Monthly Savings: $22.00
Yearly Savings: $436.00
This is my dog, George.
He is an English bulldog. Absolutely the best dog I have ever had, hands down. Great with kids, very loyal and affectionate, and even though he is a total push-over, he looks threatening enough that people don't want to mess with him.
Unfortunately, English bulldogs don't have a very long life-span. We're looking at 7-10 years, assuming that no major congenital health issues crop up along the way. And after doing a lot of research, we are convinced that by feeding him "real" food instead of pre-packaged dog food, he will be healthier, happier, and hopefully reach the maximum end of his life-span.
My basic home-made dog food recipe with costs is as follows -- I buy the meat in bulk when it's on sale, so this is an average estimate based on our normal sale prices:
Unfortunately, English bulldogs don't have a very long life-span. We're looking at 7-10 years, assuming that no major congenital health issues crop up along the way. And after doing a lot of research, we are convinced that by feeding him "real" food instead of pre-packaged dog food, he will be healthier, happier, and hopefully reach the maximum end of his life-span.
My basic home-made dog food recipe with costs is as follows -- I buy the meat in bulk when it's on sale, so this is an average estimate based on our normal sale prices:
- 5 lbs. ground beef ($7.00)
- 3 lbs. frozen veggies ($3.00)
- 1 lb. raw brown rice ($2.00)
- 2 quarts chicken broth ($2.00)
- water if needed (negligible)
- Total Cost: $14.00
This basic recipe gets us through a little over 2 weeks. I could probably make it for less if I was really pro-active about stocking up when there are sales. As it is, we're already spending less than half as much as we were on the "good" brand of packaged dry food that we had been using. Now that we're really getting into the swing of things with home-made food, I plan to start branching out from this basic recipe and giving him more variety... maybe some chicken & turkey as well as beef, apples as well as vegetables, and yogurt and cottage cheese occasionally. This may cause his food costs to increase slightly, but I am still expecting it to remain significantly less than the $50.00 a month that we were spending on his bagged food.
An unexpected perk to switching to home-made dog food has been how much better George smells! English bulldogs are gassy beasts, and... oh my, was it ever rank! Now that he is eating the food that I make, without unnecessary grains and fillers that his body can't process, the super-stinky gas is GONE. He also has much sweeter smelling breath than he did before. And we're probably saving another $5 - $10 a month on air fresheners! :-)
In all seriousness, it is well worth the time and effort to really research what you are feeding your pets and make more conscientious decisions about what you put in front of them. We were shocked and horrified by what we learned when we began looking into what goes into most dog foods, and the additional time and effort that it takes to cook for George (which... maybe an hour of hands-on work every two weeks? Not a big deal!) is well worth it, knowing that he is eating food that is really good for him. I've only been making his food at home for two months or so, and we could see benefits almost immediately... certainly after the first week. There are tons of websites and books out there with information about how and what to cook for your pet, so making the switch is really quite easy.
An unexpected perk to switching to home-made dog food has been how much better George smells! English bulldogs are gassy beasts, and... oh my, was it ever rank! Now that he is eating the food that I make, without unnecessary grains and fillers that his body can't process, the super-stinky gas is GONE. He also has much sweeter smelling breath than he did before. And we're probably saving another $5 - $10 a month on air fresheners! :-)
In all seriousness, it is well worth the time and effort to really research what you are feeding your pets and make more conscientious decisions about what you put in front of them. We were shocked and horrified by what we learned when we began looking into what goes into most dog foods, and the additional time and effort that it takes to cook for George (which... maybe an hour of hands-on work every two weeks? Not a big deal!) is well worth it, knowing that he is eating food that is really good for him. I've only been making his food at home for two months or so, and we could see benefits almost immediately... certainly after the first week. There are tons of websites and books out there with information about how and what to cook for your pet, so making the switch is really quite easy.
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