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As I mentioned in my last post, Mr. Pug has major allergy problems. This leads to a bunch of expensive stuff including vegetarian dog food. The problem is that he isn’t just allergic to meat…he also has to avoid corn, dairy, soy, and wheat! I only have two options:
1) The 16 pound bags of the specialized vegetarian blend from his dermatologist for about $45 a bag – it lasts about 2 months.
2) Make it myself.
I go with option 1 since option 2 would require me to make him a new batch every week, which just won’t happen. I know it won’t because I am a lady that forgets to prepare my own meals, much less that of my pup. Not to mention I have no idea how much making his food would cost since the list of ingredients looked really long, included a lot of vegetables (emphasis on sweet potatoes), and even would require a few vitamins thrown in…
So yes, this post is just to vent that I have a vegetarian dog that costs alot of money.
How about you? Are your pets on any special food?
At first I thought you had to feed him vegetarians. I mean who would feed a dog vegetables?
But if you think vegetarian dog food is expensive, try feeding a hungry bearded dragon. The first one I bought from Craigslist. The owner said it ate shredded chicken and canned fruit. Sounded easy. He said he looked like that because he was about to molt (he didn’t look so good).
Since I didn’t have a cage for the poor guy, I had him on my shoulder as we drove home. I was hungry, so I was eating my apple when the dragon looked at it like , “That looks good”, turning his head to the side to really zero in on it. Next I know he is trying to gobble down a huge chunk of my apple with my little finger attached. He immediately openned up to let the finger out, re-focused, and gobbled up apple only.
We get him home and weigh him, to find he is half the weight and about 4 inches shorter than a normal dragon his age. After reading about them online, we find he needs special lights, special LIVE food, and two different vitamins. Because he is eating and constantly hungry, we ended up ordering 500 live crickets. They arrived not alive due to the heat. The cricket company mails another batch and have UPS allow me to pick them up at their depot. Most of them were alive and were eaten within 2-3 weeks. Guess how you keep live crickets? In a rubbermaid container …
Long story shortenned, this cute fellow costs us over $80 in super worms, crickets, meal worms, and phoenix worms (fly larvae) in 2 months. The lights ran about $40. The stones and hide was another $40. I forgot the calcium powder and the multi vitamin powder ($15). And the food and bedding for the worms and crickets. And all the fruit and vegetables both the dragon and its food eat.
I bet your vegetarian dog food sounds better now, huh?
But he is so purty and so cute, I have figured out how to keep crickets alive in 100′F weather and how to “cultivate” superworms from their ugly beatle parents and how to buy plenty of salad materials for both the dragon and myself.
We have established feeding, light, bathing, roaming schedules; researched life cycles of several insects, including hissing cockroaches, and gone to reptile conventions. All because of a small dragon who only needed a little shredded chicken and canned fruit. Amazing how one animal can turn your life upside down.
@Jackie, YES, I will happily buy $45 bags of vegetarian dog food every 2-3 months if it means I don’t have to feed him live prey, lol. I’m happy you ended up with your bearded dragon since he would have died with his previous owners. You can consider all the money you put in as a charity contribution to lizard life-saving, right?
Send me pictures for Photo Friday and he’ll be a famous survivor, lol. 