Food Friday: Acana Regionals Appalachian Ranch

This bag of Acana's Appalachian Ranch dog food from their Regionals product line means the food from their new Kentucky Dogstar Kitchens is finally here! Why is this exciting? Well, mostly it's because some of their new selections are safe for Brisbane's many food allergies. Someday I will no longer have a dog allergic to poultry and eggs, and I will probably stop being personally offended when companies choose to include those ingredients in their foods. For now though, I'm quite pleased whenever I spot something new for him to try.

The Company

Along with Orijen, Acana belongs to parent company Champion Pet Foods. They are widely regarded as making absolutely the best food on the market. I certainly want to blurt out their brand names when clients ask what the best dog food is. 

Champion Pet Foods announced that they would be opening the Dogstar kitchens in the USA well over a year ago. Then they reported that they had found a suitable location in Kentucky. Their original plant is in Canada, and their Regionals product line was based around locally-available ingredients that could be delivered fresh whenever possible. When they needed to step up their production, they decided to look for a new region with plenty of fresh ingredients available, rather than looking further afield to supply their original facility. 

The result is the Dogstar Kitchens in Kentucky. The new location means new products, as the resources locally available are a bit different than at the first plant. As a result, we now have similar but not identical foods to choose from. While I think this is super cool because the new choices are way better for my allergy dog, a lot of people are unhappy that distributors in the USA will now be distributing products made in Kentucky rather than Canada. I don't really have a preference for which of those two countries my dog food comes from.

The Food

Acana's original Canadian facility produces five foods that Brisbane can eat with his allergies to chicken, turkey, duck, eggs, corn, barley, and sweet potatoes. I like to rotate proteins and I dislike fish kibble simply because it makes my hands stinky when I use it for training treats, so I was disappointed when I found out that Brisbane was allergic to sweet potatoes and could no longer eat their Ranchlands food.

Their Appalachian Ranch kibble is the Dogstar equivalent of the Ranchlands option, and happily it does not contain yams (Or sweet potatoes. Seriously, there are two different root vegetables that both go by the names 'sweet potatoes' and 'yams' in various locales, and it's damned near impossible to figure out which one in specified on an ingredients list, allergy test, or anywhere else, so I don't feed Briz either.) Dogstar Kitchens actually makes seven different foods that Brisbane can eat. I have no idea how the new Orijen foods compare to the originals though, as that website just has "Coming Soon" instead of ingredients lists.

How does Appalachian Ranch compare to Ranchlands? The nutrient levels are slightly different, but nothing major. Both foods merit five out of five stars on the Dog Food Advisor website. Sisci and Ru like them both, and Brisbane has not yet tried Appalachian Ranch because he is still eating exclusively soft foods, but I'm sure he'll love it because Brisbane loves all food.

The Verdict

This is a food I would choose to feed my dogs continuously if there was some reason I had to stick with one kind of kibble long-term. I do sort of wonder about the name though. I guess Appalachia is supposed to conjure up "Heartland of America" feelings for normal people, but for me it means "rednecks and hillbillies" and "OMG did the farmers who supplied these ingredients have running water and shoes?!" I guess Champion Pet Foods didn't really have me in mind when they decided on that name.

Food Friday: Alternative Protein Roundup, Pork Edition

My quest for Brisbane-safe foods has brought us a variety of pork-based treats and dog food over the nearly two years I've been blogging here. We've already summed up the venison- and rabbit-based goodies, so this week it's time to take a look at an often-overlooked alternative protein. I'm not a huge ham or sausage fan, but I think we can all agree that bacon is awesome. I even chop it into tiny pieces and toss it with various training treats to make them extra-awesome.

Why Aren't There More Pork-Based Dog Foods?

Photo by Erin Koski

Chicken is by far the most common animal protein found in dog food, beef is the second most common, and lamb third in my own experience reading infinite ingredient labels. Pork is supposed to be a poor-man's meat, cheap and plentiful right? So why isn't everyone making dog food out of it?

The first reason I've heard for not feeding pork to dogs is trichinosis, or trichinellosis. This is a parasite transmitted through consumption of raw or undercooked meat of infected animals. The worms live in the muscles until the meat is eaten, then they are released to infect the new host. This used to be a major issue with pork in particular until laws passed in 1980, along with good food storage and handling practices like freezing pork for several weeks before cooking it. Today, trichinellosis is extremely rare, with around 20 cases reported annually in the United States according to the CDC. Most of these are not from consuming commercially-raised pork though, they are from eating raw or undercooked wild game meats.

The second reason I've heard for not feeding pork to dogs is because it supposedly causes pancreatitis. Given that Brisbane has eating tons of raw pork bones without developing it, I'm not terribly worried. The association mostly seems to be between dogs eating super-rich fat scraps and getting pancreatitis, and obviously pet food manufacturers are monitoring the fat and protein levels in their products. It mostly seems that some companies in the industry are leery of using pork just because of their customers' outdated or inaccurate information. This is actually a good thing though, because it means most dogs have never been fed pork, so it can be used as an alternative protein and part of an elimination diet.

