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I recently received an email asking my opinion of a couple of brands of pet food. Both of the foods the pet owner asked about were what I considered to be very inferior. When I informed him of this, his response was they could not afford one of the better quality foods.

I know very well that better quality dog and cat foods can cost two or even three times more than that of the cheaper brands. Pet owners who feel that cannot afford it, unfortunately will more than likely pay in the long run. When their pet becomes sick with kidney or liver disease or when their pet continues to be treated for skin irritations and/or ear infections - those vet bills to ‘fix’ the health problem due to years of inferior nutrition cost far more than the ‘few cents’ a meal to provide the pet better quality nutrition. Before you scoff at the ‘few cents a meal’ theory - let me explain.

Many pet owners suffer ’sticker shock’ when considering purchasing a better quality food. They look at the price tag and gasp when considering how fast Fido or Fluffy eats that bag of food. What they don’t know is that with better quality pet foods, you don’t feed as much - cheap foods have cheap ‘filler’ ingredients that do not satisfy the nutritional needs of the pet, thus they eat A LOT more attempting to get the nutrition that their body is telling them they need. Better quality foods/ingredients provide the animal with quality nutrition and they eat on average 1/3 less.

Breaking it down to cost per mealIf your pet currently eats one cup of food per dayA 20 pound of food will provide you with about 50 meals. If the pet food costs you $15.00 for a 20 pound bag, that costs you about $.30 per meal. With a high quality pet food, feeding about 1/3 less per meal, a 20 pound bag will provide you about 80 meals. If the higher quality pet food costs $30.00 for a 20 pound bag (double the cost of a inferior quality pet food) - that costs you less that $.38 cents per meal.

Even when the price tag of a pet food looks to be twice as expensive, it’s actually far from the truth. With the example above, at $.30 cents per meal, two meals a day - in one month you will spend about $18.00 to feed your pet with an inferior food. With the apparent twice as expensive high quality pet food, at $.38 cents per meal, two meals a day - in one month you are spending about $22.80 to feed your pet. That’s less than $5.00 per month difference between a high quality pet food and a inferior cheap pet food. It is necessary to consider the cost per meal of the food before you think it’s too expensive.

With better, more nutritious pet foods - they do NOT need as much as with the cheaper foods. Don’t let the old habit of feeding more sway you when you switch to a more nutritious pet food - again, with more quality ingredients they just don’t need as much food as with inferior ingredients. In most cases, if you switch your pet to a quality pet food and continue to feed the same amount as the lesser quality food you were feeding - your pet will gain weight.

Serving size for your pet is something you will need to experiment with. If your dog or cat has no ‘figure’ - shows no waist when looking at them from above - chances are they need to lose a few pounds. Cut back the serving size. If you can visibly see ribs - they probably need to gain a couple of pounds and you need to slightly increase the serving size. Please note too that a cup of food a day at 2 years old will more than likely be too much food when they are a little older. Keep a constant monitoring eye on them - a healthy weight is a healthier pet.

And please don’t just look at the cost of the bag of food, look at (at least) the first five ingredients and consider the cost of the serving.

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