Malamum

I do every three months.

With dogs the size of mine, feeding the commercial patties would send me broke. The bulk of my dogs diet is chicken. From the chicken shop I get 5kg of backs, 5kg of necks and 5kg of caserole pieces for around $35 - $40. That lasts about 3-4 weeks. I get bags of bones from the butcher for $2 a bag. I also get heaps of stuff from the supermarket such as liver and kidneys, bagged off-cuts, and any other red meat that is on special. I also buy home brand sardines (less than $1 a tin) and mackeral (a much bigger tin so about $3 I think). I also get fruit and veggies from the supermarket. I buy about $30 worth and that will make up a batch of veggie slop that will last about 6 weeks. I did buy myself a chest freezer specifically for the dogs food though.

Sounds great. I'll definitley keep it in mind when my current one bites the dust.

That bit sounds fantastic!! What is it like to clean?

and they still have solid poos? Yep - they eat plenty of bones though.

I'm starting to wonder how long my juicer will last - it makes weird and wonderful noises and shudders a bit when shoving big hunks of pumpkin through it. I am pretty rough with it though. I actually use all the juice and make my veggie mix quite runny - I even add a bit of water. The dogs just lap it all up.

Now that's what I need. How much are they roughly if you don't mind me asking?

I was going to say the same thing as Duncan+Dougal. I feed our dogs tinned sardines and mackeral. Both are nice and cheap.

I also feed mince raw - but I only buy human grade ( the pet mince makes me feel ill ). They do only get the 3 star mince though - not the 5 star extra lean mince that I buy for us.

I don't feed any patties or pre-made food. I get all my dogs food from the following places; Butcher Chicken shop Supermarket

I've got an Ezycoat dryer. We went with the single motor hose dryer as shown in this link. The price is $410 - we got ours a couple of years ago and I think it cost us high $300's http://www.ezycoat.com.au/frame_index.html I'm pretty sure I ended up getting one of these as someone here pointed me in the direction of them when I asked the same question a few years ago. I did a bit of a search for the thread but I can't find it. I have two Alaskan Malamutes and it's powerful enough to get them dry as well as loosen all their undercoat and "blow out' any loose/dead hair. I don't show nor do I do any fancy type of grooming - ours is soley for home use. I use it for getting the dogs dry after they have been bathed or gone out in the rain as well us using it when they are dry just to get rid of excess hair prior to brushing.

Why is putting things up not an option? I think some dogs just chew things more than others. If you have a chewer then you need to make sure she can't get to anything that you don't want chewed. When not supervised the only area of the house that our dogs have access to is our kitchen/family room. We keep this room pretty bare and we run with a clean bench policy as anything on them is fair game. In our house, if either of the dogs chew something that they are not supposed to, the person who left it lying around gets told "well that was stupid of you wasn't it"

We have two prong collars - one for each dog. Kira's came off once and I just made the assumption that I hadn't put it on properly. After it happened again I examined every link in the collar and on one of the links the prongs were at a slightly different angle than the others. After playing with it for a bit I could see how it was coming off. I just got a pair of pliers and bent the prongs on that link back. It's never come off again since. We've never had a problem with Indy's.

I put raw pumkin through the juicer - I leave the skin on but cut the seedy part away.

I do feed raw mince but not excessive amounts. The main staple of my dogs diet is chicken. Backs, wings, necks, thigh pieces which all have bones. They also get a bone of some type in the morning depending upon what I have available but it's generally a lamb flap or something similar. I give them mince as I want them to get a variety of meats. Their meaty bones tend to be chicken so I give lamb or beef mince as a source of red meat. I also like to give them something that doesn't have bones as I noticed at one stages their poo was just a bit too hard and was causing them discomfort.

We use both. My boy with arthiritis gets joint guard and my girl who has no issues gets human glucosamine as a preventitive.

I give my dogs some veggie but don't go overboard. They get about a tablespoon of veggie mush each (various veges though the juicer) every day. From memory I think the Billinghurst book says something about seperating the meals and feeding one meal of just veggies - I've never done that.

I've been feeding my dogs pork bones for years with no ill effects.

I pretty much put anything through the juicer to make the veggie mush for the dogs. They mainly get silverbeet, celery, bok choy, carrots, zuccini, pumkin, apples, pears. I've never had a problem with my two eating their veggies but if you dogs is not eating it maybe try mixing in a tin of sardines and drizzling the juice all over the veggies. I bet they won't be able to resist then.

I don't feed can food (regardless of brand) but if I was going to I would make sure that it was only part of my dogs diet and not the sole food source.

In regards to making it more appealing, I coincide offal (liver especially) day with fish day. When they get liver then also get a tin of mackeral and all the juices in the tin also get poured all over the liver.

Does that mean that people in Tassie have to give their dogs an all wormer that covers hydatid worms?

Good point Tassie. I do use a wormer that covers hydatid tapworms (Drontal or Endoguard) and because I'm so used to using it I forgot that some brands don't cover this type of worm and that others may not know this. I should have specified that.

I also feed raw offal about once a week. What they get depends on where I've done the grocery shopping that week and what the supermarket had. They generally get liver (chicken and lamb), kidneys, hearts and chicken giblets. I only buy human grade offal and I worm my dogs regularly so I'm not worried about hydatid worms etc. How on earth is the not feeding raw offal rule supposed to be enforced - it's absolutley impossible and I've never heard anything so silly.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm sure the frozen vegies are more expensive than buying fresh stuff. I make vegie mix about every six weeks. I just buy a wide variety off veggies from the supermarket at it costs me between $20 and $30. I put it all through the juicer and then freeze it in plastic containers. Each container will do 2 - 3 meals for 2 dogs. I'm sure that buying six weeks worth of the packaged frozen stuff would cost more than that.