Vets can run anywhere from {content}-00 a year. It seems to average about 0, regardless of the size of the dog. A standard office visit, which you should have twice a year, runs about 0, depending on your vet. There are exceptions, of course, we had vet bills of over k one year due to surgeries and various other emergencies. It can add up.

Flea and Heartworm Medication – About /month.

Dog Food – for a premium dry food, this can run about a month for a large dog (we go through a 40# bag of food in about 3 1/2 weeks at our house with two dogs). If you feed canned food, this will be higher. Remember that they will have to eat more of a lower-quality food, so the cost eventually evens out.

Other stuff – we buy a ten pound box of dog biscuits once a month, for about . We also supplement with fresh foods and other vitamin and mineral additives. The cost for this is variable.

Dog License – required in most areas. -20/year.

Toys – about /month
I don’t mind if someone doesn’t get a dog because of this. One less to end up back in a shelter to be put to sleep because it’s now too old to adopt. I just want people to understand what things are really like. You can’t leave the vet with a yearly bill of . Shots cost a lot more than that…and you need a yearly heartworm/lyme test and blood workup. If you are denying your dog these things that is wrong.
Thanks for adding the part about training. That is another 80-1000 cost. Some can get away with only puppy kindergarten, and others who develop behavioral problems cost a LOT more! Just be responsable and don’t get a pet if you may have to deny it basic needs later in life.

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one of my cats has FLUTD. my vet told me (and has repeatedly told me) that the only food they recommend feeding him at all is Hills PRESCRIPTION (not science) Diet Feline c/d dry food, which can only be purchased at a veterinary clinic, because it lowers the pH of his urine because of its low magnesium.

I’ve read elsewhere and have been told by other people (not veterinarians though) many different things including:

1. that dry food contributes to the problem by removing hydration from the cats sytem?
2. that Hills Prescription Diet contains mostly grains?
3. that removing magnesium from foods is not the best solution, as cats may need some magnesium?

my concern is that if any of the things people are telling me are correct, and I’m buying food vets get paid to sell, I could be shortening his lifespan when my intention is to keep him alive and happy as long as possible.

he’s eaten Prescription c/d for at least 4 years and has had no health problems while on it, after almost dying from crystal blockage and barely avoiding kidney damage from eating Purina Cat Chow (not saying Purina is dangerous, my cat has a disease). I got him to resume drinking water by buying a cat fountain because he was afraid to drink, and it took a week to get him to eat the Prescription c/d for the first time. but 4 years now.

a pet shop owner gave me samples of a few different products (but she also told me to continue buying Hills Prescription Feline c/d as she thinks it helps), some of the products being: dry Taste Of The Wild feline formula, dry Felidae, wet Wellness Healthy Indulgence packets (she had no dry Wellness). she also told me what others have: that moisure/water is the best because it can prevent the crystals from forming and the infections from coming back. she said cats are desert animals and naturally resist water, so wet food is best.

so far my plan is: continue feeding Hills Prescription c/d, buy Wellness wet Healthy Indulgence packets to give him more liquids.

anyone have any experience with this situation? what do you feed your cat, and how long has it worked?

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Is throwing up also a sign of feline leukemia? My cat has been throwing up her dry food , on top of other symptoms and I am concerned. She is very frail in appearance. Going to the vet tomorrow!! thanks

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I’ve had my cat for a little over 2 years now. She was tested positive for Feline Leukemia as a kitten. She’s been doing really great until recently. I took her to the vet for her rabies vaccination a little less than a week ago, and now she won’t even touch her food. She just hides under the bed all day, and drinks water.

I normally feed her all dry food, but I tried to switch to wet food because she wasnt eating. She seems to like the wet food, but will only drink the liquid. If she gets any solid, she’ll immediatly spit it out.

I’ve got a vet appointment scheduled, but I was wondering if there was anything else I could do in order to get my best friend to eat again.
I do not have any other cats in my home.

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My dog eats Wellness,
but I’m reading up on raw diets.

Are raw diets better?
And do they sell "Natures Intent" in pets stores?
[ http://www.natures-intent.com/rawdiet.html ]
Alot of raw diets are made yourself, but they like sell containers of raw food for dogs.

Are raw diets better then organic dry food?
My dog would love raw meat instead.

any info would be much appreciated ^___^

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I would like to know which is a better top quality Grain-Free dry cat food. Comparing Solid Gold Indigo Moon, or Timber wolf Serengeti.
My cat been eating Merrick BG before grain chicken # 1 dry food. I feel there must be others as I mentioned that I have been reading the labels on these two particular brands. Could I ask if any one out there has tried these, & give me some good information or suggestions? My cat is in general good health 5 yrs. old indoor moderately active at 10.8 lbs. My vet says Grain-Free is good for my cat as she sometimes has a bit of Feline Acne which has improved form feeding her Grain-Free foods. Thanks for your help.

