I get so many unwarranted comments on us having so many pets and one of the most common remarks that i hear is how expensive animals are. I obviously know this. Feeding, vetting, housing, grooming, training, etc. It all costs money and i don’t skimp on the important things. I don’t skimp on my kids medications, doctors visits, or food. Why would i do it to my dogs?
I feel like a broken record when it comes to responding to people about all of my pets and how expensive pet care is so next time I’m literally going to send them this post ha. But really, from someone who has had pets all of my life I’ve learned a thing or two about pet care so I’m going to share that with y’all. Aside from the obvious unconditional love and daily hands on attention that ALL pets deserve these are a few of my insights on the main things that pets require.
Flea and ticks: As most of you know we live on farm and have a lot of pets. Ticks and fleas are a very real issue for us. Having been farmers and pet owners all of our relationship (a decade) we have a ton of experience with tick preventatives. We always use granules on our yard to protect ourselves and the kids (also to burn snakes bellies so they aren’t in the yard) but our pets used to have free range. We didn’t trap them in a yard. We didn’t have a reason too plus we didn’t want dog shit all over where our kids play. We live in the middle of the country on a large amount of land away from busy roads or close neighbors. Not just that but some of our dogs are cattle dogs so they naturally require a lot of time in the fields. Our dogs can safely roam our property but that left us an issue with ticks and fleas as well as grooming (which will be my next subject). I’ve tried so brands/methods. Literally anything that Walmart or Petsmart sells, I’ve tried. Nothing over the counter works for us. It’s junk and a huge waste of money in my veteran pet owner experienced opinion. We almost had a Bassett Hound die on us from the Walmart sprays. She got so, so sick. It was awful. We rushed her to the vet and he luckily was able to stabilize her while she detoxed. After that i freaked out so we tried Wondercide and YAYA which are both all natural products but had no luck in them doing a good job. Y’all, you get what you pay for. Quality is key when it comes to what you put on or in to your fur babies. Don’t skimp. Tick diseases regularly kill dogs. That’s a fact. Ask your vet how many dogs came in sick from a tick bite this week! It’s so, so common and a lot of the time it’s fatal. It’s crucial to us to effectively protect our pets. Ticks are there and aren’t going anywhere. You can’t down your pet in essential oils and hope for the best. It won’t protect them fully. I know that for a fact because I’ve tried it. It pains me to say this but whether you use sprays or granules on your yard, dips or sprays on your pet, or the pills — to effectively do the job you can’t really avoid the chemicals. No amount of dawn dish soap or natural products will totally do the trick if you live in the country like we do. I wish that this was avoidable but it’s not. However, we found a compromise that we were comfortable with. We do use a medication that is only given 3 times a year which i love. We used to use Nexgard and it worked but it was a monthly tablet so after expressing my concern with that (I’m pretty anti medication. We do home remedies for everything that we possibly can. I can truly count on one hand how many times total between all 4 of my children and nearly 7 years of momming that I’ve given them a prescription drug.) we switched to Bravecto. It’s only given every 3 months. We do not give it in the winter time because there’s no need to. We take that season off. It’s extremely effective and we’ve never once had any issues with it. Zero side effects in all of our dogs. It runs $50-$60 per dog and is worth every penny.
