By Josh Resnek
I have two dogs, Scout and Rosie.
They both love to eat – what a surprise!
For years, I have been acting like an American, buying dog food, canned food and bagged dry food.
Recently, in the post COVID, high inflation era we have now entered, dog food in cans has soared, in some case by as much as 50%.
Maybe you notice this or maybe you don’t but the higher prices for the canned and bagged stuff pushed me to re think how I feed my dogs, and also, to re think about what I feed my dogs.
We all know that canned dog food is a word I cannot print that begins with an s and ends with a t. The bagged dry stuff isn’t much better although in the end, I think it has more nutrients than the canned stuff.
Recently, I began cooking what my dogs eat.
This really isn’t too far of a jump since my dogs often eat leftovers from our dinners, and about anything else I toss into their bowls.
From my observation of watching my dogs devour whatever is in their bowls I have noticed this: there are certain dry foods that they will not eat. They either don’t like the smell or the taste or both.
And there are canned foods that cause my dogs to produce rather difficult explosions of wet, stinking dog mess that I have to clean up.
Cooking their food myself gives me some control over what they ingest and what comes out afterward.
Here’s what I have been doing.
I buy several pounds of ground meat or turkey, and several pounds of potatoes, and cans of beans and whatever else I think might make for good taste, some health and heartiness.
I cook the beef, toss it into a big plastic container. I cook the potatoes after chopping them and toss them into the beef. I open cans of garbanzo beans and Campbells beans, and for good measure, I open several cans of Chef Boyardee meatballs and spaghetti and toss them into the mix, and If I have corn or peas, I toss that in as well.
ThenImixitallupandcap it and put it in the refrigerator. Three or four or five pounds of
food goes a long way with my two dogs.
Bottom line, making their food myself has turned out to be more economical than buy- ing canned and dry dog food.
Watching them eat what I make is also a different experience.
I could be wrong, but I be- lieve they eat with more vigor and intensity the home made food than the canned and bagged stuff – and they are healthier for it.
If I could, I’d ask them which they prefer.
But I’d be waiting a long time for a reply!