$11.40 a day. That was the number on the quote for feeding Hank fresh food all the way, no kibble at all, and it's the number I've thought about most this summer.
Back in May I wrote about adding a fresh-food topper to his bowl as a trial. The trial started May 5. On Friday, August 8, I canceled it. Here's what changed for him, what didn't, and the math that sent us back to plain kibble.
What we were actually buying
We never did the full diet. We bought the smaller topper plan, a portion of fresh food meant to sit on top of his regular kibble, delivered frozen every few weeks. It cost $58 a month. Three months came to $174 total.
I'm not naming the company. They were easy to deal with, the food looked like real food, and canceling took two minutes with no guilt trip. This isn't a review of them. It's a review of whether it fit our budget.
What changed for Hank, and what didn't
Mealtimes got more exciting, for one. Hank has always been food-motivated, but with the topper he started "talking" at me the moment I opened the fridge, and he licked his bowl until it slid across the kitchen floor. He also finished meals faster, which honestly wasn't a plus.
His stools were a little smaller and firmer. I'll leave it there.
His weight stayed at 68 pounds, but only because I cut his kibble to make room for the topper, which is how it's supposed to work. His energy stayed the same.
And the big one: his skin. Part of me hoped fresh food would help with his seasonal itchiness. It didn't, at least not that I could see. He had his itchy-paws visit in May, two weeks into the trial, and last week he was at the clinic again with a hot spot and an ear infection. I'm not blaming the food for any of that, and I'm not crediting it with anything either. Three months on one dog proves nothing, and our vet didn't connect his skin to his food in either direction.
There was also the fridge. Fresh food has to thaw in advance, which meant a shelf of our fridge was always holding dog food, and I had to remember to move tomorrow's packs down from the freezer every night. I forgot twice. Both times Hank got plain kibble and looked at me like I'd broken a promise.
The math
Here's where it came down, using the numbers in the pet tab of our budget:
- Kibble alone: his 34-pound bag of Purina Pro Plan Large Breed Adult lists at $74.99, comes to $71.24 with Chewy autoship's 5 percent off and lasts about 38 days. That's roughly $1.87 a day, or about $57 a month.
- Kibble plus topper: add $58 a month and Hank's food bill doubles to about $115 a month, close to $1,380 a year.
- Full fresh diet: $11.40 a day works out to about $347 a month and more than $4,100 a year. That's six times what we spend on kibble.
The comparison that really settled it: the topper alone would cost about $696 over a year. Hank's pet insurance premium this year is $52.65 a month, or $631.80 for the year. I was about to spend more on a nice extra for his bowl than on the policy that's there for the next $4,000 emergency.
Our whole food and litter line for both pets runs about $140 a month. The topper pushed it to nearly $200. For a household like ours that's real money, and nothing I saw in his bowl or his coat convinced me it was buying something the kibble wasn't.
What we kept
Our vet has always been comfortable with what Hank eats, and she's steered us away from raw feeding and the boutique grain-free diets. Fresh food wasn't a quality problem for us. It was a budget problem. If your budget has more room, or your dog has needs mine doesn't, your answer may look different, and what goes in your dog's bowl is a conversation for you and your own vet.
What I kept from the experiment is the excitement. A splash of warm water over his kibble or a spoonful of plain canned pumpkin now and then, and dinner is an event again, for pennies.
The last pack went into his bowl on Friday night. He licked it clean, looked up at me for a long second and then went to lie down by the back door. I'm choosing to believe he understood.
