Summer Vacation Prologue

My life is currently hurtling ahead at the speed of light, and I'm doing everything I can to not lose my sanity!  Meanwhile, the kittens are cuddling, Vixen's snoozing on the floor, and Benny's intently, but calmly, staring out the window.  They have no idea that their "work" is about to expand.  If you ask them (well, the dogs mostly, but the kittens are catching on,) if they "want to go to work," you get the most excited, enthusiastic set of wagging tails and excited eyes.  And soon, by November, there will be two places for them to "go to work," which means twice the fun for them, and a million times the work and stress for us, the people.  It also means that this is our last day off until after Christmas, except for Thanksgiving (but we won't be vegging then, we'll be roasting a turkey.)  I always love Christmas, but this year I'll be paying extra attention to the Christmas countdown.  So before I get caught up in Fall, I will share with you our summer vacation/business trip!

We left right after our "Christmas in July" sale at the store, so we loaded up with some cheap Christmas toys and hit the road.  The boys mostly don't play in the car, but with a couple new toys, they had a few minutes of fun before settling in for the long drive.




We left Raleigh, NC and drove all the way to a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, where my brother and his wife live with their three young kids, even younger Weimaraner, and brand new kitten.  We spent the night there, and the next morning they graciously let Benny and Vixen stay, while we headed to the airport. 

We boarded a plane at the Detroit airport, and flew to Omaha, Nebraska where we met up with the team from Nature's Variety (the manufacturer of not only a brand that we sell, but our dogs' and cats' primary diets.)  That night they took us to dinner where we got to wine and dine with everyone from the CEO, to the CFO, and most interestingly, the founder of the brand himself.  The next morning we awoke early and boarded a bus which drove us to Lincoln, Nebraska, Nature's Variety's HQ.  After touring the administrative parts of the building and seeing the testing labs, we donned our hairnets, white coats, goggles, and shoe covers, and went into the raw diet manufacturing plant.  

Cameras, phones, jewelry, and such were not allowed inside.  Everything was super sanitary and they probably don't want someone dropping something in the mix!  No cell phone in their dog food!  However, I took mental pictures and will always remember the experience.  Even though we put on shoe covers, as you enter the door, you walk through a puddle of sanitizer- that's how clean it is! 

So here's the best picture I can paint for you with words.  Now, we have been to a dog food manufacturing plant before, and usually, the meat is already ground up, and you see big bins full of red, meaty stuff, and read the label to know what it is.  Well, on this tour, I walked up to a big bin- imagine a barrel about shoulder height that would take probably five people to hug- and I looked in expecting to see a typical "slurry" of meat.  Instead, I saw hearts.  Literally, a bin of countless hearts.  If you ever need a basis for a horror movie, this could be it.  I'll let your imagination take you there if you want.  This was definitely not a scene for a vegetarian.  So, I looked at the label, and there it was, "Venison Hearts."  We then watched a forklift take the bin of hearts and dump it into the grinder which added them to the total mix.  It doesn't get more real than that! 

There were many more interesting parts of the tour, but, I have to remind myself, that this is a blog, not a book!  After the manufacturing side of things, we toured the spotless distribution center.  Rows and rows of dog food, and not a bug in sight!

After the tours were complete, we were bussed back to Omaha for lunch, and then to the airport to fly back to Detroit, and begin the actual vacation part of our vacation!

So, in the next post, we'll go to Canada and beyond . . .