Food affordability

[Specsy]

I was just curious as to what your opinions are on the following.

Say person A has 3 dogs B, C and D. At the time he purchased said dogs, he could afford the best food for his dogs. Person A loses his job for <insert reason here>. He falls onto hard times and needs to cut costs. He cuts his own cost of living and takes away ALL luxuries, but in the end needs to cut down the cost of his dog food as well and can only afford cheap supermarket food that is full of fillers and no real goodness. He knows it isn't great for his dogs but he loves his dogs and doesn't want to part with them.

So does one encourage person A to rehome his dogs even though he loves them more than his own life as they add meaning to his life. The dogs love him and would be traumatized without him. Nobody can give him money out of their own pockets. He has cut down the quality of food he feeds himself to try and continue feeding his dogs the best but really cannot manage it at all?

Considering most people couldn't care less what they feed their dogs nobody would be willing to give money to A to help him afford good food for them. A is alone on this scenario.

I have seen many situations where this happens to people. In my mind I want to tell people rehome your dogs, but at the same time you see the love and dedication the human has for his dogs and you see how much the dogs love him too. One could argue that if you love your dogs you will give them up to a better home, but I must say I disagree. I could never give up my dogs. So how could someone expect it of a person who has nothing but his dogs left?

Really just want opinions on this one, and no I am not in the situation, THANKFULLY.

 

[Libby]

I don't think feeding a 'bad' food is the worst thing that can happen. The dogs are still loved and cared for and have a solid, steady home.

Eating supermarket brand foods for a time wont kill them. I think a person does what they need to do in order to keep it together. There have been times when I've had to downgrade on the food do to money problems, but the thought of rehoming my dogs because of it never crossed my mind, to be quite honest.

 

[Miakoda]

I cringe at people who believe one should give their dog to someone else all because the dog cannot be fed Merrick or Innova EVO for a period of time.

As long as the dog is still receiving proper vet care, I'd rather the dog be fed Iams for a year than the dog be uprooted from the owner/family that it loves and thrust into another home for the sole reason that that new home can feed it Blue Buffalo.

 

[corgipower]

Rehome them just because he has to feed a lower quality food? Not in my opinion. When he can't afford any food for them, then it's time to look at rehoming them although there are shelters/rescues that run a "dog food pantry" and provide dog food to those who have trouble affording it. If he can't afford basic vet care it might be better to look into rehoming, although again, there are clinics to seriously lower that cost as well. If I couldn't afford the food I feed my dogs I might have to rehome them, but mine would be quite ill on supermarket brands because they have a lot of allergies, sensitive stomachs, intolerances, etc.

 

[filarotten]

While I'm not a fan of supermarket dog food, there are millions of dogs that eat it every day and are loved by their families. I would never suggest someone rehome their dog because they cannot afford the best dog food out there.

There are also millions of kids that are fed food full of additives and preservatives every day of their lives and no one suggests they are rehomed.

Why is love for our animals based on the quality of the food we feed them? What about dogs that are abused, but are fed top quality food. Does that make them loved?

 

[darkchild16]

I cringe at people who believe one should give their dog to someone else all because the dog cannot be fed Merrick or Innova EVO for a period of time.

As long as the dog is still receiving proper vet care, I'd rather the dog be fed Iams for a year than the dog be uprooted from the owner/family that it loves and thrust into another home for the sole reason that that new home can feed it Blue Buffalo.

:hail::hail:

This my stepmom can no longer afford canidae for her dogs and for awhile there was relying on donations and friends buying them food to feed her dogs. You cant expect people GIVING you food to pay 60 bucks a month in food so they lived on Family Dollar food, Pedigree, whatever was given. We are just lucky that they did that otherwise I dont know what would have happened. They have now been downgraded to Kirklands since I can buy it and still donations of it as we get them because of everything. My dads family has pushed getting rid of the dogs a couple times because of the money they take but they are the one of the main ways my stepmom stays sane in everything.

Things happen life happens and you deal with it. Abandoning a dog because you cant provide top of the line food is LOW in my opinion UNLESS they HAVE to have that food.

 

[Southpaw]

Such a person should not have to give up their dogs, and their dogs should not have to suffer through losing their family, just because $60 bags of food are no longer affordable.

It's likely that whoever the dogs got rehomed to would feed them grocery store food, anyway.

 

[~Jessie~]

Rehome them just because he has to feed a lower quality food? Not in my opinion. When he can't afford any food for them, then it's time to look at rehoming them although there are shelters/rescues that run a "dog food pantry" and provide dog food to those who have trouble affording it. If he can't afford basic vet care it might be better to look into rehoming, although again, there are clinics to seriously lower that cost as well.

I agree with this. I would never fault someone for feeding a low quality food if it was all they could afford to feed their pets. It's better that the dogs be in a loving home eating crappy food than in a shelter eating crappy food as well.

However, there are actually some decent quality foods for lower prices than most of the crap at the supermarket. Kirkland is what, $20 for 40lbs?

 

[filarotten]

Btw, I just found out about this food the other day it is $20-30 dollars for 40lbs of food...not bad for that price range...I think we should inform people of alternative better quality foods in their price range, instead of wanting to rehome their animals.

