QUALITY Dog foods & What my Dogs Thought of Them.

I recently made the switch to REAL, gently cooked and raw foods with my fur babies about 5 months ago. After LOTS of research, reading several books and learning from pet nutritionists, I came to the conclusion that kibble is the absolute worst thing you can feed your dog. NO SHAMING! I fed my fur babies kibble my entire adult life up until I knew better last year. There are even a few kibble brands that have better nutritional profiles than others so if the reason you feed kibble is financial, know that there are options that are literal junk and do provide some nutritional value to your fur family. I know we are all doing the best that we can for them.

Back to why I personally made the switch. I have now had TWO beloved fur babies get cancer and cross the rainbow bridge. Despite all the love in the world and feeding them what I “thought” was the best food - recommended by the vet - they STILL got cancer. The truth is, most vets don’t know much about nutrition. It is a small portion of vet school and a lot of the information is outdated. I am NOT slamming veterinarians, I love and appreciate our vets so much and would be lost without them but they truly don’t know much about nutrition. You know who does though? Pet nutritionists! :) Which is why I went that route for my information. A little background about me too, I majored in health education and minored in holistic health (for humans) in college, that is what I did for a living for MANY years before going the travel/adventure route. That being said, I have spent YEARS advising people to stay away from processed foods and urging them to eat whole fresh foods instead. It’s important for immunity, cell regeneration, health, stamina & longevity. Now WHY would it be any different for dogs? Imagine feeding a living being processed kibble with synthetic vitamins for their ENTIRE existence. OF COURSE they are not going to live optimally, not have a beautiful coat and healthy skin, experience digestive and joint issues before their time and more than likely than not, get cancer or another serious illness. For these reasons, I decided to go the “fresh and gently cooked” and raw routes for my fur family last year.

I’d like to to share the foods we finally landed on, that have been monumental in FINALLY getting my dogs GI systems functioning properly. No more constant gas, diarrhea, vomiting, etc.

I’m also going to share an honest review of what my dogs thought of these foods.

Just Food for Dogs - This is the first food we switched to when we left kibble, As much as I wanted to jump straight into raw, I was scared. I kept hearing that my dogs would get e coli or salmonella and that terrified me, even from the vets told me to steer clear of raw feeding. So I opted for gently cooked fresh food instead. Cooking their meals myself wasn’t an option because I wouldn’t know how to make it nutritionally complete. Just food for Dogs comes nutritionally complete and I also love that it comes in Fresh frozen AND shelf stable boxes if you don’t have a lot of freezer space. Which I don’t, I have enough room for a few fresh frozen, a bunch or raw and then our human food. I digress, let me get back on track. What did my dogs think of it? Well, Teddy loved it immediately and devours every single flavor I give him. Copper on the other hand would gobble up the meat and literally pick and spit out any produce at first. ha ha Now, he eats it all but it took him a few meals to get used to his veggies. We absolutely LOVE Just Food for Dogs and I don’t foresee myself ever not including this brand in their food rotation.

Sundays for Dogs - I had been eyeballing this brand for many, many months before I bit the bullet and placed an order. Although this food resembles kibble, it is NOT. It is fresh food, air dried at 160 degrees to kill germs but still preserve nutrients. Sunday’s uses human grade ingredients, no synthetic additives and is 90% meat based without mixing proteins. Why not mixing proteins matters? Well, it mattered to me because I was trying to figure out if Teddy had a food allergy. If you are serving a meal with multiple protein sources, it’s impossible to know which one they are reacting to, if any. This food, like JFFD is also nutritionally complete. So although I love to add toppers, it is not necessary. I do it because it is fun. Remember if you are adding toppers though, it is important to remove some of their regular meal portion as to not overfeed. It is recommended to remove between 10-20% if you are adding in toppers. Back to what really matters most, What did my dogs think of it? THEY LOVE IT!!! They inhaled all 3 flavors! No tummy issues with any of the flavors, even chicken (I’m fairly sure Teddy has a chicken intolerance)! Oh! Another reason I wanted to include this food into their rotation is that it is more convenient to travel with. No refrigerator or freezer necessary and it isn’t bulky or heavy. For 50% off of your first order of Sundays, click —-> HERE.

Viva Raw - Trying this food was “the big leap” for us, pure raw food! We finally went for it and it’s been a rocky road. So, what do my dogs think? Well, Teddy ate it! No surprise there. I started with the chicken flavor first and I have long suspected that Teddy has a chicken intolerance but wondered if it would be different with raw food? So I braced myself and gave him a taste mixed in with his other food. He ended up throwing up and had diarrhea for hours. He notoriously has sensitive bowels so this came as no surprise to me, strike one. Next, we sampled the duck recipe, again he ate it right up and this time, mild tummy issues only. Third try, major belly issues again, so I seared it on low heat (the company said it wouldn’t cook out the nutrients if I did it that way) and he devoured it and hasn’t had tummy issues since. Coopers turn, he ate the chicken recipe right up, no hesitation but he was slower to embrace the duck recipe a couple of days later. In fact, he literally ate AROUND it and ate the raw food last. Third try, he would not touch it. He has no interest in raw food whatsoever. I gave him some of the seared food instead and he ate it with some encouragement. Like I said, we are still only a few weeks into trying Viva Raw so I’ll let you know how it goes in a couple of months with an update! I still have the other flavors to try with them but have a sneaking suspicion I will be low searing it. For 20% off of your first order of Viva Raw, use the code FAUNA20

Next, I want to add a couple of foods that we haven’t tried yet but that have awesome nutritional profiles and I intend on adding them to the rotation over time. Why do I feed several brands to my animals? Honestly, I do it for several reasons but a few of the main ones are variety, nutrition and “just in case”. Variety is the spice of life and just like I would not want to eat the same food everyday for my entire life, I bet my dogs wouldn’t want to either. Nutrition because each ingredient has a different nutrition profile and with it, brings different benefits. If I regularly “mix things up” with foods they are already familiar with, they will get a wider range of benefits from their meals. “Just in case” means that if for some reason, one of the companies goes out of business, runs out of stock temporarily or if there was a natural disaster (road closures, shipping facilities inaccessible, grounded airplanes, etc.) that prevented me from accessing their food, I would have other foods I could feed to my dogs without having to go through the whole transition process from square one.

OK, back on track! The foods I want to eventually add to the mix are:

Little Hunter - Ready to eat, freeze dried raw food. This company uses human grade meat, organic fruits and veggies and is complete and balanced. It comes in 4 recipes - rabbit, chicken, beef & salmon/whitefish and can be served as a complete meal or as a topper with other food.

Stella and Chewy’s Dinner Patties - Another freeze dried raw food. This single sourced proteins and is also free of grains and gluten. This comes in the form of patties/discs and can be served “as is” or rehydrated. It comes in 8 single protein recipes - rabbit, duck, chicken, beef, lamb, venison, pork & turkey.

Primal Pronto - This complete and balanced food is freeze dried raw and single source protein. It is shelf stable and resembles kibble, so it is super easy to just scoop, rehydrate with water and serve. It comes in 3 recipes - beef, chicken and lamb. There are no synthetic supplements, soy, corn, wheat, lentils or legumes. I actually have this in my Amazon cart right now!

Lastly, I just ordered The Honest Kitchen to try as well. I will update this once we have been on it for at least 2-4 weeks. :)