Prescription dog foods - Why I love ROYAL CANIN and my fluffy pup

First of all, let me pre-empt this by saying that I was not paid to make this. 

Now onto the post.

Since losing my prior dog at the ripe happy old age of 13 to sudden pancreatic cancer, I have been caring for a new pooch; or rather we have been caring for each other. I found him at a shelter, and when his siblings started a dogpile fight and he just casually walked off, I instantly knew he was the one for me. That kind of passive wolfpack behavior is something you cannot train. When they brought him out, he ran to me; he also chose me. 

He helped me through some hard times, and in the first year of having him not only did he double in size, but also in love joy. He is a large 100lb dog who is full of kisses and hugs and pays his rent in belly rubs and kisses, and his favorite toy of all time is this dumb stuffed egg with a pony inside. He takes it everywhere. 

He was rough to raise due to having severe dietary restrictions, and we went through SOOO MANY different kinds of foods, bones, chews, and treats; nearly everything made him sick. That was until we found Royal Canin, here was where we finally had a food he liked and that did not cause any issues. He has been on this food for about a year, and now happily runs around being a goofy doodle, laying on the couch and giving plenty of kisses and begging for belly rubs. 

As you can see, he is just a big fluffy ball of love. We have had so many adventures in just one year: seen a silver fox, followed a family of red-shouldered hawks and the babies they had that now live in our complex, saw several species of bats, had a funeral for a large raven who suffered a tragic death during a storm, went through the 14-day winter storm of 2020 (where nearly 2ft of snow piled up for 2 weeks), saw the insurrection happen on tv, made it through the 2020 pandemic, and many more. He especially helped me through the trauma of losing my prior dog, sitting by my side putting his head in my lap when I was sad, and giving me kisses every day to cheer me up. 

This dog loves attention and loves hamming it up for people. Unless you are a flying insect he loves everything and everyone, just kissing everything in sight. 

Royal Canin has been incredibly important to me and to him, because everything else just did not work or made him sick. I tried somewhere around 10 different brands and 6 different prescriptions before we found one that worked. Ernie (the dog) has such a sensitive stomach and cannot eat certain ingredients and animals, and of all the prescription foods I did try, Royal Canin was always reliable. 

They have a wide variety of different types of food, low fat, chicken, fish, pork, beef, veggie, gastrointestinal low fat, and many more. Ernie is on the gastrointestinal low fat brand, and he is finally able to eat other things like dental chews, treats, and bones. Best part is that the royal canin food (like many other foods) can literally be bagged up in a ziplock and used as treats for your dog. Anytime, anyplace, your dog will love this food; they will not care they are eating the same thing every day. 

Here is a video link to an Instagram clip of me feeding Ernie his Royal Canin dinner:

https://www.facebook.com/spernica/videos/2663984693904886

As you can tell, he LOVES this stuff. 

Heck, even I as a human being thought the food smells really tasty; though I never tried it myself. A great thing about this brand is that it lasts a VERY long time, as each bag comes with a ziplock seal and an easy-cut top. You can easily and smoothly slice the top of the bag off with practically just a flathead screwdriver if done right. Also, if you get a shipment and the bag is tempered or ripped, you can contact Royal Canin (or whoever ships your food), complain, and they will literally ship a replacement FOR FREE. I once got a bag sliced in half that wrecked my kitchen, and after I filed a formal complaint, not once after did they ever ship a damaged bag; plus that complaint changed their entire shipping policy and their package labeling. Shipping is hassle-free and can be ordered from your local pet store, veterinarian. or Petsmart, or Royal Canin themselves, or even a website like chewy.com.

I have left bags of Royal Canin food sitting in my living room and garage for literal months, and due to their food being vacuum-sealed, they take a VERY long time before they go bad. Even if you leave the bag open, the food takes an erroneously long time before it gets close to expiring. Like, I had a ziplock of food from my prior dog about a year old, and it was still good to eat. 

Ernie is the happiest dog I have seen in many a year, and we have owned 5 dogs, and I have seen thousands of dogs and their owners. This dog is also so easygoing and peaceful that when he accidentally steps on your foot or you walk into him while playing he cuddles up to you and plants 10 kisses. You can see a video of him being a goofball here on my youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=GZYGqPrhbN4&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3B4H6lfwh90Hcv9Fbpj1kOki1i-_LltZfNOoe_P3CXbhv0MZ2N8MXK9Us

I definitely spoil this puppy. 

If you are considering a prescription food for your dog you should add Royal Canin to your list. I have also used other brands, but I cannot in good conscience recommend the brand my previous dog used because shortly after his death and about a 2-3weeks after I got Ernie) a report came out regarding a recall about brands I fed him that legit made him sick, and I also (as it turns out) I had tried these foods with Ernie. And, of course, those same foods made him sick too. 

"Who looks like an oreo, and is 10 times as sweet? Who's got a fluffy nose, and big ol' feet? It's Ernie. It's Ernie. Who's got a bubblegum tongue and cuddly belly? Who gives the kisses, and is big fluffy smelly? Ernie. It's Ernie."

***Please support animal adoption rather than breeding and also spay and neutering. Make sure you only adopt if you are capable of caring for the animal you want to adopt. If you lack the necessary time to be home for the pet's training, always remember that crate training is efficient and simple to do, and can allow you to place your pet in a place where they will feel safe and secure. And they will not damage anything in your home while inside. However, NEVER leave your pets in a crate for extraneous periods of time, as this is hazardous to their mental and physical health (<8-9hours a day max, and preferably never inside when you are home and can see them while outside the crate.)***

I adopted Ernie, but he has roughly 4 siblings that I believe never made it out of the shelter. It is sad because it is likely that they might never get adopted. They may be wily and require training and space to run around, but they are pretty good dogs (as cane corso black lab mixes are very mellow and gentle). So again, please support spaying and neutering and adopting rather than breeding. 

And if you ever see someone abandon a pet or abuse an animal, walk up to them, and say "you are a mean mean person, go lick a lemon. Then call the proper authorities/services to make sure those animals do not suffer a terrible fate (and then get stuck in a 3day time loop where a man asks them about a mask).