Organization, you continue to elude me

Organization, organization, organization. Sigh.

I'm still working out the best system for me. I was putting each portion into a small ziplock bag, then each meat type/cut together into a larger, labeled ziplock bag. The bags don't take up a lot of room in the freezer (bonus!), but the masking tape labels didn't stick, the larger bags are hard to reseal after a while, and the bags leak blood all over the fridge while thawing (that's what I get for using cheap bags, I guess). Additionally, since the bags were leaking, I stopped saving them for re-use, meaning I am throwing away a LOT of plastic.

Also, I'm not great at remembering what I gave Kip to eat yesterday, the day before, etc., making it a bit harder to keep track of bone amounts, organball numbers, etc.

So, on to Plan B. I bought some cheaper plastic containers, large enough to hold 4-5 days worth of food. I got 2 to start with, as I don't want to waste a lot of money on a system that won't work any better then the one I'm currently using, but it gives me something to start with. Below is one container with 4 days worth of food - a large turkey drumstick, some bone-in chicken and boneless beef, along with some organballs.

In theory, I can load these up with a few days worth of food, freeze them, and then put them in the fridge to thaw and feed from. If I get enough (and if this system works for me), I could prep a number of them at one time, and then have 1-2 months worth of meals ready to go, all in reusable containers. It just means freezing whole cuts when they are on sale, and thawing a bunch at a time to portion out and re-freeze in the container. Which is doable. Again, the lack of freezer space really needs to be addressed soon!!

Small things make me happy

Kip is getting a bit thin, so I gave him an egg today in addition to his normal meat, and before I fed it to him, I had a bright idea - mush up a organ meatball into it, since it's still hit-or-miss if he eats them on their own. The result - a perfectly clean bowl, and no vomit - yippee!!

So, until the "organballs" are gone, I think that's how he'll get his daily allotment. And the egg should be good for his coat too.

Yes, it's a small thing, but it's amazing how happy you get when you finally figure out how to get your dog to eat something!

The heart of the matter

I am a lucky person, really. Kip is a GREAT dog. He's easy to train, he has a great temperament, and he has had no health issues to date (knock on wood). Kip has never destroyed anything except his toys, was a breeze to house-train, and loves every person he meets.

For my first-ever dog, Kip is a blessing.

But he will NOT eat his organs. Sigh.

Again, I should really count my blessings. He eats chicken, beef, pork and turkey now, with no problems. But the three things he had either refused or had issues with - beef heart, liver and kidneys - we are still trying to deal with. Heart is a meat, not an organ, so the fact he won't eat it isn't a big issue - but I had a few pounds of it, and didn't want to throw it out. The fact that he refuses kidneys, and doesn't deal well with liver, however, are bigger issues - he needs organ meat as a necessary part of a balanced, healthy diet.

I decided to grind up the heart, kidneys and liver together, freeze in 1 ounce portions, and feed one or two a day as "treats". My thinking was that he will eat liver, and will eat tiny bits of heart as long as they are frozen solid, so this might work.

Yeah.

Day one - ate one in the morning, no problem.

Day two - ate one in the morning with some convincing on my part, ate a second that evening, and promptly vomited. Okay, let's limit it to one a day, until he gets used to them.

Day three - ate one in the morning, no problem.

Day four and five - no way, not eating that.

So, last night, I thawed one, and spread it on the turkey he was getting for supper. That worked - as he had no way of getting the ground-up meat off the turkey meat.

Keep you paws crossed that that continues to work, and hopefully I'll find some chicken organs to try him with next. I really don't want to have to continue to make organ pate for my dog...