Frugal living...The great dog food scam....

I dont know about you but I've been a pet owner, generally dogs, for most of my adult life, and grew up with a family dog too... so you could call us devoted dog people,  in fact we tend to like dogs better than most people. Our dogs are classed as family, almost our children, and we love them as such.
So, being such devoted dog people, and as most people, we want the very best for our dogs, we give them regular health checks, jabs, and worm pills ect, and want the very best in nutricion for them to keep them strong, heathly and energetic ...
That brings me to the crux of this post.... Dog Food...if you look around at the various types of dog food there are available now, you could feel very confused and alarmed..and guilty. if you take it all at face value that is... Vets surgeries all have those sacks of the hugely expensive 'super healthy' brands that they reccomend... only that one can do the very best for your pet... a sack of that costs more than my food budget for months! Then you can go to the supermarket and see a massive range at varying prices , all offering health, vitality, glossy coat.... etc etc... the general marketing trend is that if you dont buy all this expensive food then you dont love your dog... he or she will not be healthy, will suffer from all kinds of nasty stuff and it will all be your fault.... all set up to play on your guilt at not feeding your loved dog on the 'best'.
What a load of rubbish....
Over a year ago, we started getting a little concerned ourselves at not being able to afford more than a very cheapy type of 'all in one' biscuit for our dogs...  I guess over the years we had been taken in by all the hype that surrounds animal food... so we started adding extra stuff in a little, we have always given our dogs veggies, and titbits like crusts and apple cores etc, now we were actively thinking about what we were giving them as extras. I made sure it was the 'healthy option' bits of fruit, extra veggies, bones etc.. all this on top of their normal food... It made me feel better that I was giving them healthy stuff...
Over the past 6 months we have thought more and more about this... this huge healthy dog food thing has sort of crept up on the public through concentrated ads over the last ten or 15 years...
When you were a child, this kind of food just wasnt there... dogs were mainly fed on what was available, cheap and filled them up.... and always looked healthy to me.... our family dog as a child lived solely from tablescraps and the odd butchers bones... and lived to the ripe old age of 17!!
So, to bring this back to my point... for the last 6 months we have been feeding our dogs in a frugal way... and they are looking splendid... happy healthy, glossy coats, full of energy... and it costs us next to nothing...
What we do is this...
I go to our butchery counter at the local supermarkets, every time Im in town, we ask for dogs stuff... they give us bags of scrap , fat, skin, gristley bits, bones etc... tons of it... mostly free , some times they charge 10cents a bag... which we cut up small, divide up into reasonable portions and freeze.
Then every day I defrost a bag, and roast it, then put it into the 'dog veg pan' which is a big pan I keep handy and instead of putting all my veggie scraps and peelings on the compost heap Im cooking it up for the dogs, it ends up as a thick meaty, veg type stew, I often add a handful of rice, or pasta, to bulk it out as Beesa is so big. This is served up with a sprinkling of the 'all in one' biscuits on top every day for their breakfast. And they love it
Nothing is wasted, all cabbage leaves and stems are cut up small, potato peelings, onion skins... squash peel... it all goes in..
They get bones for added calcium, rice and bread crusts, pasta etc as carbs.. the fat and meat for iron etc the veg and fruit for vits... they even get fish heads for oils now and again...
Its easy to do once you get a system going, and they love it and costs me almost nothing... a 20 kl sack of dog biscuits lasts months...
And you couldnt wish for a healthier looking pair of dogs... I'll never fall into the dog food scam again...