Grooming: This is another expense and quite frankly something that I’m not crazy about. My dogs are soooo messy which is why we recently purchased a wireless fencing system. I got tired of my babies coming home soaked every single time that i let them out. They love water and seeing that we have a spring that runs every day of the year just below our house as well as multiple large ponds, they were constantly wet/muddy. It was rough so I just got the wireless system rather than adding goat wire to our fence to keep them in because i wanted them to be able to potty in our field and not the yard. They can still adventure an acre around our house so they don’t potty in the yard where the kids play but they can’t get into water anywhere. It’s a win win. It will also make grooming upkeep easier. I brush them daily and bath them before they come inside but as i mentioned above, i hate grooming them. Dogs are so different than humans. Our dogs are angels for our groomer and they are well behaved/trained but I’m not a dog groomer myself. Simple as that. I do human hair. Not dog hair. I am never pleased with the job that i do on them because I’m picky/a perfectionist so i stick to basic trims and keeping them brushed/clean between grooms. We own 3 different sizes of Sullivan Supply clippers with a metal case, guides, blades, oils, ect. If you aren’t a farmer or cattle person, these are expensive show cow clippers. We have close to a grand in grooming supplies for our cows which also works perfectly for our dogs (all of our dogs are long haired breeds). They are the best and work amazingly. However, i STILL take my dogs to be professionally groomed. If you are in the NW Arkansas or NE Oklahoma area — we have used The Pink Poodle for 7 years. They are super sweet and their prices are typical for this area. It costs me about $60 a dog. They always get us in quick and are so personal with their clients. I highly recommend them. We take the dogs every 2 months typically. I like to let their coats grow longer in the winter so i go longer in the cold months and just trim their faces and privates myself. I was really adoring the long hair look but i went ahead and did a summer cut this last groom. Oklahoma heat is brutal. I feel bad for them even going out to piss in it. I haven’t let my kids play outside or swim much in over a month solely because of the heat. It’s intense so I sucked it up and let go of their long hair. They were SO happy. They felt like new dogs. It was cute. I’ll let it grow out again now so it’s longer by Fall. We will keep them on a 1-2 inch guided trim on the body and let their faces be longer. My biggest point here is to brush DAILY. Literally every single day. If i slack at all it makes a dramatic difference so i designate an hour at night to brushing all of my dogs. I do this every evening after all of my kids are in bed. I enjoy that scheduled quite one on one time with my fur kids. They get our attention off and on all day (perks of stay at home mom life) but it’s wonderful to have chill time alone with them. Ninety-nine percent of the time they end up laid out in my lap asleep as i brush them ha. For their specific coats i use a metal wide toothed comb to knot check and a wire bristled brush to get out those knots or anything else that gets caught up in their hair.
Food: This is my last main subject expense wise. WE GOT THROUGH SO MUCH FOOD! Seriously, so much. Food is something that i am personally weird about. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent obsessively researching what’s best for them. From protein and phosphorus percentages to ingredient lists, I’ve looked into it all. Each breed needs different things. It’s not an all for one deal when it comes to what your breed specifically needs. Our dogs are all medium sized breeds with generally long life spans. They are very similar in their main focus points on what needs the most attention nutrition wise. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve tried hundreds of dog foods over the last 10 years. Mainly because the more i research the more that i lost confidence in the brand that i decided on. It became an addiction in a way so i had to make myself stop it and i decided to stop buying premade dog food all together. The only way to insure the quality of food is to make it yourself. We raise and butcher our own meats. We grow our own garden and can our own veggies for year round use. We drink water directly from our natural spring. Like, it’s literally pumped into our house straight from the ground. No additives or filters. The water is pure and is tested regularly of course for safety reasons. But we are pretty self reliant on providing our own source of food and water. We are by no means theses all healthy, only natural eaters. We eat out a few times a month and i buy processed foods sometimes but we control our meats and veggies which helps limit our processed food intake. Fully avoiding chemicals and additives isn’t realistic for us so we pick our battles and do our best to limit it. That’s what works for us and that’s what makes us feel better. I will post our dog food recipe and a prep tutorial this Sunday or Monday. We aren’t out of food and it’s something that you need to make fairly fresh. I’ll also include our feeding schedule/routine. Some of the ingredients aren’t from our farm but it is better than it all being made in a factory somewhere. Making your own food also is nice because i can add my own vitamins to it.
As you can tell we do our best to give our pets the same lifestyle that we have. We avoid certain things because we can (premade dog food) and we find balance in other things that we feel is necessary to be done (tick medication that’s given a few times a year rather than consistently). We are far from perfect as pet owners but we love them dearly and only want what’s best for them. We are doing it all wrong to someone and they are out there judging away at us but hey, that’s okay. I’m confident in my choices as a dog mom and that’s all that matters. Those choices weren’t taken lightly and most of them come from a place of personal experience. The same should go for you. If you can properly take care of your fur babies, have as many as you want. Don’t let snide comments make you feel bad. Raise them how you want. I’ve spent my whole life getting mouthed about my love for pets and for always having so many. It’s my family’s joy that those fur babies bring. No one else’s.
Post a Comment