Store it right people, it costs more than your weekly groceries!

Vittle Vaults complete with Dog Gnaw marks

These days it sometimes feels like you have to have a doctorate to understand dog food brands and the many options available in premium foods for your beloved furry child. After trial and error and 100 people's very strong opinions on the best food to feed your dog you settle on one. Now it's time to properly store it. Since you personally are forced to eat hot dogs for dinner after spending $100 at the dog food store on a bag of food and one box of treats this is something you want to take seriously. Buying a $78 bag of dog food is like driving a new car off the lot. The minute you open that bag and oxygen hits the kibble it starts to degrade and lose it's nutrients. It's super important to store your food in an air tight container. But make sure you pick the right one or you will be labeled a "bad DogParent" and suffer the stares at the dog park for your faux pas. Plus you're throwing money away and nobody can do that these days. 

Ahhh! The light! The light!
Don't let it hit the food!

   There are a plethora of food containers on the market and for years I have purchased Vittle Vaults for $45 up per vault. I hate paying that much for unattractive plastic, but I like the way the top seals air tight and the insurance my food is protected. They make other plastic lidded containers that look nicer, some on wheels even! Alas, you cannot let light hit your food, so the see-through variety is also a no no. Wooden ones? Well they are not air tight and also seem to draw in ants from the few folks I have talked to who own them. Plus um, my dogs would chew on that wood like a beaver if given the chance.
  So we stick with the Vittle Vaults. Inevitably these get a little grimy looking, even with routine cleaning and I purchase new ones. Our dear Dugan was famous for unscewing the lids of these and having a feast, so my current set have some gnaw marks and I'm not looking forward to replacing them. I met with the Vittle Vault rep at last fall's Chicago Pet Industry Trade show and mocked their signage that stated they were "Guaranteed against dogs breaking into them" Apparently not setter guaranteed. The rep told me he'd love to see video of a dog actually getting into a sealed Vittle Vault as he could not believe it. Sadly Dugan passed away before I could video him, but Pogue is currently working on proving this theory in Dugan's memory. 

Do-It-Yourself Vittle Vault for $11-$13 each

   My good friend Brian found these nifty Gamma Seal Lids ($7-$10 a pop online)from Gamma2 that you can add onto a standard $3 Home Depot or Ikea bucket with a swift strike of a mallet and then unscrew the lid on and off to seal in your food - essentially making your own Vittle Vault, for a lot less. I love this idea! 
   Now today I get an email from a dog savvy vet tech pal warning me of the dangers of storing food in plastic containers. Apparently the toxins in the plastic can leach into the expensive dog food you just purchased and be ingested by your dog and cause liver and kidney issues.  While I have always washed and air dried my containers between fillings to make sure the oils that stay behind due do not become rancid - I have never thought about lining my plastic container. I suppose I could do so with the bag the food comes in, but that kind of defeats the purpose of having an air tight container? Have any of you lined plastic containers with a dog safe material you'd like to share with the rest of the class? 

Attractive, but spendy and I fear my setters will flip the lids
off with the quick strike of a paw.

   So now I am looking at metal containers. They start at $58 each for the 40 pound holders. Yikes! I need 3 cans - one for dog food, one for cat food and a third for the inevitable picky dogs that refuses to eat what the other two are consuming. That's a lot of cabbage kids. It's times like this I wish I had a chihuahua who eats like 2 teaspoons of food a day. I could store food in a spare coffee can and call it a day. 


   So tell me Friends of Fiona, how do you store your dog food and avoid the "bad DogParent" stares? Send your photos and feedback to our Lucky Fiona page on Facebook.
Lucky Fiona Facebook Group (to join hit up Facebook Groups - Friends of Lucky Fiona Collars and the Head Bitch Studio) The best idea submitted will win a one of a kind Lucky Fiona Collar called "The Gemtastic" So tell me, tell me, tell me, how do you protect that food from air, light, bugs and/or smarty pants dogs that can break into containers? 

The Gemtastic can be yours
if you share the best food storage tip!