Euka, VP of Canine Communications, is planning on retiring around April 15, 2012.  I posted her letter of retirement a few days ago. Now, a kind of job description has appeared:

Our Company is global, and we have employees and four-legged connoisseurs around the world, taking that into consideration, Euka described some of what her successor will be required to do:

“My successor will be required to: like children and adults, love being an official greeter and have a mastery level knowledge of basic obedience.  He will need to be photogenic and love being videotaped.   He will need to be smaller than I am because he will be making appearances around the globe and will need to travel on an airplane.  Like all of our Vice Presidents, he must carry sufficient credentials.  He must earn his champion title at dog shows, be certified as a Canine Good Citizen and become a certified Therapy Dog.  I will be sure to keep you updated on his progress“

In short, he will need to play well with others as he will attend and participate in many P&G Pet Care Events, such as:

• Take Your Dog to Work Day
• Take Your Child to Work Day
• Career Day at Schools
• On boarding new Pet Care employees
• Attend Company meetings
• Ambassador for IH4TH
• Volunteer at the yearly P&G Pet Care Shelter Makeover Event
• Certified in Canine Good Citizen
• Certified Therapy Dog
• Ringing the Wall Street Bell on Christmas Eve
• Attend Animal Rescue conferences
• Attend (and maybe participate!) events such as Dock Diving and Agility
• Competing in Dog Shows
• Obtain Champion Title at Dog Shows
• Attend AKC Eukanuba National Championship.
• Attend World Dog Show

With that in mind, I wanted to advise everybody to watch the Iams and Eukanuba Facebook pages–because there’s some very exciting news coming up!

Some very exciting news! Our second annual “Behind the Paw” summit is scheduled for next week! We’ve invited a furbulous group of pet community advocates and anipals to come for a visit to learn more about P&G Pet Care. We’ll be tweeting about it–if you’re on Twitter be sure to watch for #BehindThePaw to get updates. Here’s a preview of what’s happening!

Another reason why I love where I work!

The official statement:

“P&G has donated nearly 12 tons of dog and cat food to the help the animals in Arkansas and Alabama that were displaced by the recent tornadoes. The food was distributed to several locations throughout the region to help save the lives of the many dogs and cats that were affected. We will continue to monitor the situation to determine if further assistance is needed.”

Some stuff that happened behind-the-scenes:

When asked to help, our closest distributor immediately worked out a plan to interrupt schedule product shipments so that they could get the product donation shipped to where it was needed. They also donated their time to do it.

We’ve already heard from some of the rescue groups located in the tornado-stressed areas—they posted on the Iams Facebook wall that they’ve received much-needed Iams food to help feed displaced dogs and cats.

I’m so glad we were able to get food where it was needed so quickly!

The new wind turbine at our pet food plant in Coevorden, The Netherlands

You probably don’t know that Procter & Gamble (P&G) has a corporate sustainability program. You might also not know that P&G Pet Care (the company I work for) has a pet food plant in Coevorden, The Netherlands, that makes our products for consumers in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

As part of our (P&G’s) corporate sustainability program, the ultimate goal is to power our plants with 100% renewable energy. We will accomplish this in increments. By 2020, we want P&G’s plants to be powered by at least 30% renewable energy.

So here’s what I find really exciting: This month, the Iams/Eukanuba plant in Coevorden added a wind turbine to its power grid, and by pressing the red button that started the turbine our plant jumped the 2020 deadline by 8 years! Our Coevorden plant is now getting one third of its power from the very first P&G wind turbine! As my buddy Dan Rajczak (Senior Vice President of Global Pet Care and Snacks) said:

“Pet Care is proud to lead the way on turbine-generated renewable energy for P&G. Meeting our 2020 Sustainability goals for this plant a full eight years ahead of our commitment is a significant achievement.”

Dan is absolutely right! This makes me so proud!

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Munch Mystery Exposed!

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Part of my work is to sometimes respond to comments made on videos posted to the Iams YouTube channel. Yesterday, there was a really fun one!

Munch, the Bulldog featured in several Iams commercials, has a very distinctive (and distinguished!) face: It’s mostly white with a patch of brown on the right side of his head.

Someone with a very keen sense of detail noticed that in Munch’s latest commercial, that patch of brown is not always on the same side of his face. “Is it the same Bulldog throughout the commercial?”

So I had to do some detecting.

