Today we went to see what kind of dog food we might find for Heather…at the garden center. Yes, in France it’s really quite common to buy your favorite pet her/his food at the same place you would pick up potting soil or a hanging basket of begonias. At first I thought that was really bizarre but considering that there are at least two nationwide chains of stores that sell exactly those products together it made me wonder if we did anything similar in the US. Ever hear of Feed & Seed stores?

Our first stop was Le Jardin de Noé where they offer the rarity of free delivery for purchases over 30 euro. That policy makes sense for a couple of reasons: A.) most customers walk to this shop in the heart of the city so carrying heavy cans and bags would be cumbersome and B.) good quality sources of protein in Europe are not cheap so it doesn’t take much to reach their minimum. We then went to the outskirts of town to another chain called Jardiland. Get the connection between jardin and garden? French is easy, ha! This more closely resembled a US-style big box pet supermarket but had an equally large area for plants and gardening equipment. Still, even with their huge selection of food brands we could not locate Heather’s Blue Buffalo. Maybe we really will have to see what she thinks of brie and foie gras. Might be cheaper than dog food!