Pork Dog Foods

It seems that some of the very best dog food companies use pork as an alternative protein. Primal offers pork-based versions of both their Nuggets and Pronto foods, and both of these use only pork and some veggies so they can be useful for helping sort out food sensitivities. Acana Singles Pork and Butternut Squash is the only kibble we've tried so far that only used pork protein.

Companies seem to be more likely to make canned foods out of pork, rather than kibble Wild Calling offers one that is just pork and vitamins to make it a complete diet. Fromm's Four Star Shredded Pork Entree is the most appetizing food we sell at work, if a dog won't eat that they won't eat anything. Nature's Variety Instinct Limited Ingredient Diets only offers a canned pork food, but offers a kibble variety for each of their other proteins. Natural Balance offers a wild boar and brown rice canned food, but no boar kibble. We got a carton of Caru Real Pork Stew in our November BarkBox.

Pork Dog Treats

All our favorite pork-based dog treats were discovered via BarkBox. The Bixbi Essentials Pork Jerky arrived in the 2014 December box. Two years ago we got some PetSafe Indigo Smokehouse Strips in our March box, last year we got some Healthy Dogma Bacon Hearts in the March Box. The August Box brought us some Wagatha's Maple Bacon Biscuits. Surprisingly, our favorite pork-based chew, the bacon-flavored Dogswell Boundless, did not come in a subscription box. 

Food Friday: Acana Singles Pork and Butternut Squash

Acana Singles are single-source protein, low-glycemic kibbles designed for dogs with food allergies. Like most grain-free dog foods, it features a very high meat content. It also features multiple legume ingredients which boost the protein level without adding a lot of simple carbohydrates.

I like Acana's foods a whole lot. They use as many fresh, local ingredients as possible, and cook the food in its own juices rather than adding water. The kibbles are dark and heavy and dense. The food smells meaty yet pleasant. Ru will actually eat it.

One thing I would like to point out about this food is that it is called Pork and Butternut Squash even though the squash is actually in sixth place in the ingredient list. Notably, it sits behind two different types of lentils. So this is actually a pork and lentil food.

Dog Food Advisor also makes note of this fact, and this food loses a star from its rating for its deceptively large legume content. The review for Acana Singles notes that the company uses ingredient splitting to make the meat ingredients appear higher on the list. The Pork and Butternut Squash food lists red lentils, green lentils, green peas, yellow peas, and garbanzo beans individually. If these were all just listed as "legumes", they might be the first thing on the list.

Acana Singles Pork and Butternut Squash only earns a four-star rating at Dog Food Advisor, but it's still pretty awesome. In building the database for my Dog Food Wizard, I noticed that Acana Singles are some of the only kibbles that don't have a litany of vitamin and mineral supplements at the end of their ingredient lists. They only add zinc proteinate, everything else comes from the food ingredients, and they still meet AAFCO standards for "all life stages" (meaning puppy) food.

I love that Acana Singles use a single protein source in each recipe, but I sort of have trouble calling them "Limited Ingredient Diets" simply because they use so many different types of carbohydrates. I've communicated with a number of different owners of dogs with weird food allergies, and some have found via elimination diets that their dogs have very specific intolerances. Some dogs can't have lentils, some can't have peas, some can't have garbanzo beans.

I think that a truly limited ingredient food should use a single protein and a single carbohydrate. This system works best for elimination diets and narrowing down possible food intolerances. The name "Acana Singles" is a little deceptive, and I was honestly a little surprised to see so many different carbohydrate sources in the ingredients.

Have you tried any of the Acana Singles foods for your dog yet?

Food Friday: Acana Ranchlands

The kibble of the week is Acana Ranchlands, which is definitely my favorite dog food. When my dogs are eating nothing but kibble, this is what they are eating. There are a lot of grain-free, poultry-free, egg-free, fish-based kibbles out there, but not so many based on red meat.

Dog Food Logic taught me that the ingredients that go into most dog foods follow a long and convoluted supply chain. The words used in the ingredients lists do not always mean what I think they mean. The cooked, ground, and dried ingredients in a dog food may have gone through several weeks or even months of processing before they even make it to the facility where the food is made.

Acana uses fresh ingredients that are never frozen. Since they use locally- and regionally-sourced ingredients, a lot of the important stuff in their food gets there within a few days of being harvested. The primary ingredients are beef and lamb from Alberta, Canada. The fruits and vegetables come from local growers, and everything is delivered fresh and cooked right there in the Acana kitchens. They only make their own foods, and don't co-pack for anyone or outsource anything.

Questionable Claims
Like Orijen (both brands are from parent company Champion Pet Foods) Acana's packaging carries a whole lot of claims and statements about wolves and how nature designed canines to eat a certain way. I appreciate that most of these claims are in fairly small print on the bag, the back of which is covered liberally with even tinier print. It's a lot of information, but they aren't screaming in my face about it.

