Raiko

So how is the economical crisis effecting everyones ability to take care of their dogs? And if it continues to go in the downward spiral what will you do? And if you know of any money saving tips post them here aswell.

roxy25

Well It has been hard for my sister since she can not find job openings for vet tech. So she has to work at that groomer downtown part time. We can not go to too many shows because of it and she always needs help with his food. I will probably go halves with her if Enzo needs medical attention.

As for my self I pretty much stopped my aquarium hobby. It taken a lot of money from me. I took down my tank and I have been having so much money lately because of it lol

I bought a pretty good fuel economy car so gas has been a breeze. my bf is going to sell his monte carlo for a hybrid so he will also start saving money.

I am using a bog fee wavier so I do not have to pay for my classes.

The only thing i still spend money on is my hair LOL

Raiko

Yeah I had to end my Aquaria aswell.. which was sad for me because I had 6 aquariums going in my basement. I had a spare bedroom that I lined with stands I made in wood shop. But I couldnt afford to keep up with my fish anymore. I didnt use filters though.

Idk if this will help you but if you get a bucket two pond pumps and some hose you can make a biological filter. I put lucky bamboo in the bucket, it kept my tanks reaaally clean. and as long as the water is moving the roots wont rot.


Also the common houseplant Phylodendron will grow in aquaria as long as its leaves are above the water and Pothos will grow completely submerged. Ive been helping my ex gf get an aquarium set up and we went to homedepot and bought a pothos plant and a phylodendron for $10 total, then we cut the plants at the nodes and planted them in the tank, saved alot of money on plants for bio filtering. Fish wont eat pothos either cuz it tastes bitter.

I think you can also buy large amounts of lucky bamboo at HD too, but I never tried it.
My problem was I had mostly natural tanks.. so in the spring I would go out, catch some fry in the lake at our vacation house and grow them in our fish tank. Blue gill are awsome pets, as soon as they realise you have the food they will leap out of the water and take pelets out of your hand. Bass are neat too but... they get big too fast. Once I even had a needle nosed gar.. he was awsome. I had a blue crawfish too and tadpolls but when he got big he would eat the plants before they could grow.

I only had one tank that had non captured fish, it had a black knife fish, some cory cats, a few needle fish, and a few clown loaches.

roxy25

One problem with what you suggested is I have a reef aquarium lol

I never used filters either I used live rock. I was using Metal Halide lighting ( which cost so freaking much on the light bill) I was once like you in where I has about 4 set ups but those days are gone.

I lost most of my corals because of nudibranches !!!!!!

Raiko

Yeah... aquariums are so beautiful to look at it was a real bummer to have to give up all my aquarium stuff. When I transfer schools I might start a fishtank in my dorm room, but nothing bigger than a 20gal will fit in there, but at least its something.

The only pet I have right now is wasps lol... yes there is a such thing as having a pet wasp nest.. or at least if there isnt maybe I'll be the first haha.


I found a queen wasp outside when the snow was melting so I captured her and she started a nest in the tank. She ate out of my hand and I never got stung, it really gave me some insite in how wasps work too, they are more curious than aggressive.

Purple Poodle

Living in a small town its hit me pretty hard. I am going to have to stop rescuing and get a part time job this winter. I am not sure if I can ever start rescuing again & it sucks as I enjoy it and its very much needed in my area.

I do have a tip though COUPONS! If my printer worked I would print a sack load but I do email them to my mom to print. I also get them from the paper, even if its 50 cents or a $1 off of two it does add up on the total. I use them a lot.

WonderPup

I've noticed clients stretching the time between grooms out for as long as they can, which affects my income of course.

One of the things I did was switch to a less expensive, but still higher quality dog food from what I was feeding. The kitty cats weren;t quite as lucky as the dogs, they got kitty chow. Weirdly enough though they actualy seem to be doing better on it?? Their weight is stable and they have soft shiny coats with no more shedding than normal. Funny how things like that work out. I don't have to feed the dogs any more food with the new food than what I was with the old food either which is good. I've not noticed any changes in skin, coat, or weight. Nice.
I'm lucky enough not to have to pay for grooming so thats not an issue for me - yay.

I'm not skimping on vet care either, BUT, at the same time I'm not doing quite as much as perhaps I have in the past. For example I reccently treated ear issues in both the poodles myself with a homemade solution I found and researched on the net. I told myself that it looked like a problem was just starting so I'de give it a try, if it didn't make improvements by weeks end off to the vet we'd go. It cleared right up though so - yay again. I've also taken to making ear cleaner myself at home so I'm not spending $$ on it anymore. Thats helpful since we go through a lot of it. Still on the vet front I decided this year to only update Rabies and DHPP. I'll do kennel cough myself since that is an up the nose sort of thing and I didn't spend a year working for a vet for nothing. It's 10-15 bucks cheaper to do it myself. Heartgaurd I get for less $$ on a website called petsmegastore, no script required and it's 100% legal.
For the spoos I've been using advantix for flea prevention which is a bit pricey. however I discovered that I could split a single dose between the two of them and still get a good 5-8 weeks before reapplication. Thats the same amount of time I would get out of a full dose so it only makes sense to split it up. Plus side to that is that they don't have that oily spot for nearly as long. I haven't done tried it with the little dogs yet, they get a full dose though they haven't had or needed one in two months.

Raiko

I love how I didnt get any Wow thats weird comments on my wasps haha.

But what do you guys think about kirkland as an alternative food for those.. like myself who are concerned about yellow corn (If someone wants me to explain the science behind America's cash crop corn, and why it is vertually neutritionless I will, but otherwise I'll assume you all know its mainly a filler not to meantion hard to digest.)

WonderPup

Wow, I never heard of wasps as pets.... LoL
Sorry I didn't know what to say before, I am terrified of bees and wasps but what can I say I have pet rats and crayfish among other things lol.

I've never heard of that food... where did you find that? I have a corn allergy in the house so I do my best to keep it out of anything the dogs eat anyway. Always looking for new ways though so to speak.

Raiko

It was at CostCo.

And over the six years I've had pet wasps I learned what kinds to avoid haha, polists[paper nest wasp, yellow morph] is generally docile as is mud dobbers. You can actually put your hand right over the nest and not have any guards assult you. With red morph paper wasps.. you can do that [they are longer and have a brownish/ red appearence]

Crawfish are neat, they ppick up on meal time really fast and they dont take **** from other fish so they do great in tanks with blue gill and the like.

Anyway back on track if i remember correctly the first 3 ingredients are all meats.