I first looked at the commercial. It went by so fast it was hard to tell if the patch switched sides. It was easier when I envisioned Munch as a car and the patch as being on the “passenger’s” side. Sure enough, that patch went from “passenger’s” side to “driver’s” side and back to “passenger’s” side again!

Brown patch on "passenger's" side

Brown patch on "driver's" side

Brown patch on "passenger's" side again!

So then I had to look at his other commercial, and I noticed the same thing:

Brown patch on the right side

Brown patch on wrong side!!!

Were there 2 different dogs in each of these commercials?

NO!

In each commercial, an artistic decision was made to reverse a snippet of film. I’ve watched these commercials over and over again (I’m a big Munch fan!) and NEVER NOTICED THIS!!!! I imagine I’m not the only one.

So now you’re in on “the secret of the transposed brown patch!” Here are the 2 commercials. In the first one, watch for when Munch says “I’m gonna ace this checkup”—that’s Munch in reverse! In the second one, watch for when Munch says “Nice day, huh?” Again, Munch in reverse!

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You’ve probably already heard about this, but in case you haven’t here’s the press release:

P&G Expands Further in ‘Super Premium’ Pet Food Segment

 CINCINNATI, May 5, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ –The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE: PG) has signed an agreement to acquire Natura Pet Products, Inc., a privately-held pet food business based in Davis, California.

 This move enables P&G to expand into the attractive “holistic and naturals” segment of the pet food category, complementing P&G’s current Iams and Eukanuba brands and helping the Company advance its overall growth strategy of “reaching more consumers in more parts of the world more completely.”

 Natura’s brands include Innova, Evo, California Natural, Healthwise, Mother Nature and Karma. These brands are sold in a limited number of pet specialty stores and through veterinarians, mainly in the United States and Canada.

 ”These outstanding brands and the great employees of Natura Pet Products will complement our Eukanuba and Iams brands very well,” said Dan Rajczak, senior vice president of P&G’s global pet care and snacks businesses. “This acquisition gives us a strong position in the holistic and natural pet food segment. It will enable us to enhance the health and well-being of even more dogs and cats and represents an exciting new source of growth for our business.”

 ”It’s time for the right company to take our brands to the next level of growth. P&G is that company,” said John Rademakers, founder and owner of Natura Pet Products. “We know that P&G will honor our history as they capitalize on their strengths to build these brands.”

 Natura Pet Products employs about 140 people, mainly at its production sites in San Leandro, California and Fremont, Nebraska. P&G is targeting to close this deal in about a month, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory clearances. Specific terms of the deal are not being disclosed.

My friend Emily over on Eukanuba Unleashed posted today about how to throw a “pawty” on February 6 when Animal Planet broadcasts the AKC/Eukanuba National Championship. Em has got all the bases covered–from invitations to decor to drinks. She even includes a scorecard–the Bone Collector Grid–that you can use in a game to keep track of which dog is moving forward for the win. Actually, I think the Bone Collector Grid might be a fun game to play at any dog show–especially for kids who might become a little antsy during the judging.

We’re waiting.

Bailey has stopped eating. In my heart, I’m certain it’s the food. But remember where I work (Consumer Relation, Iams). My head knows it’s NOT the food.

Our usual routine has been topsy-turvey because of the holidays–I’ve taken some massive vacation time and our usual day of get up/dressed, walk the pooch, feed the pooch, sit at my desk and work with pooch in bed under desk, has been totally disrupted. And Bailey has been annoyed because of this disruption. Nearly every morning of my vacation, as we finish up the dress/walk/feed chores that never change, she stands in the hall outside my office, looks at me and says, “Time for work, aren’t you coming to your desk?” And when I go in a different direction she gets this confused and then annoyed look because I’m deviating from the routine. So when she started to skip a meal here-and-there I put it down to the upheaval in our routine.

Looks like I was probably wrong.

I’ve mentioned before that I feed Bailey 4 times a day. Tuesday night, she refused to eat at her last feeding of the day. Wednesday, she would only eat lunch and supper. Thursday, she refused to eat all 4 meals.

Now the thing that has made me crazy is that she’ll eat her biscuits, or a handful of MiniChunks (which I happened to have on hand) or scraps from the table (yes, I know, bad mom) no problem. So I thought “There’s nothing wrong–she’ll eat other stuff, just not her regular meal. There must be something wrong with the food.”

My head knows it’s not the food.

