The Organic Pet - coming out T.O.P!

I've bought so much stuff for the girls over these past 3 years of having them that it takes quite a lot to get me truly excited when it comes to pet products. Most things seem to be re branded copies, ridiculous and useless, horrendously overpriced or poor quality, which isn't acceptable even if they're -just- for pets. (Just, ha.)

So when I stumbled across The Organic Pet I must admit I did get rather excited! 

I don't tend to give my girls treats too often, they wouldn't be treats if I did but when I do I try to keep them natural and organic. We've tried other treats in the past but they never went down amazingly well, some obviously weren't too tasty and some stank the house out!

We're always up for trying new things though, so we went ahead and placed and order on The Organic Pet's UK website.
(They sell their products at a really amazing price and no, the usual e-tailers can't beat it!)

The Organic Pet company stand by their name and keep every ingredient organic and as nature intended, they don't use any wheat gluten, soy or dairy in their treats and avoid all additives and preservatives. The don't use any added salt or sugar. They explain it all on their nutrition page.

T.O.P have 3 sizes of treats; minis, bites and jumbo. They also do some pretty cool selection boxes. The selection boxes would make a great doggy gift! -hint hint- ;)

We opted to try out all their flavours, 5 in the minis form and 1 in the bitesize.

(Click to enlarge.)

L-R Banana, Carrot & Apple, Cinnamon & Honey, Mint & Herbs and Sun Dried Tomato, Spinach & Herbs.

 

Banana and Peanut butter. 

Don't the flavours sound delish? The human Hiltons might have to have a sneaky nibble too, just to test them of course ;)

So onto what we thought! 

Well, firstly their website is great, it looks good, has great service and prices, we cannot fault them as a brand at all. When the treats arrive, they're beautifully packaged in good quality materials, they're actually nice to look at, the cover bodes well for the book! (Never judge a book by its cover, except for here, here you can.)

The treats themselves are a good size and they smell amazing. We tried the girls with all the flavours and they went down swimmingly, with the Cinnamon & Honey being the favourite so far. 

With the quality ingredients and the fact that the girls really seem to enjoy them I can see these treats being in our cupboards for good!

Oh and did we mention how much we love their motto!?!

Says it all really doesn't it?

Bon Appétit!

Love & licks,

Rio, Jonny, Buffy, Rafferty, Monroe, Lily and Lola.
xo

Awkward Family Pet Photos Book Review

In the modern human/pet relationship a lot of boundaries get blurred. We lavish time, attention and sometimes a ridiculous amount of money on our furry little friends, like never before. Sometimes though people take their love to an extreme that borders on the obscene. There's a secretly strange section of the population, whose actions are just plain awkward and that's what this book, 'Awkward Family Pet Photos' is all about, those actions caught on film!

Enter the brilliant minds behind the book, Mike Bender and Doug Chernack. They saw an opportunity to gather together a host of funny, bizarre, weird and sometimes, down right cringe inducingly awkward 'family photos', that people have dragged their pets into! Many people feel their pet is a part of the family, us included and a family photo includes those with 4 legs as well as 2. Reading through the book though you'll come to see that so often the pet isn't the awkward one in the picture, it's us, the people setting up these amazingly odd shots!

I was lucky enough to get a pre release copy, so I've had a look through the book and I can say it's an intensely odd mix of the funny, the weird and, as the title suggests, the down right awkward. You can expect to find gems like Page 13, where cowboy chic meets a pet possum or Page 159, where one dog had his day, right behind the cute prom couple! One of the funniest shots (to us) and by far our overall favourite is on Page 54, so be sure to check it out if you grab yourself a copy!

The book is officially released today, so it'd be a great stocking filler or Christmas present for the animal lover in your life, who may well have a picture of themselves and their pet that would fit in! The book is a good read, it's put together nicely and is great quality, with a nice price tag to match. To check it out more and see how you can order your copy you can visit the 'where to buy' page, there you'll find links to this book and also see this books predecessor, 'Awkward Family Photos' for sale!

We hope you do get a copy and if you do then we'd love to hear about it! You can share your favourite pages or tell us about your awkward pet photos by emailing us or tweeting to @riochanelhilton

Love & licks,

Rio, Jonny, Buffy, Rafferty, Monroe, Lily and Lola.

xo

P.S We'd like to say a big 'thank you' to Jonathan from Crown Publishing at Random House for sending us our copy!

(Products mentioned in this post were sent to me for review.)

