Artie's weight loss and health transformation

My 3 year old, 12.8kg, now lean, French Bulldog, Artie, has been enjoying the change to the Healthy Active Pet raw dog food and way of eating over the last couple of months.

He never used to get excited by meal time or any dog food. Now, without fail I get a little happy dance.

When we first swapped the dog food he was eating to the Healthy Active Pet dog food, the extra weight fell off him, his coat become softer and shiner, his barker's eggs smaller and firmer and his toots are rarely offensive.

Previously I had been doing small batches of raw dog food prep, but I thought it was time to up the anti and see how far I could go.

With the increase in price of living I wasn't convinced that it was an ongoing affordable option, but you can't say yuk until you've tried it, right?

I chose the Budget-Friendly Minced Beef Recipe for Dogs from Healthy Active Pet. Artie eats about 300gms a day, so I multiplied the recipe by 5. I thought that was a good amount to start with and my freezer could hold.

Most of the ingredients were very straight forward. The beans at the supermarket looked a bit gross but the frozen ones worked well.

Also frozen blueberries were a cheaper option and there is some left over along with the almond butter for another batch. Beef mince was also cheaper at the supermarket.

The main ingredient I was worried about was the chicken wings. Artie is a fiend and will swallow wings, necks and wing tips whole.

I tried asking the butcher if they would mince the wings for me. This wasn't an option because their grinder couldn't manage the bigger bone.

What they did have was some ground, wing tips, skin (and another bit I can't remember). It was super cheap but might be a bit higher in fat to bone ratio so I will keep an eye on his weight and barker's eggs over the next little bit.

The other ingredient I had trouble with was the Cod Liver Oil. The only one I could find was lemon/lime flavour. I'm pretty sure Artie would prefer the stock standard stinky fish flavour.

For this batch I found some tinned sardines in spring water with no added salt. So he can have one of those as a topper and I will order a bottle of Cod Liver Oil online for future batches.

Healthy Active Pet have the Kelp Powder available to order online which solves the problem of finding that.

Eggs aren't eaten a lot at my house, so I asked my work colleagues to donate their egg shells. Sure I got some funny looks, but after cooking them up I had free Egg Shell Powder.

The other dilemma I have with my dear sweet fur child is that he can be very picky if he gets a beautifully presented tasting plate for his meals.

Any protein will be eaten and anything that looks or smells like a fruit or vegetable will be left behind.

To fix his little wagon, I blended up the beans, liver, blueberries and spinach and mixed everything in together. The easiest way I found to mix it up was to put it all in a 16L bucket, put it on a dining chair, roll up my sleeves and get my hands into it.

It did not look like a Michelin Star meal, but the taste test by Artie of licking out the mixing bowl when we were done, proved a success. His Healthy Active Pet slow feeder bowl was also licked clean tonight!

After an hour in the kitchen and approx $88, Artie now has 18 x 330gm meals divided into 6 x 1 litre containers for approx $4.20 a meal.

I was totally surprised to see that it worked out to be less than a coffee a day for me.

I might even check out the local markets and see if I can get the cost down a bit more.

Not only are the raw food recipes great but I’ve also used the Healthy Active Pet air and freeze dried foods for meal toppers and occasional whole meals.