Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsI used to love this flavor...
Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2016
Well, after doing lots of research and trying to find a good dog food with lower calories(but not diet) to help my overweight dog lose a pound or two...I chose this one. I loved it for quite a while. He loved it. All was well, until the price sky rocketed on Amazon and in stores and we were back in the position of looking for a more affordable alternative.
Let me be clear, my dogs are my children. I want them to be healthy, happy and enjoy their food as much as I enjoy a Krispy Kreme on occasion. I looked around at all different brands, did the research, read articles on dogfoodadvisor ad naseum. What I kept coming back to was canned food is always better than dry just due to it being closer to the original state of the ingredients it is made with. As we tried to find foods packed with quality ingredients and not corn or the dreaded meat meal I realized the ingredients they should be getting are not completely foreign. They need protein, some starch, calcium, vitamins and minerals, etc. Basically a well balanced diet. I then researched homemade dog food and I can tell you that is no walk in the park. That being said, it's been almost 6 months that I've been making my own. It's a big undertaking not just in time and cooking but also in researching to be sure you are varying their diet so they don't develop allergies. Which funnily enough, being fed the same thing every day can and will develop allergies in your pets. But I don't consider myself a holistic pet owner, I am just trying to do right by them while saving a buck.
All that being said, I make their food consistently and they love love love it. I am always a little worried about running out and having nothing to feed them so I kept a few cans of this dog food for a 'just in case' scenario. Well that happened about 2 months ago. We had almost run out, no time to make a batch of food and we even needed to go get ingredients, it was late so we used some canned food with their regular stuff. Never. Again. I cannot stress enough what a difference it was going from dry dog food to this stuff, but even more so from this stuff to homemade. When I opened the can, I almost gagged. It smelled like poop! The same stuff I used to joke about eating if I ran out of groceries for myself because it 'looked so good.' I checked the expiration, fine, visually inspected the can, fine. The food was fine, I just wasn't used to its smell anymore. I gave it to my dogs because they were giving me sad, hungry, 'you never feed us' puppy dog eyes. The smell lingered in their mouths a long time after dinner. But the alarming part was that the next morning in bed before we got up, I could smell it on their skin. They smelled gross. I made another batch of dog food, fed them the following day and about a day and a half went by before that terrible smell was gone. I couldn't believe it. If ever I doubted the benefits of homemade dog food, that day proved to me that I am doing the right thing.
I gave this 3 stars still because I think it's one of the better processed dog foods out there. But I had to take away 2 stars based on how it affected my dogs in just one day. Dry kibble is usually burger king for them, canned food is maybe panera? It can't compare to home cooked.
