw_pet_food

Rabbit is Allegra and Ruby’s favorite food, and when Carole and Norm offered me a sample of their new product, I knew my two girls would be absolutely delighted. But why don’t I let them tell you.

Ruby: Allegra, Mom is getting our dinner out of the fridge! Come quick!

Allegra: I’m coming, Ruby, I’m coming. You know it always takes her a few minutes to get everything ready for us.

Ruby: I know, Allegra, but it goes much quicker if we sit there and stare at her! And even quicker if I rub against her legs the whole time!

Allegra: You just keep on believing that, little one. Oooh – wait! Something smells different!

Ruby: It smells so good! I’m starving! Mom, hurry up! Can’t you see I’m practically wasting away?

Allegra: I think Mom has a new food for us, Ruby.

Ruby: I smell it, too. Do you think we’ll like it? I don’t always like everything she gives us.

Allegra: I like everything Mom gives us. It’s not nice to be fussy, Ruby.

Ruby: Hurry up, Mom! Me first, me first!

Allegra: You always get yours first, Ruby. You think you’d know that by now.

Ruby: Thanks, Mom. Oooh, this is so good!

Allegra: It is different. Unlike you, Ruby, I’m going to take a careful lick first to make sure I’m really going to like it. Hmm. This is tasty. I like it! What do you think, Ruby?

Ruby: Nom nom nom nom nom.

Allegra’s World: Busy Kitten

I’ve been a busy little kitten!  There’s always so much to do, a kitten’s work is never done.  I’ve got to keep an eye on the birds and squirrels in our yard – that’s almost a full time job right there!  And lately, we’ve had these very strange looking creatures attach themselves to the screen on the sliding glass door.  Mom says they’re called cicadas.  They’re really ugly, and when I try to bat at them, they make a scary noise and fly off!  Oh, and speaking of critters – this is the coolest thing yet since I came to live here.  These big black things are coming into the house sometimes, mostly in the basement.  Mom says they’re called crickets.  I say they’re really fun toys!  I chase them and they jump all over the place.  Wee!!!   The only thing is that they don’t seem to last very long, because I’m too fast for them!  But, unlike my other toys, I can eat them!  Yummy!  I do leave the legs behind, though – a little too crunchy for my taste.  Mom says it’s gross when I eat the crickets, and that she’d rather not know that I do that.  Ha!  I’m a fierce huntress!  This is what I do!  I bet she wouldn’t like it, either, if I left their dead bodies all over the basement.  Humans – sometimes they just don’t get it.

Speaking of toys – I got another cool new one.  Mom bought me a new cat tree.  You can see me posing on it in the photo above.  I really like it, especially the sisal scratching post, I use that a lot.  And I love it when Mom gets one of those fishing pole type toys and teases me with it around the cat tree.  I jump up and down and roll around at the base of it, it’s great fun.  Wee!!!  My birthday is only a couple of weeks away, and I’ve seen Mom take a box inside the one room downstairs that I’m not allowed in.  I wonder whether my birthday present is in that box?  It was a pretty big box!  Wee!!!  It sure is fun living here, so many toys, and so many presents.  Every day is so special!

I like that Mom works from home, and that she’s around a lot, so it was a little weird the other day when she was gone for a really long time.  She left right after our morning playtime, and she told me she would be gone all day, and that she would be back in time for me to feed me my dinner, but it still felt like a very long day without her there.  I slept for most of it, but then, I got a little bored.  Mom says I always look for trouble when I’m bored, and apparently, going by how she reacted, I found it.  I didn’t think it was that bad – all I did was chew on the edges of a book that stuck out from a lower shelf.  Oh, and I did knock her glasses off the nightstand.  But I do that all the time, and she just picks them up and puts them back.  Okay, so I did chew on the ends this time, and I guess they feel a little funny now when she puts them on.  Big deal!  That’ll teach her to leave me alone for that long!  Even though she said “oh, Allegra” in that tone of voice that I’ve come to know means she’s a little upset with me, I could tell that she tried really hard not to laugh, too.  I know I’m too cute for her to stay upset with me for long!

Oh, and I almost forgot – Mom has been feeding me some different food lately.  She says it’s called “raw” – I say it tastes really yummy!  I’m not a big eater, food kind of bores me,  most of the time I’m just too busy to eat, but this stuff, I usually inhale in one sitting.  It comes in different flavors, so far, I’ve had rabbit, chicken and turkey.   I like them all, but I think I like rabbit best of all.  Yummylicious!!!

That’s all for today – time to make the rounds and check on the birds and squirrels!

Amber’s Mewsings: Raw Food

Since I last talked to all of you, spring has finally arrived here.  What this means for me, since I’m an indoor kitty, is that mom leaves the windows open so I can enjoy the breeze and the spring smells.  My favorite place to do that from is on one of my window perches.  I have two – one in Mom’s office next to her desk, and one in our bedroom.  I spend more time on the one in Mom’s office, because then I can be close to her while she’s working.

In the afternoons, I like to hang out in our living room, because it has lots of sunny spots, especially late afternoon.  I can either sprawl out on the couch, or on the blue rocking chair.  I like to mix it up a bit.

The other thing that’s new in my life is that Mom has been feeding me some different food.  She says it’s called “raw.”  I’m not entirely sure about it yet.   Sometimes I really like it and eat it straight up.  Other times, I just don’t feel like eating it, so Mom mixes it in with my canned food.  She thinks she’s fooling me that way, but please.  Of course I know it’s in there.  I just humor her and eat it that way.  I like to keep her guessing.  The only thing I don’t like is that now, if I don’t finish every last bite on my dish, it disappears after about half an hour.  That’s usually not a problem for me, I’m a pretty quick eater, but I do like to leave a few morsels to enjoy a little bit later as an in between meal snack, and now, that doesn’t seem to be an option any longer.  I’m not sure how I feel about that yet.  Mom has explained to me that she can’t leave the food with the raw meat in it out longer than half an hour, because it starts going bad, but that doesn’t make any sense to me.  How could food ever be bad?

I know she’s making this change because she wants me to be healthy and live for a long time, and I want that, too.  I just wish that it wouldn’t mess with my eating routine.  Humans – always something with them.  What I do like about this change, though, is that Mom keeps trying to introduce different flavors.  So far, I’ve dined on chicken, turkey and rabbit.  I like the turkey and chicken, I’m not sure about the rabbit yet.  It tastes a bit, well, gamey.  I saw her looking at Cornish Game Hen on the computer.  Hmmm – that sounds interesting.  I think I’ll keep giving this new food a chance for a little longer.