Victor Premium Dog Food | victordogfood.com | Mid America Pet Food | midamericapetfood.com | Extruded Advantage Horse Feed | extrudedhorsefeed.com | Professional Formulations I am suggesting to all the people I see buy old roy and grocery store dog food.

I think most purina feed store dealers carry it in Texas.

 

[darkchild16]

$22 for chicken $25 for lamb
but you have to pay the membership and have one close.
The closest one to us at one point was 2-3 hours away.

 

[Michiyo-Fir]

As long as he has time to spend with the dogs and they get the love and care they need, there's no reason to rehome.

I know quite a lot of breeders that feed supermarket brand foods like Purina or whatever because sometimes it's unreasonable to ask a breeder to feed 10-15 medium - large dogs the best quality food like Orijen.

If the person's trying and genuinely cares about the dogs, they shouldn't be rehomed unless he absolutely can't feed them anything at all.

 

[jess2416]

You do what you can with what you have...

food, while important, is not the on my list of musts...

as long as they are able receive proper vet care, and are cared for and looked after, then if you gotta feed Science Diet, then let your Science Diet flag fly...

ETA: or whatever kind of food you HAVE to feed... same thing regardless...

 

[Specsy]

I must say I agree with most of your comments, however I think that a person who can't afford food might not be able to afford emergency vet care, but even then one can get animal shelter assistance. Like I said in my first post, I would never be able to rehome my dogs and think it would be unfair to those who can't afford proper nutrition because many are in this exact boat. Also by cheap super market food I didn't mean Science Diet, because to be honest, Science Diet is considered a top vet food here in SA and its ridiculously expensive. I meant something like this

Ingredients:
Ground maize, beef and lamb meat and bone meal (10% min), wheat bran, rice, (4% min), beef tallow, sunflower & canola oil, meat digest, vitamins and minerals, permitted anti - oxidant BHA, BHT.

Or this

Ingredients:
Cereals, (rice 4% min), derivatives of vegetable origin, meat and animal derivatives, vegetable protein extracts, fats and oild, natural flavouring agents, minerals, vitamins, nutritional purpose additives (glucosamine sodium sulphate and chondroitin sulphate) with an approved anti-oxidant.

Nice reading all your thoughts...

 

[Linds]

Yeah, agree with everyone else. Especially this

I cringe at people who believe one should give their dog to someone else all because the dog cannot be fed Merrick or Innova EVO for a period of time.

I wouldn't be against dogs getting mainly scraps for awhile either. Feeding lower quality food is hardly a reason in my book to give up a dog and would need to be compounded by several other factors before it became a valid reason.

 

[AllieMackie]

However, there are actually some decent quality foods for lower prices than most of the crap at the supermarket. Kirkland is what, $20 for 40lbs?

Yep. Plus, it seems that a lot of pet food companies are finally getting the picture. At one Canadian supermarket, there's a supermarket brand food that is near identical to Kirkland (President's Choice, though I still suggest Kirkland for Costo members, Kirkland lacks Vitamin K).

 

[corgipower]

Ingredients:
Ground maize, beef and lamb meat and bone meal (10% min), wheat bran, rice, (4% min), beef tallow, sunflower & canola oil, meat digest, vitamins and minerals, permitted anti - oxidant BHA, BHT.

Or this

Ingredients:
Cereals, (rice 4% min), derivatives of vegetable origin, meat and animal derivatives, vegetable protein extracts, fats and oild, natural flavouring agents, minerals, vitamins, nutritional purpose additives (glucosamine sodium sulphate and chondroitin sulphate) with an approved anti-oxidant.

Nice reading all your thoughts...

GAH...I would certainly cringe at the idea of feeding those to my dogs, but still, it's better than no food and it's far better than no love.

Although if those were my choices, I think I'd let them supplement with finding their own food in the woods somewhere.

 

[lizzybeth727]

I agree with everyone else, they should not give up the dog just because they can't afford a premium food.

There are tons of dogs turned into shelters every day because their families "couldn't afford" them. Most people wholeheartedly believe that their dogs will get adopted from the shelter; but around here, almost all shelters have more than 50% euth rates. A few shelters I know euth owner-surrenders as soon as they walk in the door, because they don't legally have to hold them for 72 hours like they do for strays. They don't tell the owners that, though.

 

[darkchild16]

Our grocery stores have even started selling Newmans Own (dont know how good but I know we sold it at the Organic/Natural food store I worked at) cat food, not dog food yet for the most part though

 

[Specsy]

At corgipower...Honestly the food situation in South Africa is disgusting, and I cringe at the fact that I may still have fed Eukanuba for the rest of my dogs life had I not done research and found out what aweful food it actually is. Raw is pretty much the only healthy option to feed dogs in SA in my opinion, there really isn't better, and our supermarket foods are mostly that I have posted above

 

[~Jessie~]

I didn't realize you were in SA. I'm not sure of the food choices you have there at all.

Could you educate your friend about a raw diet? Commercial pet foods have only been around for the past 60 or so years (at least in the US). Especially if he could find a butcher to sell/give him scrap meat, that could be cheaper or comparable to one of those grocery store kibbles.

I still think that the dogs are better off staying with your friend and eating crap food than being rehomed.