For a small dog, you can really splurge on food and not spend a ton. We're in the process of moving, so I don't have the kitchen space to prepare my dogs' raw food, so we're feeding a combination of Honest Kitchen Embark and Innova Evo. The innova is kibble, and I believe all human-grade ingredients. The Honest Kitchen is made in a human food plant where only human-grade food is allowed. It's expensive, but it's good stuff and when you bring a dog into your life you owe it to him/her to give them a good diet. It's the foundation their health builds on. Both kinds that I feed are grain-free (I don't believe in feeding grain to dogs, they're not built to digest it properly), but if you do decide to feed grains both Innova and Honest Kitchen have products with grains. Another company I have read about is Nature's Variety. They have lots of good stuff. Avoid anything they sell at grocery stores- it's all crap. My older dog was fed Ol' Roy for 8 years (before we got her), and she was just very dull-looking. We switched her to raw and she has become a very healthy, happy, and well-behaved old lady. If cost and prep time are the only things keeping you from feeding raw, go shopping! My beagle's favorite food so far has been 24 cent per pound chicken leg quarters. My girls get 88 cent per pound pig neck bones and 75 cent per four pounds of beef soup bones. Take it out of the fridge, wrap what's left in there, and throw the bones in the eating pen. Done. You only have to measure the weight once, then you know how many of that type bones to give from then on. I make them "mush" in the mornings, which takes about an hour and a half to make nearly ten pounds, and it averages less than a dollar a pound. For a min pin, that will last you quite a while. Supplements can get pricey, but most people aren't as paranoid as I am and don't keep $150 dollars worth of pills in their laundry room.
I'm a vegetarian, so raw feeding shouldn't be pleasant for me, but I have gotten an absolute ton of entertainment out of watching my two check out their new food, adding something different to their morning mush, and watching them twist themselves into pretzel shapes trying to eat a weird-shaped bone. Feeding kibble the last week has been boring. Oh well, look up those brands on the internet. They're expensive, but with such a small dog it will last a long time.
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Kadee Sedtal
