Monthly Expenses: January 2013

It's been a full year since I started to track my monthly pet expenses. Though the number was shockingly high and painful to look at over and over again, it's been a great exercise and I'd like to keep this habit no matter how busy I get. So, without further ado, here's the first month of 2013.

January 2013

• Food: $147
• Accessories: $43

TOTAL: $190
YTD TOTAL: $190


Food

We got Maya 3 boxes of 4 lb. the Honest Kitchen Zeal. I usually purchase the 10 lb. box online, but after some calculation, I found that if we get the "buy 3 get 1 free" deal from Pet Food Express, it's actually cheaper per lb. to get four 4 lb boxes than a single 10 lb box elsewhere. (Of course it'll be even cheaper to get four 10 lb boxes, but she won't be able to finish that much food in time.) When we were at the store, they only have 3 boxes left, but was kind enough to still apply the 25% off, which was even better, because I'm still not sure if I'd like to keep her on the food for too long.

Accessories

Maya finally got a new bed! Because both of her old ones were half destroyed and too small, we wanted to get a new one for a long time but weren't able to find one we liked with a reasonable price. One day, Maya's daddy came home with a new bed he found at Taget, so now instead of hopping between two beds at night, she's cycling between three. She seems to enjoy sleeping on different beds during different periods of the night...

A new bed that finally fits her

Maya's old beds

Besides a new bed, we also stocked up on poop bags from Daiso ($1.5 for everything store). The black ones are a bit more expensive at 70 per box, which we only use when we need to carry her poop around, like going on hikes. The translucent ones are 170 per box, which we use during normal walks since there are trash cans in the park every few steps away. Either type of bags are much cheaper than those doggie bag rolls, which I always pull too many out at once, take forever to open and run out on the day she decided to take two poops per walk. I usually keep a box of the black ones in my car and a box of the translucent ones by the door with her leash.

Black bags on the left, translucent ones on the right

We also got her two stainless steel bowls at the $1.5 store. It comes with lids that seal up the bowls nicely for bringing food and water on the go. A hair stopper for our shower drain also cost us $1.5, but I did not add it to our pet expenses, since it stops more of my hair than her fur on a daily basis.

Controlling the Itchiness

I guess it's time to stop slacking and start updating my blog again! With my new job demanding more of my time and our new addiction to League of Legends, it's been hard to keep up.

Maya has been healing up well since the weather got cold. She still scratches herself a few times a day, but not to the extent of hurting herself. She also still licks/chews on her feet, but has gotten down to focus on only one foot, so I guess that's a bit of an improvement as well.

Since she's not like super itchy every single day, it's much easier for us to get a better idea of what may be triggering her allergy symptoms. We make sure to minimize changes in her daily routine, and only test out one changes at a time. Hopefully, we can get the situation more manageable before the next spring hits us.

Location-wise, we found an area in our local park that makes Maya extra itchy whenever we stop by, so we just stayed away. Thankfully, the park is pretty big, and we still have plenty of space for our daily walks. I'm just glad we can go back to the park, instead of sneaking around in the neighborhood going potty on other people's properties.

We also noticed that Maya gets itchier whenever we visit our relative's, so we've been carrying her between the car and the house, avoiding any contact to the outdoor areas. Though doing so doesn't eliminate the problem, but as least it's not out of control. Not taking her with us is just too cruel, as it's one of her favorite places and those are her favorite people.

As for hiking and dog parks, she's been doing quite well. At least the ones we went to in the past two months haven't caused us any trouble.

Speaking of her diet, Maya's been on the Honest Kitchen Zeal (grain-free, fish-based dehydrated raw) since September. She is doing good on the food allergy-wise, but we noticed her losing weight over the past few months. She dropped down to 16 pounds at one point, which is 4 pounds less than her heaviest weight. It may not seem much for a human, but that's 1/5 of her body weight, which makes it kind of alerting.

I tried increasing the amount of food in the last few weeks, and she did pick up a pound. However, her poop has been massive. I felt like she shouldn't need to eat that much, but her body isn't digesting the food that well. Even if she's doing perfect, I don't think it's good to stay on one protein from one brand forever. I really wanted to start switching her off of Zeal, but I'm kind of stuck.

So far every single new protein we gave her, whether it's cooked, raw, or dehydrated, seems to be making her itchy. I don't know if it's just me imagining things or just coincidence, but she would start scratching a lot more frequently the day after we feed her something different. There are still a few pricier ones I haven't tried, but I would have to wait for her to get back to a "clean slate" from our pork failure a few days ago.

If we somehow come to the conclusion that she can only eat fish, I probably have to give up on feeding her raw, since I really don't know how to balance her diet. I've been searching for other commercial fish-based, grain-free, non-kibble dog food, but so far I haven't found one I like with a reasonable price. The only one that sounds promising is Primal Pet Food's sardine mix, but unfortunately, Maya hated it when I gave it a try over a year ago.

In short, I'm still looking for a solution to Maya's diet.