A dog, a grinder, a plan

Apologies for abandoning the blog. Life's been a little nutty. Vacation, hypothyroid, moving... Just... a lot.

When we all try very hard, these three can be such
patient little customers. They want to know, though,
why I'm taking pictures and not finishing dinner. 

My next post was going to be about equipment, and I'm actually glad I've held off. We are probably going back to grinding at least some of the meals. I'd love to get out of debt, and while recently time had been more valuable than money, that's changing. :) I got a great deal on buying 100lbs of a pre-made grind (beef trim, liver and tripe with chicken frames, hearts and liver) for $1.65/lb. I can use this for morning meals when I'm in a hurry. Our evening meals can be chicken thighs and other organs, hearts and gizzards. This should get us to around $1.30/lb. If I go back to chicken leg quarters, I can get it closer to ~$1.10/lb if I need to cut costs even further.

And Andre's Bravo is now $3/lb, even when I buy with a case discount, so I'm revisiting the prospect of making his food. Even a mid-range home grinder will not handle turkey, so we'll have to purchase a commercial grinder to do that, and I'll go through our decision process on that. I may get one anyway to up the speed on processing day-- if I can make Andre's food by buying lots of Thanksgiving turkeys and grinding them myself, it will pay for itself quickly. If I use it to do a lot of grinding with the chicken thighs/legs, it will pay for itself, too, just less quickly. I love the grinder we have and it was perfectly reasonable when I was grinding for 2 dogs. Three or even four dogs, and using a grinder that small and slow, means I never want to do it and it's easier for me to be lazy.

We've also discovered that Luna has some thyroid issues, and I am still working out what I need to be doing for her dietarily-- will post on that sometime soon, too.

Let me begin by saying that Andre is 60+lbs-- up from a low of 41 or 42. He's energetic, happy, and he's had only mild flare-ups in recent months. Nothing major at all. And he starts intermediate obedience classes in January. We've done his basics at home, but it's time for him to work around new people and dogs. And learn not to obsess over toys.

Park is Hell. All those tennis balls
behind the fence...

He couldn't handle the salmon oil for his omegas, so he gets Missing Link vegetarian formula, which is primarily flaxseed plus a little kelp. He's tolerating that very, very well.

He also can tolerate coconut oil well.

My first step here is to see if Andre can handle grocery store turkey, including dark meat. I bought some ground turkey necks from our supplier and a tray of turkey drumsticks. Both meals on Sunday and Monday morning, he had 2 ounces of his 10 replaced with 25% necks and 75% drumstick meat cut up with poultry shears. Tonight he got 4 ounces replaced; tomorrow morning I'll give him a break and do all Bravo. If we can get to 50-75% of his meals homemade, we'll be in great shape. I'll need to add in some veggies.

Next step will be to try some different (not chicken) proteins. Turkey livers/hearts/gizzards are hard to find in bulk. So I'll try beef and pork hearts and livers, kidneys, sweetbreads and see if he can handle the organ meats from them. Our supplier also makes a turkey drumstick/pork liver blend at $2/lb that we could perhaps try for his morning meals.

We can't sustainably pay these prices for Andre's food if it's going to stay more than twice as much as the others'. That said, it's still cheaper and easier than having him constantly having problems, having surgical procedures, constantly trying new foods... We'll keep going til we find something more workable. Hopefully that will be soon...