Animology

If you've read any of our past shopping posts you'll know that we're constantly looking for new/exciting/better products for the girls. A few weeks ago I became aware of an interesting brand called 'Animology'. Animology are pretty new, they only established themselves last year (2010) but they are quickly proving themselves to be at the top amongst the pet hygiene product retailers.

After checking out their website, they immediately ticked 2 boxes for me. Good branding with plenty of clear, concise information and nice packaging. Not as important as the actual product of course but as I've said in the past, there's nothing like a good first impression, right?

After a little research I found the prices were pretty good too, especially when compared to other quality shampoos. 3 boxes checked, looking good so far!  
(Retail prices that is, they do also do Groomers bulk amount products, which can be found here)

Animology do a total of 8 different products, some specifically for puppies and some for adults; they do normal shampoos, a specialised whitening shampoo, a flea/tick treatment, deodorising sprays and also dry spray on shampoos.

Flea&Tick PuppyLove DogsBody DirtyDawg WhiteWash StinkBomb PuppyFresh MuckyPup

(Click product names above for more info on each individual type & click pictures above/below to enlarge)

We purchased the full line a few weeks ago so we could give them a good try before sharing our views on Animology :) We decided to test out all 8 products and I have to say so far I'm really loving them!

Our set.

As soon as we got them we were surprised by the bottle sizes, they're very generous considering the price and the packaging is great, it has a really high end designer feel to it. Loved that.

The 3 puppy products 'PuppyLove', 'PuppyFresh' and 'MuckyPup' all smell absolutely gorgeous, they smell of baby powder and there's something seriously cute about a fluffy puppy snuggling you smelling of baby powder :) After a little while a seriously yummy cinnamon scent comes through as well and it's really hard to pull your nose away from your pups fur!

The adult products 'DogsBody', 'DirtyDawg', 'WhiteWash' and 'StinkBomb' have their 'signature' scent, it's hard to describe but it's a light, sweet fruity smell, very very nice indeed. I find myself constantly rubbing my face on the girls' fur when they've been sprayed, just to get a sniff!

The 'Flea&Tick' shampoo smells simply of a nice soap, kind of like a nice hand soap? A pleasant surprise as a lot of flea shampoos tend to smell horrible, so we were very happy with this!

None of the shampoos/sprays were overpowering with their scents, in fact they're all very light but do last between 5 and 7 days, perfect really because when we do our weekly brush we can top up with our deodorising spray!
The shampoos rinsed out easily and left the girls' fur very soft and shiny and their fur actually felt thicker too.

The deodorising sprays 'Stink Bomb' and 'Puppy Fresh' are actually incredible and really stand out as a unique product, we've tried similar things and they just mask any odours with a heavy smell, where as these really seemed to lift any nasty smells out of the fur and left only a very subtle fragrance. Very impressed by those.

The spray in dry shampoos/no rinse shampoos were easy to use, they didn't leave any sticky residue in the fur and didn't make the girls feel damp. If you had unexpected company on their way these would be fabulous to freshen up your pup.

The overall quality of the range was excellent, I'm so pleased that I honestly will be continuing to use Animology and saving space for it in our grooming bag for a while yet! The price for what you get from the product is amazing. I'd recommend them to anyone with dogs, they're well worth trying and if you can only get 1 or 2 items I'd say go for the shampoo and a deodorising spray (which ever set is appropriate for your dogs' age).

I'm clearly not the only one who has rated the Animology line so highly either, in their first year they won 'Best Product 2010' as voted by the UK's Pet Product Retail Association. Impressive!

Plus with lots of Crufts award winners having used Animology this year, their popularity seems sure to sky rocket and we think Animology is going to be the brand to watch. We would certainly keep a very close eye on them and their available stock. ;)

Well we hope you enjoyed our look at the Animology line and we hope someone found it useful! If you would like to try out Animology for yourself, it's available in store/online at your local Pets at Home or at any other good pet store :)

Love & licks,

Rio, Jonny, Buffy, Rafferty, Monroe, Lily and Lola.
xo

P.S See what the folks at Animology had to say when they featured our review on their blog! :)

Laughing Dog Food! - Review.

It's not very often I come across a new brand of pet products, as a life long pet owner and current dog devotee, I consider myself pretty up to date with the best brands out there. However, I received an email a few weeks ago now, about a wonderful farm run family company, called Laughing Dog. After checking out their website, (which I liked - very bright and easy to navigate), I found them to be right up my street, my girls nutrition is so important to me and as anyone who knows me will already be aware, I'm always researching and trying to keep my girls at their peak, with the best of food, toys etc. So we agreed to a sample on the basis of us doing a review.

