Cutting down pet expenses

[Rebecca]

Thanks for all of the tips and the links! I'm going to look into this. I've already started with trying to make my own dog treats. Once I get that down pat I'll see how the other goes!

[hermione]

Oops, upon reflection, I think my initial calculation of $70 per month is wrong. It should be less than that since we eat some of the rice, potatoes, yams, eggs, oil too.

Also, instead of buying treats, try things like raw carrots, lettuce, apples (without seeds) and bananas. We buy them the string cheese as snacks too. We also sometimes bake them little muffins and biscuits with peanut butter, cheese or bananas and sweeten them with molasses, honey, maple syrup or brown sugar.

Start out gradually, a little at a time to let him/her get used to it. Our dogs are used to eating a varied diet so they don't have problems with new foods, but pets who have been on the same diet may get diarrhea at first.

[Rebecca]

last night I gave my pup a carrot and he looked at me like I had 6 heads. it was actually very cute. He nibbled on about 1/2 of it, so I'm hoping it's an acquired taste

[purplefdu]

We used big juicing carrots for teething with the new puppy. he shreds them and makes a huge mess, but since they are cold from the fridge he didn't stop till they were gone.

When I cooked for my eldest it only cost a faction more than I spend now. The grain base from Soujourner farms was a life saver and easy enough to make and he got raw whatever we were having for dinner. We just bought for another person and gave him some.

I know petco does the never ending bowl program which gives you discounts on food when you automatically reorder. Smartpak.com has higher quality foods in daily serving pouches or regular bags and a low flat rate shipping as well.