Today, another milestone for bedlamfarm.com, the first ever commercial ad on the home page of the website. At the top of this page, an advertisement for Fromm Family Dog Foods, the first premium dog food company in America, a family-owned company,  and the dog food I have been feeding Red, Frieda and Lenore for most of this year. Fromm is family owned, innovative and very much focused on nutrition. I could not be happier with the impact this food has had on my dogs.  I have always refused to accept ads, but with Fromm, I found something I use and believe in and can recommend in good faith. I turned down two offers of sponsorship from corporate dog food companies.

Fromm and I have agreed to a one month experiment to see if the company and I are comfortable with this arrangement. This is the story behind this ad:

Sometime in the Spring, I realized I needed to find a different dog food. Two of the dogs – Frieda and Lenore – had developed allergy symptoms, dry skin, scratching, shedding. Frieda ate sporadically. Although it is not a delicate thing to talk about, I pay close attention to my dog’s stools as a sign of health. I won’t go into details, but I was troubled by what I saw. Then early this summer I got Red, a high energy working dog. He also ate erratically, and it was a bit chaotic feeding all three.  I began talking to vets, doing some research online, talking to some nutritionists at Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary School, people I had spoken with while researching articles and books about dogs. Several recommended Fromm foods. Then my vet urged me to try Fromm, she said it was the food she recommended for dogs of any age.

The name Fromm kept coming up. I got some. The Fromm site offers thorough and transparent nutritional information, and I compared it with other dog foods. I liked it. So I switched. I was delighted with the results, so much so that I contacted the company in September and we talked about Fromm becoming a sponsor on my site.

I like the fact that this company is family owned, and has been a champion of good nutrition for dogs for decades. I  would not have been comfortable with a corporate company, or a corporate ad. The company cares about nutrition and pets.  I appreciate that it is locally owned. The food is different than any other I have used. I am using the regular foods for Red, and the senior food for Frieda and sometimes, with Lenore. I appreciate the solid packaging as well, and have not had the usual troubles with tearing and spillage.

Specifically, this is what I have seen since I began using Fromm foods: My dogs coats are shiny, and the allergies and dry skin have disappeared. The weight of all three dogs is precisely what it should be. The dog’s stools are exactly what they ought to be, a reliable sign of good nutrition and health. Red, a high energy dog, is thriving on this food. So are Frieda and Lenore.  In addition, all three dogs go to their bowls, eat quickly and enthusiastically. Much more orderly.  I’m very happy with this food. My dogs are health and look good, and my vet is very pleased with the way they look, their weight and coats.

I am reluctant to have ads on the top of this website, for aesthetic reasons and because the site is not a commercial site. But I also want the blog, which is expensive to maintain, to be free. Ads are a way of accomplishing that. So we’ll try it. You, the readers and dog and cat lovers, are a big part of this. I’d encourage you to click on the ad above, check the Fromm site out and if there is a lot of traffic and the people at Fromm and I are happy, we’ll keep it going. This is the best dog food I have ever purchased and I am happy to share that with you, whatever we ultimately decide to do.