The cost of things: May 2013

Tags

allergies, budgeting, goat's milk, heartworm, honest kitchen, iverhart, joint supplements, pet finances, petmeds, soloxine, sparkle, wapiti labs

This is my third year of tracking our pet finances here at the House of Two Bows. This is an ongoing effort to get a practical sense of what it costs to keep two 20 ~ 30 pound adult dogs in an area of the US with relatively high costs of living. Previous posts in this series can be found under the category of finances.

The Cost of (Pet) Things for May 2013:

• Food: $67 [previous month, $66]
• Treats: $16 [previous, $11]
• Grooming: $0 [previous, $7]
• Accessories and misc: $0 [previous, $0]
• Vet & Medical: $54 [previous, $0]
• TOTAL: $137 (running average for 2013 ~$158/month)

For food and the Bows’ daily diet, aside from the usual yogurt and fresh meat here and there, this month was mostly about supplements. A free shipping offer from The Honest Kitchen allowed me to stock up on a couple canisters of Sparkle at a reasonable price. I added this skin, coat, and digestive supplement to their daily meals around this time last year — right at the cusp of Bowdu’s spring coat blow, and into the summer allergy season. Though he’s got some patches of black skin on his legs now (as has been typical for the past few years), he got through last summer quite nicely, so I’m implementing the same regimen again.

The Honest Kitchen also sent us a complimentary grab bag of supplements to try out, including a couple packs of their brand new goat’s milk supplement, Pro Bloom. I’m trying to dig up info on goat milk for dogs, which they are selling as a formula rich with digestive enzymes and probiotics. Will report back in due time…

One last biggie purchase also came at a significant discount from the Pawalla shop — a 30 gram bottle of elk velvet antler extract from Wapiti Labs, which I’ll be alternating with liquid glucosamine supplements for a while. I prefer joint supplements in additive forms, as opposed to tablets or chewable treats, because it seems easier to add the amount I want directly to their meals.

Treats included a round of Honest Kitchen Beams and a couple pounds of chicken hearts and gizzards for the dehydrator. This is one of RJ’s favorite thing to do for the Bows… and by this point, I believe the dehydrator has finally paid for itself!

Finally, for medications, I stocked up on another 250 days worth of Soloxine (0.4mg pills broken into two halves, twice a day) for $20 via PetMeds. They’re usually slightly more expensive than that, but PetMeds does have a price-matching guarantee that they’ve always been good to honor, when I point out that Drs. Foster and Smith sell the same pills for less.

I also seriously considered stopping heartworm medication for the Bows, given the very, very low incidences of heartworm in our local microclimate. Basically, as my vet explained when I was discussing this option with her, the nightly fog that creeps over the area drops temperatures below a level that allows mosquitoes to propagate. However, we had a couple heat waves, and the buzz of a single mosquito one night made me paranoid… So I figured that if I were to take the Bows off heartworm medication, summer is not the time to do so.

I got Iverhart. It was cheap. Cost is a concern at the moment… which is why budgets are necessary.

Next up: Reporting on the Novato Shiba Picnic 2013!

REVIEW: Pawalla pet gift subscription service

Tags

canine dental, canned dog food, dog food, dog treats, dogswell, kong, mulligan stew, nutrisca, nutrition, pawalla, precise holistic complete, sam's yams, sponsored reviews, supplements, sweet potatoes, tropiclean, wapiti labs, weruva, wet dog food

EDIT: On 22 August 2013, Pawalla announced that it is “no longer operating as a subscription service.”

Product: Pawalla.com pet gift subscription service
Quantity: One big ol’ box of food, treats, supplements, and other pet products
Price: $26 / month for pay-as-you-go subscription; $21 / month for a 12-month subscription (with 2 bonus months thrown in); shipping included (to the lower 48 US states?)**
Ingredients: all kinds!
Company information: Pawalla.com, 9415 Culver Blvd.; Culver City, CA 90232
Web Presence: At Pawalla.com and Facebook

With a single THUMP announcing the delivery on the front porch, the Bows got more postal love than I’ve gotten in years! I never thought I’d feel mail jealousy directed towards my dogs.

Pawalla.com is a monthly subscription service for dogs and cats, offering a thoughtfully selected variety of six or more “all natural” wet foods, treats, supplements, and extras like grooming aids and toys. This hefty promotional box sent to The House of Two Bows was bursting with goodies:

• Mulligan Stew (Beef), one 13 oz can
• Precise Holistic Complete (Beef w/ Vegetables and Wild at Heart River Line w/ Salmon and Trout), two 5.5 oz cans
• Weruva Amazon Liver (Chicken), two 5.5 oz cans
• Sam’s Yams Veggie Rawhide, one 5 oz pouch
• Kong Traxx tire chew toy, size medium
• Kong Chewy Treats (Chicken, Lamb), two 0.75 oz pouches
• Nutrisca Freeze Dried Dinner Bites (chicken), one 5 oz pouch
• Wapiti Labs elk antler chew, 4″ medium
• Wapiti Labs natural mobility supplement, 15 g sample pouch
• Tropiclean Fresh Breath gel, one 2 fl oz bottle

That’s quite a first impression! A printed menu presented the month’s selections with peppy, personalized descriptions. My quick tabulation of local retail prices for all this schwag rang up at about $60 total. If this box is indicative of the usual fare, subscribers are in for some great deals!

