a tip for pet owners!

So, everybody knows that I love my puppy babies - Baxter, Bella, and Kodi.  But I absolutely haaate fleas and ticks.  They are so bad here in the summer months, and it is so hard to keep fleas off the dogs and out of my house.  Stephen and I have found that Advantage works the best for keeping fleas and ticks off our dogs.  The bad thing is, it’s not exactly cheap to keep THREE dogs medicated.  But, I can tell you one thing that helps make it easier on our checkbook.  And no, it’s NOT 1-800-PetMeds!  It’s a site called CanadaVet.  They are WAY cheaper than PetMeds.  I order my supply for 1 year at a time, because that is the best deal.  12 doses of advantage for extra-large dogs (which is what I order; keep reading to find out why!) from CanadaVet costs me $118.90.  The same thing would cost me $161.48 from PetMeds. That’s a savings of $42.58!  (Except I just looked at their site and they have it on sale for $124.98. But I’m still getting a better deal through CanadaVet even with it on SALE at PetMeds!)

Here’s another tip:  when I order Advantage, instead of ordering the correct size dosage for each dog, I order the package that is for Extra-Large Dogs (55+ pounds) even though none of my dogs weigh that much!  I get it because it is the best deal.  I get twelve 4.0 mL pipettes that looks like this…

then I use a (needle-less, obviously) syringe to measure out how much I need for each dog.  The pipette fits on most syringes perfectly!

Baxter and Kodi are both 10-20 pounds, so they each get 1 mL; Bella is 21-55 pounds so she gets 2.5 mL. (Except to tell you the truth, she only gets 2 mL - I give her what’s left in the pipette after I measure out Baxter and Kodi’s 1 mL each.)  If you don’t use an entire pipette at one time, you can put the cap back on it and store it for later use!  =)  How handy is that!?!

If I were to order twelve 1 ml pipettes for Bax, twelve 1 mL pipettes for Kodi, and twelve 2.5 mL pipettes for Bella, it would cost me $316.70.  But by ordering the “Extra-Large Dogs” 4.0 mL pipette and measuring it out myself, I’m saving $197.80!!! 

I hope that makes sense!  And by the way - my dad is the crazy one who figured out that it would be so much cheaper to measure it out ourselves.  I’m not sure I would have ever thought to do that!  Props to him.  =)