Laughing Dog were extremely kind and sent us both the adult Chicken flavour and the adult Lamb flavour kibbles from their range. They do a total of 7 different products; 2 adult kibbles, 1 senior kibble and 1 puppy kibble - all of which are complete meal foods. Laughing Dog also do 2 mixer meals - 1 adult, 1 puppy and some 'biscuit cakes' treats which are suitable for all ages.

 Adult Chicken and Adult Lamb.

When we took a look at their site the first thing I noticed is the packaging, I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again, the packaging isn't everything but it sure helps make a good first impression!

As far as the kibble itself, all of their products are 100% natural, hypo-allergenic and are made with top quality ingredients. They don't use any dairy, soy or wheat gluten in their kibbles and there's also no nasty additives or added preservatives. The barley and oats they use in their kibble is home grown on their farm!

One thing I found fascinating about their kibble is that the pieces are irregular in shape and size, making them a little tougher to eat, which slows your dog down and in turn promotes better digestive health! In the pictures (below) you can see the 'wobbly' shape of the Laughing Dog kibble - seen in a promo picture and then again, close up, in my hand...

 (Click to enlarge).

Our 5 extremely qualified taste testers (enter Buffy, Rafferty, Monroe, Lily and Lola) really seemed to enjoy Laughing Dog, so it's 2 happy paws up from each of them! We let them try it over a few weeks and they didn't seem to get bored with it, which is always a positive. The girls were happy to eat the kibble out my hand, scattered on the floor, from a bowl etc but they were also equally happy to 'work' for it, when I hid it in their Aikiou bowl or their Dogit toy! I took that to be a good sign, they aren't too easily impressed usually, so with the quality of ingredients and their enthusiasm towards it, I'm more than happy with Laughing Dog's kibble and will continue to shop with them. :)

Price wise Laughing Dog is very reasonably and competitively priced, it's comparable to other high end dog foods and is readily available to order online via their website, with next day delivery. Laughing Dog is also making its way to a pet shop near you!

If you choose to try Laughing Dog we hope you enjoy it as much as we did and we'd love to see some pictures of your dog enjoying their Laughing Dog! You can tweet your pictures to us at @RioChanelHilton or email them to us at riochanelhilton@hotmail.com :) You can also contact Laughing Dog directly via their website or their twitter @ReefLaughingDog

Love & licks
Rio, Jonny, Buffy, Rafferty, Monroe, Lily and Lola.
xo

(Products mentioned in this post were sent to me for review.)

Natural Vitality Treats - Review.

A few weeks ago we got a lovely message via twitter from the pet brand, Bob Martin's account. They asked us if we would like to review their new line of 'Natural Vitality' treats, which we were more than happy to do!

The people at Bob Martin were kind enough to send us all 3 flavours - Chicken, Salmon and Lamb.

Our treats!

Packaging wise we're happy, it's nice and bright and with the choice of 3 flavours there's something to tickle every dogs fancy :) The packs are resealable, which is handy if you only have 1 or 2 dogs and because the treats are soft it helps keep them fresh too.

The treats are made from good quality natural ingredients, with at least 70% of the total contents of each pack coming from meat or fish. Each flavour is aimed at benefiting a different aspect of your dogs health, with the Chicken flavour for oral health, the Salmon for flexible joints and the Lamb for improved digestion.

All the treats have lines scored down them, which is really handy if you want to break them up to use as rewards for training sessions or for smaller/older dogs;

Our 5 official taste testers, (Buffy, Rafferty, Monroe, Lily and Lola), all enjoyed the treats and came back for seconds. The girls all gave them 2 paws up... That's a lot of paws! The treats have a good strong smell, which the girls seemed to appreciate and find moreish. Even little Lola found them easy to eat, although they can quickly be broken into smaller pieces if required, as we said.

The fact that these treats are moist is a bonus because it means your dog wont be running to his/her water bowl straight after eating them and they seem to be very easy on even sensitive stomachs, none of our girls had any problems with them :)

At around £1.50 - £2 a pack, they're very reasonably priced and they're available from all good pet shops and online pet stores, so finding them shouldn't be a problem :)

We hope you'll give them a try and see what your pup thinks! 
Love & licks,
Rio, Jonny, Buffy, Rafferty, Monroe, Lily and Lola.
xo

(Products mentioned in this post were sent to me for review.)

The card that came with the treats - Thanks Jo!