About six months ago, my father-in-law passed away. It was brutal at the time to lose him, and the aftermath....well, it just stinks. I miss him every day. As part of his passing, my husband and I gained another dog -- Baron. Now Baron is a 130+ lb German Shephard. Oh, yeah, I'm in the big time now. I also have two Border Collies -- Abner & Daisy -- who are about 60 lb. each. When Baron joined our family, my pet food bill doubled! No joke! He will obviously eat more than my smaller dogs. This is one of the reasons I started looking around for ways to save on pet food.
Now, Baron is overweight. We knew he needed to lose weight, and we figured him being with the younger dogs, getting more exercise, and a measured feeding plan, we'd be in good shape. So, a couple of weeks ago, my husband and I rounded up all the doggies & headed to the vet to get all the doggie exams/shots/license/etc. done. OMG! O-M-G! Baron was now at 141 lbs. I was totally dismayed! I'd followed the feeding instructions on the bag. In our home, he no longer gets table scraps. How in the heck did this happen?!
My vet proceeds to tell me
the feeding instructions on the dog food bag is for a 1 year old, unneutered male dog. Of course, no where on the bag does it say that -- only someone like a vet would know how that stuff works. The feeding plan is certainly NOT for a 12 year old, neutered Baron dog. I'VE BEEN OVER FEEDING HIM! No wonder the poor guy gained weight!
So, my vet proceeded to take into account the weight Baron should be, his age & activity level, the qualtity of the food I'm feeding him (protein, etc.) and gives me the correct amount for MY dog. I'd been feeding him 1.5 cups more per day then he should've gotten. In the course of a week, that amounts to 10.5 cups of food or approx. 2.4 lbs!
As each of my border collies only get 2 cups per day (1 in the morning & 1 in the evening), you can see the ratio here. I could have had another dog in my house for the amount of food I was "wasting" while I was "helping" make Baron more overweight! Good Grief!!
So, the moral of this story? Take the time to talk to your vet about your pet's weight (dog, cat, fishie, iguana, hamster, you name it) and your feeding amount. If you keep you pet's weight under control, not only will it be better for him or her, but you'll put more $ on your bottom line by buying pet food less often.
DO NOT take it upon yourself to just change your pet's feeding plan without consulting your vet! I'm serious! Not only could you end up feeding the wrong amount still, but if you reduce the food intake too drastically you could end up with a pet who now is so hungry there are behavior problems -- digging in the trash, begging at the dinner table, eating their own waste in the backyard, etc. All of those are yuck-o!
Read More to see my $ on the bottom line calculation!
On cup of dog food is about 4 oz. For our example, we'll use $30 per bag as our cost.
Was feeding (3 dogs) 40 oz per day or 2.5 lbs
37.5 lb bag = 15 days
Cost = $2.00 per day
Now feeding (3 dogs) 35 oz per day or 2.18 lbs
37.5 lb bag = 17 days
Cost = $1.76 per day
What does this essentially mean? I cost myself $4 every two weeks -- $8 per month! -- to feed my pets when I was feeding the wrong amount. *choke, gasp* I'll clip & do a lot for a $1 coupon -- most KCLs will. You can probably understand now why I wanted to share this.
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