Lately, I've been thinking that I should try to get my retriever to eat healthier.
Of course, anything would be an improvement. Especially, since Happy's diet consists mostly of stolen inner soles and Fiddle Faddle. Enter, Scarsdale Pet Food. A place that I discovered when browsing online. It seems to be sort of a mythic entity, but no one is sure if it really exists. Like The Shroud of Turin. Or Donald Trump's hairline.
This is what I know so far.
Scarsdale Pet Food has the most incredible array of healthy products for dogs. Take the raw food, for instance. It is not only organic, but is, apparently, also pathogen-free. Now, at the time, I was not familiar with the term "pathogens." But, if they were free, hey, pathogens for everybody! Still, I thought I should look the word up.
It means an "agent of disease." Which is also the way I'd describe the last person to represent me in Hollywood.
In any case, the food online looked amazing. Medallions of chicken, mini rolls of bison, turkey patties. Costly stuff, but pathogen-free. At every other pet food store, you have to pay through the nose for those pathogens!
Of course, this was still a moot point. I couldn't find an address for the store.
But on I went, shopping virtually.
On another page I saw futuristic-looking bags labeled chicken, rabbit and turkey. These are what Scarsdale Pet Food calls, "frozen pet formulas." The term "formula" had me a bit worried. Were you supposed to feed the chicken to your dog? Or did you use the formula to create some creepy giant chicken who ate your dog and then came looking for you?
And what happened if you combined bags? Would the turkey and rabbit taste good together? Or, would the combined components turn into a scary, hybrid creature? Who would wonder the same thing about you?
Of course, this is all predicated upon Scarsdale Pet Food's existence. Maybe it's not there and our collective unconscious simply dreamed it up. Or, maybe it's there and it actually dreamed us up. I know what you're thinking: 'if that's so, then why couldn't it have given me a stronger chin?'
Perhaps in my fevered imagination, I did dream it up. How else do you come up with something called "Organic Grass Fed Bison Blend"? Which features, not only organic bison, but bison heart and bison liver. Which is fine for your dog. But with all those organs being used in food, what about all the bison out there waiting for transplants? Should they just turn off their pagers?
I thought I might check closer to home, to see if the Pet Pantry Warehouse, in Rye, carried any unusual dog food. The sort that, until last week, was happily grazing on the plain. Unfortunately, they didn't. They had something called California Natural, which I had previously thought was the name of an aimless Grateful Dead jam. They also had Newman's Own. The closest we came to anything bison-related was a group sing of "Home On The Range."
I thanked the staff and went home. Not before suggesting that next time we try "Red River Valley."
Finally, at home, a little progress.
After more website searching, I saw that Scarsdale Pet Foods was not so much a local entity, as an anonymous nationwide organization. One that plants its wares in various venues, without trying to attract too much attention. Just like the CIA. Then, after following several links, I saw that this company had a phone number. I left a message with them, asking for the stores in Scarsdale that carry their strange, delicious-sounding dog food. As soon as they get back to me, I'll write a little something about it.
So, I can tell you then, that this piece could very well be the first in a series. I don't know if that's true. But I've always wanted to say it.
Peter Gerstenzang is a freelance videographer and entertainment and humor writer based in Rye. His column, Happy Mondays, is about life with his golden retriever, Happy. It will appear on Mondays on both Scarsdale Patch and Rye Patch. Check out Peter's funny short story, "Not Ready For My Close-Up," in the new Puppies USA Magazine.