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I recently started a new job in a locally owned pet food store and until now, I knew nothing about the quality of these "supermarket brands". Needless to say, I’ll never go back to 9Lives or Friskies again.

Now that I’m a little more aware, here’s where my questions come in. I’ve pretty much decided on Wellness. I’ve transitioned my cats over to the Wellness Complete Health Chicken dry food but after some thought, I was wondering if I should have changed to their Wellness Core variety. Again, I don’t know that much about feline nutrition and I was wondering if that big jump in protein really is that much more beneficial to them.

If it helps, I have an 11 old male cat and a 6 month old female kitten.

I’d also like to know if I’ve chosen the right brand. Other ones that we carry that I’ve been looking into are Solid Gold and Felidae.

Also, I’d only like suggestions for their dry food. Canned food is another matter entirely. Thanks in advance.

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I have two siamese mix cats that are from the same liter, one of them is fine health wise, but the other, he’s been losing weight for the past year, he’s looking really skinny.
We have another siamese from the same mother, but he’s only five and he’s really obese.
We took Josh, (The skinny kitty) to the vet and got blood tests done. We got him checked for feline leukemia and he tested negative. They couldn’t tell us what was wrong with him. He’s the same happy cat on the outside, but I don’t know if he’s suffering.
We took both of our dogs to the vet the other day for shots, to be weighed, and to get one of their ears checked out, and we brought up that we had an obese cat, and the vet asked if we gave him dry food, and we do. He said that dry food has something in it, that can cause heart decease (sp), or something like that, obesity, and some other things. He told us that we can start feeding them wet food, as well as dry food. So we bought some, and they all like it. Are we doing the right thing? Will this help Josh gain some weight!?
Also! Josh has had this little lump on the side of his neck since he was born, we had the vet look at it, and we asked him if it could be a tumor, or if it had something to do with cancer, he said he doubted that it did. Should we get a second opinion? We really can afford to get it taken off, or treated if it’s going to cost us thousands of dollars, do we put him to sleep if this happends?
He seems to be getting better, but we really aren’t sure!
Please help!
The fat kitty, Sid, and the other kitty Job, they both usually just stay in my moms bedroom, or in the bathroom, sometimes in the kitchen. I’d say the skinny one, Josh is the "leader" of them, he always has been. He stays where ever he wants to, usually where there are people.
We feed our cats purina. (sp?)
And, I’m going to try this wet food thing until we run out, and the fat cat hasn’t always been fat. The skinny cat used to keep the fat cat from going anywhere, so he couldn’t eat as much, but was still normal (not skinny, or fat) but then my mom started putting food in the back bedroom for him, and now he’s fat! I can’t convince her to stop doing it. . but maybe the vet can. Perhaps he did. Because, I don’t see it on her nightstand. But, anyway. You guys have been helpful, thank you.
I hope I get more answers!

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Our local pet store recently started selling the raw food nuggets and patties. (frozen) It seems to be the latest trend. Does anyone have any experience with switching from dry kibble (albeit a high quality dry food) to a raw food diet? Any pros? Any cons? Any suggestions?
just to clarify– I will NOT be making my own food– I don’t have the skills to grind my own chicken/beef, etc and it seems too dangerous to me. (even if dogs and cats had been eating this way for thousands of years– after all, ProPlan and Iams didn’t exist since biblical times, right?)

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I’m looking for a Grain-Free Cat Food that doesn’t turn to dust.

I was originally feeding Wellness Kitten Health Dry Food (very satisfied / no dust) and when she was 1 year I wanted to switch her to a grain-free dry cat food. I switched her to Nature’s Variety Instinct Dry Cat Food and I found it to be a very dusty food. I don’t like the fact that the food you buy turns to dust. So I switched her food again to Wellness CORE Grain-Free Feline Diet and this turns out to be a dusty food also. So doing some more research I looked at Innova EVO Dry Cat Food and read some reviews saying that this was also a dusty food. CAN ANYONE RECOMMEND A DUSTLESS GRAIN-FREE DRY CAT FOOD?

Her main meals are canned cat food and she eats dry cat food as a snack through out the day.
All hail Chocolate
It never once crossed my mind that since the food that I was buying is grain-free it would be hard to hold together, hence the dust in the bottom of the bag.

Grain-free dry diets still contain carbohydrates, from sources such as potato or tapioca as the starch in those ingredients is needed to allow the kibble to hold its shape.

