Dog Food Sandwiches

Don't worry! We are on a budget, but not that much of a budget! Dogfood sandwiches are just one of the many ways we are trying to trick our dog into eating. After some rapid weight loss, she was diagnosed with some liver damage resulting from a bout of tick fever she had years ago. The liver damage causes loss of appetite, so we are doing everything we can to get her to eat.

She is slightly more interested in people food than what's in her dish (won't even eat out of her dish anymore) so she gets lots of people food (raw liver, rice, any kind of leftovers) and lots of pretend people food. Hence the dog food sandwich. I heap some wet dog food in between 2 pieces of bread and pretend to eat it while she watches. After I am "full", I set it on the floor for her and she eats every bite!

I will also heat some canned food in the microwave and give it to husband, who pretends to take a few bites before he is full, and then makes the dog do a trick or two for her "treat".

Putting dog food in an empty take-out container and pretending we just brought it home? Yep- done that!

It's so important that she eats (besides, of course, to gain weight) because she has pills to take for her liver and pancreas, and she gets sick if they are taken on an empty stomach. She is quite good at eating all her food except for those two tiny pills! In this case they are massaged down her throat.

This has been going on for weeks and I hope she doesn't catch on to us! She looks like she may have gained a few pounds back. Oh, in case you are wondering, "give her anything she wants to eat" was recommended by the vet...our dog is almost 12 years old and it's more important that she eats than worrying about spoiling her on table scraps.

This is her when we were cat sitting at a friends house a few weeks ago. She is watching the cats eat. She loves catfood but neither T nor I can stand the smell, so she won't be getting that!

We did ok on the budget this week, came in $7 under, so that goes into Vacation Fund, and this is what we ate:

Sunday: Chicken with rice and red pepper/avocado salsa

Monday: Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup

Tuesday: Chili

Wednesday: Some visiting friends took us out to dinner. We went to the Schnitzel Haus and we had schnitzel

Thursday: Taco salad using leftover chili

Friday: Spaghetti and meatballs

Saturday: Pizza

I actually don't have any dinner photos this week, so here is breakfast from a few days ago. When T and I both have the morning off we like to go out for breakfast, but it gets so expensive. We easily spend $30 -not because we eat a lot but because it's expensive-, and if you throw a couple Bloody Mary's in, we easily spend upwards of $50. That's just wrong for breakfast! Anyway, we got bagels from the store and I made an herbed cream cheese with stuff from our garden. We found the perfect avocado and T made fried eggs. Yum!

Hope everyone has a great week!