Keep Your Pet Food Container Clean

I always like to share things with my readers that I experience or run across as I'm out talking to consumers in the pet stores when I do my visits as a pet food Rep.

In recent weeks I've had a few conversations with owners that have told me that their dog seems to lose interest in it's kibble towards that end of a bag. I know this can be a source of frustration sometimes and may lead pet owners to think that their dog is losing interest in the food itself or that maybe they should be buying smaller bags so the kibble is fresher.

Well that is an option. Of course there is a "best of used by" date on the foods that I Rep for and most foods should have such information for consumers.

As is most often that case, I ask a lot of questions to try understand and that way I can help pet owners figure out what may be going with their dog or the food they are using.

Something that comes up often is the popularity of putting the kibble into a container of some sort by dumping the whole bag in. I find this a lot with people that come into the store and are unsure of the food they got last time because they don't remember what the bag looked like. So they spend a long time wandering the aisles looking for something that looks familiar.

More importantly is an over looked matter of how clean the container they are using is.

Here is what I mean. Pet food of any reasonable quality contains needed EFT or Essential Fatty Acids like Omega 3 and Omega 6. This can be from a flax oil, fish oils, canola oil and so on.

These oils can remain on the inside of the container you are using and these oils go bad. That's kinda why we put that "Best if Used By" date on the food to begin with.

If you are using a large container to store that 30 or 40 pound bag of kibble, when was the last time you washed it out?

That stuff can get nasty and it's very possible that the kibble is getting a rancid or nasty taste by being stored in a dirty container.

You may not sense or notice a foul smell from the container, but I don't really need to remind you how much better your dog's sense of smell is compared to yours. And smell of kibble is a big factor to the appeal it has to your dog to begin with.

If you're dog loses interest when you are getting to the bottom of the bin of food, it may be for that reason.

So two options are to either wash the container after you finish a bag or just put the bag itself into the container to keep the oils off the container or keep the food from coming into contact with the nasty residue in the container.

Just something to think about and a little feedback from the field.