Remember, Bailey is diabetic. She was due for a check on her blood sugar, so I took her to our favorite clinic on Wednesday and a wonderful vet tech pulled some blood. Her blood sugar was at 213–which is good.

Then Thursday she totally would not eat her regular meals. And each time I offered it she looked at me like I was missing some kind of crucial ceremony that would allow her to eat. Her eyes said if only I would say the magic words or do the magic hand wave she would be able to eat the food I was placing before her. But obviously I was too head-stupid to figure out what the magic charm was that would allow her to eat, so she sadly ducked her head and walked away from the bowl.

I still thought this was part of the routine-disruption. Eventually she would be hungry enough to eat.

I didn’t give her her shot on Thursday evening–I didn’t want her blood sugar to bottom out because that can be life-threatening. For the short-term it would be far less harmful if her blood sugar was slightly elevated.

During the night on Thursday she woke me 4 times so that I could lift her off the bed so she could drink water. And twice insisted that she needed to go out to the patio to pee (she seems to be on strike against the pee pad). I kinda expected this–after all when her blood sugar level is high she gets thirsty. I did not get much sleep.

One of the advantages of working where I do is I have access to a team of veterinarians who are never too busy to discuss Bailey’s health. Friday morning I talked the situation over with two of my best buds–Dr. Dicke and Jen-the-vet-tech. They both agreed it was time to call my vet.

My vet was in emergency surgery, so I left a long voice mail for her. Before noon she called me–she had a family commitment and was about to leave for the day, but she felt I should bring Bailey in today rather than wait till she was next in on Monday so she had made arrangements for us to see her colleague, Dr. C. at 2. I was very comfortable with this because we’ve seen Dr. C. in the past (though it was several years ago), and he’s very nice and very smart.

After I told him our story, he did a full exam on Bailey. And found that she has an infected tooth. (I am a bad mom).

The tooth didn’t seem to be painful (yet). He didn’t want to rule it out, but he also didn’t want to jump to the conclusion that the tooth was the problem. So blood tests were needed. It could be a bladder infection (she has a history), or her liver or her thyroid or her pancreas. Or it could be that the cancer is back. Blood tests will give us better indications.

In the meanwhile he prescribed clavamox (an antibiotic) which will help with the tooth and also the possible bladder infection. And he will phone me before noon tomorrow (today? I think it’s after midnight) to let me know the lab results on her blood.

And so, we wait.

We have an incredible contest going on right now which will last until this time next year. It’s called Feed Pets In Need. This contest allows people to vote for their favorite Iams Home 4 the Holidays shelter/rescue. Each month, the TWO organizations with the most votes win a free month’s worth of pet food from Iams!

And it’s really easy to do.

Go to the www.IH4tH.com website.

Iams Home 4 the Holidays web site header

Click on the little dog and cat icon, at the top right side of the page:

Click "Cast Your Vote"

You will need to register because you are allowed only 1 vote per day. P&G’s Privacy Policy means you totally control ANY personal information you provide in your registration. You also totally control whether or not you receive our newsletter.

Registering is painless.

Once you’re registered, you can vote!

Find your favorite shelter or rescue by choosing the State (or Canada) and the city.

Sort the organizations by the shelter/rescue name or the name of the city.

Click on your favorite shelter/rescue to highlight it, then click “Vote For Shelter!”

When you hit the vote button, a new window will open with the rules of the contest. Make sure you read them at least once. Then at the bottom of the rules is a check box and an OK button. For your vote to register, check the check box and click OK.

Click the check box AND the OK button.

You will then see who’s currently getting the most votes, and who our past winners are!

(I blocked out my vote to keep it private.)

This is sooooooooo easy!! Many shelters/rescues have started up campaigns to get their supporters to vote. Check with your favorite Iams Home 4 the Holidays shelter or rescue–this is something you can do for them that takes only a few moments of your time. GET OUT THE VOTE!!

This is a big weekend for us–and by “us” I mean Eukanuba! This weekend many of our Eukanuba team are in Long Beach, California for the AKC/Eukanuba National Championship.

My buddy, Emily, is there covering the show for our new blog Eukanuba Unleashed. I get to stay home and “cover” some of Em’s work! Which is fine with me because I get to immerse myself in some of the Eukanuba-oriented stuff that Emily gets to do.

So first thing this morning, I took the time to catch up on videos that have been posted to the Eukanuba Channel on YouTube. There’s some really wonderful new ones, but I think my favorite is this one: