Progress!

The other day I stopped by our small local meat shop just to see what they had.  After asking for beef liver, beef heart, chicken feet, kidneys, spleens, etc, the guy looked at me and said, "You're not really going to eat all that, are you?"  Ha!  I told him it was for my dog, who is on a special diet, and asked if there was any really cheap "junk" meat he could sell me.  About five minutes later, I'd paid $0.64 for a slice of beef liver and was walking out with a box of scrap meat he'd give me for free!

I should have taken pictures, because when people say they get scraps I always wonder what they mean.  Well, this box contained a big black trash bag full of trimmings and bones.  There was a lot of chunks of fat, a lot of connective tissue with small bits of meat attached, and a few chunks of ground meat.  I also got two meaty shoulder blade pieces that I figure I can give her as a treat... Let her work at the meat on it and then throw the bone away.  Unfortunately, the bottom of the bag was full of chili.  Of course, Mona can't eat that, so a lot of the meat on the bottom I didn't even bother going through because it was covered in chili.  I rinsed off a few pieces of fat that only had a little bit on them, and will hope that Mona handles it okay.

So, while a lot of the bag wasn't usable, I still managed to get at least a dozen meals out of it!  It will be interesting to see how she handles a meal that isn't one large chunk... These are mostly bite size chunks all thrown together to make a 10 ounce portion.  But because it was free, I'm sure not going to waste it!!

Also, remember that beef liver I mentioned?  Mona loves it!  Hooray!  It's been such a struggle to get her to eat chicken liver, and half the time the cat steals it and eats it because she ignores it.  I was really nervous that liver in general was going to be a struggle, but I fed her a piece beef liver today and it was gone in seconds.  Thank goodness!  The liver is a little more expensive than I'd wanted, $1.89 a pound, but since she needs so little of it I don't think it will really be a problem.