Everyone seems to be looking for a way to cut costs these days, even pet care costs. After all, with so many people losing their jobs, who can afford to spend money on expensive pet grooming or special foods? You want to make sure your pet has everything he needs, but you need to do it as cheaply as possible.
Learn to take care of simple grooming yourself. You don’t need to take your dog to the groomer to give him a bath. Some people even learn to clip their dogs’ nails themselves. Taking care of as much of your pet’s grooming as possible will make it easier to afford the things you can’t do.
Skip fancy foods. There are so many expensive dog foods out there that prey upon the idea that your dog deserves the best food available. The truth is, though, that your pet probably doesn’t need these expensive brands. If you’re concerned about what your pet needs, ask your vet. Unless your pet has special medical concerns, you may be able to get by with cheaper foods available at your favorite discount store.
Make cheap pet toys. Your dog will be happy pulling on a section of rope. Your cat will chase a string or sock around as long as you pull it along the floor. Just make sure that anything you use to play with your pets won’t fall apart in their mouths. You don’t want to create a hazardous situation for your pet.
Don’t skip regular veterinarian visits. It can be tempting to ignore your pet’s regular vet appointments to save money, but it can cost you in the long run. Heartworms, for instance, can be costly to treat and can be deadly to your pet.
Get pet medications online. If your pet needs medication regularly, you can order them online to save money. Whether your pet has a chronic illness, or you just need to order heartworm prevention medicine, you can be sure to get a discount by ordering it through the internet rather than purchasing it from your veterinarian.
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3 responses so far ↓
1 Jason // Jun 17, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Having just recently put down our 10 year old rottweiler because of a disease similar to crohn’s disease, I can assure you that you do NOT want to save money by getting “by with cheaper foods available at your favorite discount store.”
Dogs, like any other animal, are a product of what they eat. The cheaper grocery market brands of dog foods (and even some of the more expensive name brand ones) are equivalent to eating from the McDonalds $1 menu for every meal of the day. You are just asking to give your dog diabetes and other diseases he should never have to deal with.
It’s easy to tell what foods you should or shouldn’t give your dog: just read the label. Every single discount brand consists of mostly corn and grains, something that your dog would NEVER eat in the wild. Combine that with the fact that allergies to corn and other grains is on the rise in our canine populations and we are begging for health problems. For an example, the (expensive) Prescription Diet hypo allergenic food consists of mostly hydrolyzed chicken livers and contains no grains. This is one foods that we had to use to try and get our Rotty back to health.
All of this completely disregards the dangers of low quality foods, as witnessed by the melamine that poisoned pet foods last year.
By giving our pets low quality food today we are not saving money any more than we as humans would be by eating nothing but the cheapest foods available. That is, unless you prefer to put your dog down at a young age then have him around, healthier, longer.
2 Lezlie Crosswhite // Jun 18, 2009 at 9:05 am
You are really off the mark with this post. Don’t encourage people to buy cheap (read bad) dog food. READ the ingredient labels! The first 3 ingredients should be named meat, such as turkey, chicken, beef, lamb, etc. If it’s labeled just “meat” it can be anything, INCLUDING road kill, diseased or dying animals from slaughterhouses not allowed in the human food chain. If you think this is an urban myth or an exaggeration, please do your own research.
I hope we all love our pets as much as we love our human families and we want to do what’s best for them. That best has to include high-quality food.
Cats are carnivores; for optimal health they must have meat. Read any cat food label at a grocery store. How far down on the ingredient list is the meat? Is there even any listed?
Dogs are omnivores but they aren’t going to have optimal health eating kibble made with corn gluten, meat by products, and animal digest, just to name a few things they put in pet food.
You can get very good dog food at a reasonable price. “Chicken Soup for the Dog Lovers Soul” (or Cat Lovers Soul) is very well priced and the first ingredients are all named meat. Does it cost more than Ol’ Roy? Yep.
Does it cost more to make a healthy family dinner than to eat off the $menu at your local fast food? Yep.
3 Nicole // Jun 18, 2009 at 9:27 pm
I totally agree with the previous post. The cheaper food is full of fillers and is made from indgredents that are hard for dogs to digest. Also with cheaper foods more food is usually needed to be fed to animals which means more output in the yard. The higher quality foods can in the long run be cheaper than the lower quality foods.
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