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I went to Petsmart to get some food for the critters and noticed (how could I not?) that prices on Purina Pro Plan dry food had been increased a dollar. So had so had the Nutro Dry. We consumers are obviously paying for this past pet food recall, the pet store lost money so now the prices have been jacked. How fair is THAT? Its the store not the pet food companies on that I will bet! Has anyone else noticed this? and has the dog food price gone up as well? it really sucks, why do WE have to pay for their loss I am sure they have insurance against losses like this recall, any pet store owners know anything OWNERS OF INDEPENDENT SHOPS NOT THE CHAINS?
the first answer kind of exasperates me.. its like oh well.. but why sould we have to just take what they shove down our throats and up our butts , maybe we should boycott go to an independent store for awhile.i mean should we just lay down for being price gouged everywhere where is our backbone in the USA anymore?
is there no time for a backbone is that it?
ps i do not own a pet store

http://www.helpinganimals.com/oi_petsmart.asp

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Several months ago my cat was very ill. She’s an indoor cat and I work 12 hr. shifts.
The first thing her DR. did was change her diet from wet and dry food to strictly dry. After exams and tests he found kidney and other problems, she could’ve been tested for diabetes, but then what? daily shots?. I declined further testing because he believed her age was the real problem and I agreed.
She’s 16 yrs. old!.
As long as she wasn’t uncomfortable or in any pain I just wanted to bring her home.
I recently moved in with someone so she isn’t alone so much and has more space (and windows) to explore.
I now realize she had all the symptoms associated with the now infamous "bad" pet food.
The obvious symptoms are just about gone now. She’s eating more,gaining weight (her bones were showing), I give her turkey, raw egg, milk, cheese, etc. in small amounts.
If it was the food, does she need medication or is she recovering OK on her own?

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I feed my two Ragdoll cats ORIJEN Dry Cat Food, and they love it! Their coats are just amazing and they are so energetic and so healthy. Nevertheless, I’ve been reading lots and lots of articles on how feeding wet food in conjunction with dry food is absolutely important for their health in the long run. I like Orijen because it’s grain-free and it best resembles a feline diet in the wild; it has human-grade meats and none of the grains or carbohydrates that are biologically inappropriate to cats. My cats LOVE to drink water. I guess I’ve been blessed since I know some people have issues with their cats because they don’t like drinking water and so they get urinary infections, etc.
What brand of wet food is the BEST? Cost is not an issue, all I want is to feed my cats the BEST food possible. Also, will my cats get diarrhea when I start feeding them wet food? How much and how often is it recommended to feed wet food?
I’m not completely changing their food, as some people are thinking. I want to add wet food to their diet as recommended.
I’m in Washington DC, US

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I have nine month old, male, neutered, hyper-as-all-get-out, domestic short hair, indoor cat.

What is the best wet food that I can give him and what is the best dry food that I can give him?

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I have two cats; calico females age 8, sisters from the same litter. Strictly dry food diet, one litter box – automated scooping with crystals.

Three weeks ago I noticed odd behavior from my kitty, Snickers. She was going into the litter box more frequently with little to no urine. She didn’t seem to be in any pain or discomfort and her attitude was the same. After doing some online research and speaking with a breeder friend of mine, I started homeopathic treatment. Bought new organic high-quality dry and canned food, meat and rice based, instead of meat-meal and corn based. I also bought cranberry capsules from the health food store and made parsley infused water (boiled 1 qt water with 1 bunch parsley, strained and cooled).

I started integrating the new dry food over the next week and immediately started feeding her canned food twice daily making it into a soup with lots of extra water and the cranberry capsules. I also force feed her the parsley infused water with a dropper 2-3 times a day. I did this for ten days and started to notice an improvement. Urinating more and less frequently.

After the ten days of treatment, I stopped feeding her canned food and put her back on dry food only, but the new dry food. Five days after the end of treatment, her symptoms returned. So I started her back on canned food with cranberry capsules and took her to the vet on Monday to have a urinalysis completed to make sure there’s no infection or blockage. They put her on IV fluids and kept her for the day. When she came home that night, she started urinating blood and has ever since.

The test results came back yesterday… no infection or bacteria, no crystals or blockage, but lots of blood. The doctor says it’s FLUTD Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease and it should resolve itself within 7-10 days. It’s typically caused by stress and can be treated with pain reliever until the bleeding stops. If it does not resolve itself, their next suggestion would be an x-ray to determine in there’s any stones in her bladder/kidney, which they say is not too common. They say keep the litter box clean, her environment comfortable, and monitor her urine.

I read online that changing the diet can be beneficial as well. Most places say no dry food at all, only wet food twice a day. Encourage water intake. Reduce stress. And try antioxidant vitamins and herbs.

I’m very concerned for her health and safety and I hate that she can’t tell me how she feels. The doctor didn’t seem to think it’s a big deal and really only recommended a pain reliever. But she doesn’t act like she’s in pain, so will it help anything?

We’re leaving for vacation this Saturday for 7 days. My neighbor and mom will be there to check on her, but I feel horrible leaving not knowing if she’s okay and if I’m doing everything I can to help her. PLEASE any suggestions or advice would be so greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

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