Pooches: Update On Dog Food, Health and Convenience

As our dogs have been aging, we've been researching ways to keep them healthier, happier and at a good weight. We know how important diet is, though we've realized what worked for our pups a few years ago doesn't always work as they age. When we learned late this past summer that Mr. B was in early stages of kidney disease, we panicked and started him on a prescription diet, but after a couple months, his weight ballooned and he became really sluggish.

We reexamined his food and we modified his diet to one that consists of a limited ingredient canned diet dog food supplemented with fruits and vegetables, lean meats, goat's milk and probiotics. 

We went in to our veterinarian this past weekend for their 6 month blood and urine test and amazingly, Mr. B's levels went down from early stages of kidney disease to normal (high end) and Miss M's level went down to ideal levels.  
In addition, since we've been adding a dehydrated vegetable mix to their meals, Miss M is no longer 'rubenesque' and vet was so proud to see she is at the ideal weight.
Before Photo:

We are really lucky in Chicago to live near several local pet stores, where we do have options, especially one in general, Liz's Pet Shop. Liz's Pet Shop is a no-frills pet store, packed to the brim with all high quality pet food. Liz is very knowledgeable about the products she carries and she was instrumental in modifying our pooches diet. The pooches used to eat high quality kibble, but now they have a quality canned diet. The extra moisture in the food is also important for their kidneys and keeping them hydrated.
Though we choose to always shop local, one main issue that we have faced is traveling to the store to pick up food for our pooches.

We love being a single car household, especially since I enjoy commuting by bike all year round. However, we can never find time to go to the dog store now that A goes directly to her graduate classes right after school and she gets home well after 10 pm. After one serious scramble when we realized we were out of food and I didn't have a car to carry anything home, we were introduced to Mr. Chewy. 
Mr. Chewy is a newish online store with high quality food that ships free for orders over $50. They offered us a gift certificate to try their service and review it, and we were happy to try it since they carried our hard-to-find canned food, and it would be one time we didn't have to worry about the car schedule. Just like an online grocery store, our order arrived via FedEx to our door and it was nice that I didn't have to bike with several pounds of dog food through major Chicago streets. We are lucky that we do have options, but we think this is a great way to get some hard to find food that we've found is often out of stock in our local stores. Plus A remembers when she didn't have a car and it was so hard to carry Miss M's food, even though the pet store was relatively close. Even Miss M had a hard time carrying her own food in her backpack.