When “Imitation Chicken Flavour” is a Good Thing

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I’ve eaten more crow in the last 12 months than in my whole life before that.

*sigh* Life has a funny way of doing that doesn’t it. If you’re lucky, you live long enough to see all those things you swore you would never do come true.

I said I would always be the kind of person who walked their dogs, no matter what.

We have a deck potty and I couldn’t love it more.

Making Midnight Potty Breaks Safer with a Deck Potty

I was an advocate for letting dogs be dogs, not babies.

My dog has a stroller.

They see me rollin’, they hatin’

 Now I’m eating crow again. I’m kind of getting used to it. It’s nice with wild rice.

You guys know me. I can’t say enough good things about sharing fresh, real food with your pets.I want my dog food to be made with meat, not meat by products. I want my treats to be made of things I recognize, not a list of things I can’t pronounce and I want any flavours to be REAL.

Well…I usually do. 

Ever since Felix tore his ACL last summer, we’ve been looking for ways to provide his body with everything he needs to heal and stay healed, with the goal of hopefully preventing a blow out on the other ligament. One of the first things our veterinary specialist recommended was a supplement to help support joint and connective tissue function, while also making Fe’s joints feel more comfortable. Sounds awesome right?

Yeah, I was psyched too, until I found out that it comes in a great, “highly palatable chicken liver flavour”. 

WHOMP WHOMP. Oh hey! Awesome joint supplement? Meet Felix’s ridiculous allergies. If I’ve learned one thing in the 7 years Felix has been with me, it’s that chicken, chicken flavour and chicken in pretty much any form is going to turn him into a walking, scratching hot spot. The idea of giving him a supplement with chicken in it every day filled me with dread and anxiety. It took us forever to get Felix’s allergies under control and make him comfortable. Ruining all that work was simply not an option.

Still, after our vet explored alternatives with us, we were convinced this was THE supplement. All the other product options had chicken flavour in them as well and the vet just wasn’t as convinced that they were as effective. We started a two-pronged approach, alternating being the chicken-flavoured supplement Felix’s shouldn’t have and a home mixed custom supplement that I made by cracking open human capsules.  (Note to self: Handling powdered green lipped mussel, powdered shrimp & powdered crab when you have life threatening shellfish allergy is incredibly stupid and I’ve done it 4 or 5 days a week for the last 9 or 10 months. I’ve only broken out into allergic hives a few times, so you know, no big deal, right? Man, the things we do for these dogs!) This kind of worked, except that most days, I had to fight Fe to take his homemade supplement mix and a lot more days, I had to fight Kol to keep him from taking Fe’s supplements for him.  These battles were waged with varying degrees of success. (Let’s just say I am not overly concerned about Kol’s ligaments. They’re getting plenty of support.)

We would have kept on this way forever, until I met someone from Vetriscience at BlogPaws.

We got to talking about Felix and his allergies and how I thought there was a real market out there for supplements that are allergy friendly and flavoured with a novel protein. As we talked, I learned something that kind of rocked my world:

That great supplement my vet recommended? It doesn’t just come in a chicken liver flavoured chew. 

Glyco Flex also comes in a chewable tablet flavoured with imitation roast chicken flavour.

That sound you hear? It’s a canine angel chorus howling in celebration.

I’ve never been so excited to hear the words “imitation” and “flavour” used in the same sentence.

The imitation chicken flavour in Glyco Flex isn’t chicken flavour at all, it’s a vegetable based flavour that they somehow magic into a chicken-y taste. HOLY WOOF! ISN’T THAT EXCITING?!

I still love real food.

When I have a choice, real is still almost always better. Almost. Not always though. If imitation chicken flavour allows my Felix and dogs like him to get the support they need to stay healthy and active, then I am going to jump on board. If that imitation chicken flavour means Fe and I can cancel our nightly WWE Smackdown so he can take a tablet he happily chews up and I don’t have to worry that he’s not getting what he needs, then I am all in. Ideals are good to have, but we can’t cut off our nose to spite our face. 

Fe has been taking the Glyco Flex II tablets for two weeks and I have already started to see subtle changes. Tonight on our walk, Fe wanted to turn it into a run. I’m still concerned he may be injuring his ligament in his non-injured knee and it may be too late to fully stop that, but I feel good knowing that I am doing something and I feel good knowing that Glyco Flex has a proven record of helping pets with mobility issues move easier. Seems like a little artificial flavour just might be worth so many potential gains.

Now, pass the crow. 

Have you ever had to relax your ideals to do the right thing for your dog?

Kol’s Note: We were given a bottle of the Glyco Flex II Chewable tabs by Vetriscience at BlogPaws. We were not asked to write about it or share our experience, in fact, on arriving home, I realized that we never even exchanged information. All opinions expressed are 100% my own.

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