The irony of Alpo's new campaign

Alpo's new advertising campaign with its dedicated door knockers proselytizing the dog food company's gospel, photogenic mutts and catchy theme song (hey-deedle-di-diddle-ida!), tells us: "Enough with the sequined collars and treadmills. Enough with the doggie daycares and the $50 chew toys. It's time to let dogs be dogs again! QUICK, get that dog some ALPO!"

The take away from the video (which you can watch for yourself below) is that "real dogs eat meat." But in addition to beef and bone meal, the first few ingredients in a can of ALPO also include lots of fillers like corn (something dogs can't easily digest), soybean meal (the lowest quality protein available to dog food manufacturers and a common allergen in dogs), meat by-products (from unspecified animal parts), corn syrup and salt. Alpo canned dog food also contains the preservative BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole), a possible carcinogen. (The the Prime Cuts in Gravy wet food variety was recalled in 2007 for containing melamine.)

Alpo is essentially processed meat by-product mixed with vegetable proteins. So serving your pooch Alpo is a far cry from feeding them real meat, which is what the fun-but-false ads sneakily suggest. And here's the real kick in the pants: because dogs are unable to digest the corn completely, feeding them Alpo can make their poop up to 60% larger. Who wants to scoop more poop than they already do? Not me.

Have you ever fed your dog Alpo? What do you think of the new campaign?