More importantly, the quality of the items show that the folks at Pawalla know what they’re doing. Everything in here was a brand that we have either purchased in the past, or noted as worth trying in the future. That means that Pawalla has passed The House of Two Bows’ stringent selection criteria multiple times! What are the chances?

Pretty good, apparently, if you have a certified nutritionist on board. I love that the company has the credentials of their nutritionist, Dr. Susan Lauten, prominently featured on their introduction page. If Pawalla adheres to Dr. Lauten’s advice as I found on the website for Nature’s Variety, one of the brands she advises, I am confident that the company will maintain rigorous standards. That is, I expect all future products to be free of low-quality grains like corn, wheat, or soy (though not necessarily grain free), gluten, animal byproducts, generic meats and fats, and chemical preservatives.

I also checked each item to make sure that none of the items were manufactured in China or other sites of recent recalls. While Weruva, one of the brands of canned food included in this box, is manufactured in Thailand, the plant adheres to international export quality standards that should allay the fears of consumers with a North American bias.

Eric, one of the company founders, assured me that they “share[d my] concern about Chinese made products and do not provide them in [their] boxes.” In the future I would like to see a more explicit policy about how the company will ensure that their products pass muster, including staying abreast of recalls and how they would issue item replacements, if necessary. As it is, the company FAQ covers more of the monetary and procedural end of affairs, and offers less detailed information regarding what’s actually inside each box. Some amount of mystery is necessary, after all, to preserve the element of surprise!

Perhaps some of the reticence is because the company is still in development. Future plans include an online store, to be launched in August, for customers to stock up — because sometimes a single can is just not enough for a hungry pet, let alone Two Bows!

This subscription service is ideal for dogs who exhibit no food allergies. I asked Eric if they had plans to restrict protein options pending pet owner preferences. Unfortunately, we are hearing about more and more about dogs who exhibit sensitivities to common proteins across the board — which is one reason why so many in my crowd are eager to embrace home-prepared meals. Understandably, this would complicate the supply process if enough picky-bickys join the club, but this is a valid deterrent to a more long-term subscription for consumers like us, despite the great value (note that two free months are currently being offered with a year’s subscription).

Having some probiotics and digestive aids on hand might be a good idea when trying out new products. Luckily, the Bows are used to variety, but if your pet is not, be aware that you might wreak havoc on your pet’s digestive health if you try to go through a different can of food a day without adequate transition time. It would be better to pace the surprises over the course of the month.

I would recommend this as an awesome gift idea for first-time dog owners — and it’s very easy to purchase a 3, 6, or 12 month gift subscription for someone else. Perhaps your best friends just adopted their first dog and they’re overwhelmed by the wide world of dog products. Pawalla has it in them to guide newbies to the good stuff first. Yet, there are still surprises in store for more seasoned consumers, too. Personally, I was excited about the Wapiti Labs mobility supplements for Bowdu, and the Tropiclean dental gel for Bowpi, though it’s too early to tell if these products work as advertised.

It is also important to me that Pawalla offers some customizations for pets of different ages and sizes. The promotional box contained items that would have been appropriate for a range of ages from puppies (super tough chew toys) to adults and seniors (mobility supplements). Frankly, we prefer consumables to objects that just accumulate around the house, though a post on the Pawalla blog makes an argument that everything in the box is essential, from food to toys, when you’re striving for the optimum physical and emotional health for your pet.

Over time, I will be curious to see how Pawalla can maintain both a commitment to quality while rotating enough product diversity to keep subscriptions interesting. A common complaint of other pet deals sites is the number of repeat offerings. Is it possible that there is a finite number of high quality brands that Pawalla can present? Or does a service like Pawalla actually help promote higher standards and fuel the growing market for quality pet products?

I’d like to think the latter is true, and indicative of a positive trend in how people are willing to care for their pets. Meanwhile, I’m grateful for the existence of companies like Pawalla that appear to align with my own retail philosophies. I was honestly impressed by the execution, and they’re definitely on the right track. However, I will withhold my highest grade because there is no record yet of consistency, which is critical for a subscription-based operation. But since The Bows asked so nicely, I do believe we’ll be getting another box in the future.

FINAL GRADE: A-

** Note: The House of Two Bows was given one promotional box in exchange for our honest review.

EDIT: On 22 August 2013, Pawalla announced that it is “no longer operating as a subscription service.”