Section A·Page 10
The University Daily Kansan
Thursday, August 21, 1997
Home cooked meals please some pets palates
The Associated Press
ALBANY, N.Y. — Chop up some chicken. Mix in eggs and rice. Add a bit of yogurt and a dash of bone meal. Stick it in the microwave. Now you're cooking – for your dog.
Beau, a snow-white American Eskimo, yaps a few times and twirls in anticipation before gobbling the few sticky scoops placed in his dish.
Dorianne Blanchard is pleased, too. Beau had been laid low by liver problems before she started a cooking-and-vitamin regimen for him this spring. Now, he is showing new signs of health and appetite, she says.
"He was never a good eater. He never liked dog food," Blanchard says. "But since I started the homemade diet, he barks at me to eat . . . I have actually tasted it and it's not bad, a little bland."
Blanchard is among a small number of pet owners whose idea of home pet cuisine extends way, way beyond scraping leftover wieners into the doggie dish.
This breed of pet chef relies on
"Since I started the homemade diet, he barks at me to eat ... I actually tasted it,and it's not bad."
Dorianne Blanchard cooks for her doc
whole grains, fresh vegetables and carefully calibrated recipes with names such as Dog Loaf and Quick Feline Eggfest. They often are sympathetic to holistic medicine and tend to turn their noses up at commercial pet food.
And they are dedicated. Meals are cooked regularly and stashed away for daily use in plastic ware and old mayonnaise jars.
It takes time and saves little money, if any.
So why do it?
Pet food cooks claim it brings wondrous changes to their cats and dogs: shinier coats, sunnier personalities, no more dog
breath. And besides, they say, it's natural.
"You have to think that dogs have been around for 10,000 years, and dog food has been around for 50 years," says Shawna Davies of Plattsburgh, N.Y. "What did people do before then?"
Probably a little less than what Davies does for her two dogs. She regularly toils away at dishes such as "Potatoes au Canine," in which the spuds are mixed with cottage cheese and vegetables.
Another popular favorite with the Davies dogs is a mix of brown rice, kidney beans, yeast, kelp, and a dash of chlorophyll (to neutralize dome breath).
Davies gives testimony of what her dogs were like before home cooking.
"They had skin problems and they drooled, they smelled. And their excretions? Agghh! One problem after another."
And now?
"My dogs have not been to the vets since I started cooking for them."
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Angrily pointing her finger at Sgt. Maj. of the Army Gene McKinney, a female recruiter said yesterday she decided to report his sexual advances because "he's up at the Pentagon. He's my superior."
The confrontation occurred at the start of the eighth week of testimony at a Fort McNair hearing to determine whether McKinney should be court-martialed on sexual misconduct charges.
Jeczala was the sixth and last woman scheduled to testify about alleged improper sexual advances by McKinney, the highest ranking enlisted man in the Army.
Jeczala said she first met McKinney in June 1996 when he visited recruiting stations in Florida. She said McKinney invited her to dinner, but another recruiter warned her not to go.
Jeczala said she called an aide to McKinney and said she wanted to bring the other recruiter along and was told it was okay. But later, the dinner was canceled and she was invited to lunch the next day.
During that meeting she said McKinney started talking about his son, who had been killed in an automobile accident.
"I thought he's trying to keep himself from crying," she said.
"He put his left arm around my shoulder," she said. "I patted him
on the back.
"He then said to me, 'I love you.' I froze and said to myself, 'that's odd."
Jeczla said she did not feel threatened by the incident.
But two months later, McKinney returned to the area and asked her to stop by his quarters at Patrick Air Force Base.
Jeczala said she initially was reluctant to come forward because she believed it was more important to train soldiers to be more sensitive to sexual harassment.
"I realized I can't train Sgt. Maj. of the Army McKinney. He's up at the Pentagon. He's my superior," she said. "He's been trained. It's been done. I can't train him."
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