Following the Trail
Not only does Acana not use a co-packer or any sort of outsourcing to make their foods, they have that information all over their website to help consumers understand this convoluted part of the pet food industry. Acana does not make food for anyone else, either. I feel like everyone else should run their pet food companies like this, that way we wouldn't have recalls hitting half a dozen different brands at the same time.

The Good Stuff
Acana is made entirely of good stuff. Brisbane can eat both their Ranchlands and Pacifica formulas, that's half of their Regionals foods. He can also have two out of three of their Singles foods, it's pretty unusual for a company to have that many different Briz-safe foods. When someone asks me what the very best kibble is, I say Acana and Orijen. Acana usually gets my vote though, just because they have more than one food suitable for Brisbane's poultry and egg allergies.

The Short List: Egg-Free, Poultry-Free, Grain-Free Kibble

Brisbane has some food allergies that we identified via a not-very-precise elimination diet. He is also allergic to fleas, and the vet thinks he has environmental allergies as well. I keep him happy and itch-free by avoiding his food allergens, giving him Zyrtec and Benadryl, keeping him on Comfortis flea preventative, and bathing him at least once a week in baby shampoo.

My half-assed elimination diet involved noticing that he was itchy shortly after consuming certain foods, attempting to cut those out of his diet for a long time, and then feeding him a bunch of said food to see what would happen.

Example: Briz had a huge hot spot. The previous day I was attempting to fry the perfect over-medium egg and slid all the failures into his bowl. We avoided feeding him anything containing eggs for a few months, and then I gave him a few fried eggs with broken yolks again. When he got another hot spot we cut eggs out of his diet entirely.

This entirely unscientific process has led me to believe that Brisbane is allergic to eggs, chicken, turkey, and duck. Since cutting these out of his diet he has been significantly less itchy, and stopped getting yeast infections in his enormous ears. Conveniently, he is not allergic to emu, ostrich, pheasant, quail, or pigeon.

THIS IS A SUFFOCATION HAZARD!
A dog can suffocate in a chip bag in five minutes or less!
Always supervise your garbage hounds!

Finding commercial pet foods and treats that Brisbane can eat is a little tricky, but I love research. I also love hiking and ultralight backpacking, where every ounce counts. I have amassed a list of kibbles that Brisbane can eat, and included the number of calories per cup so I can carry his food most efficiently on the trail. I thought this information would be helpful for anyone looking to put weight on a dog, or help a chunky pup slim down.

All of these grain-free foods are also free of egg, turkey, duck, and chicken, including chicken fat. I excluded some otherwise excellent foods because they used poultry fat as a preservative. I've been told that purified fat is not an allergen and could not possibly cause an allergic reaction, but my vet and I still would prefer to leave it out. Please pay attention to the specific variety of food, as most or all of the manufacturers also make varieties with poultry and eggs, and only certain flavors/recipes are safe. Some of these products are available around the world, others only in specific areas. Most can be purchased online.

I am madly in love with the Dog Food Advisor site, and recently used it to choose a new food for my dogs. Most or all of these foods will be listed there with a fabulous review and nutritional breakdown.

Update: Check out DogFoodWizard.com for custom food selection for any allergens!

The List:

Honest Kitchen Love 514 kcal/cup

Taste of the Wild Pacific Stream 360 kcal/cup
Taste of the Wild Pacific Stream Puppy360 kcal/cup (Note: Puppy food has the same calories.)
Taste of the Wild Sierra Mountain 338 kcal/cup Now contains egg!

Orijen Six Fish 456 kcal/cup

Natural Balance LID Sweet Potato and Fish 380 kcal/cup

Natural Balace LID Sweet Poato and Venison 360 kcal/cup

Natural Balance LID Sweet Potato and Bison 375 kcal/cup

Natural Balance LID Potato and Rabbit 350 kcal/cup

Wellness Core Ocean Formula 417 kcal/cup

Wellness Simple Salmon and Potato 446 kcal/cup

AvoDerm Salmon and Potato 360 kcal/cup

AvoDerm Trout and Pea 446 kcal/cup

Nature’s Variety Instinct Salmon Meal 448 kcal/cup

Nature’s Variety Instinct LID Lamb 433 kcal/cup

Nature’s Variety Instinct LID Rabbit 449 kcal/cup

Nature’s Variety Instinct Raw Boost Lamb and Salmon 436 kcal/cup

Canidae Pure Sea 496 kcal/cup

Canidae Pure Land 474 kcal/cup

Merrick Grain-Free Pork and Sweet Potato 460 kcal/cup

Merrick Grain-Free Texas Beef 422 kcal/cup

Castor and Pollux Grain-Free Poultry-Free 375 kcal/cup

Acana Pacifica 421 kcal/cup

Acana Ranchlands 422 kcal/cup (What my motley crew is currently eating.)

Acana Lamb and Apple 421 kcal/cup

Innova Nature's Table Grain Free Ranch-Raised Beef & Red Lentils 497 kcal/cup

Innova Nature's Table Grain Free Cold Water Salmon and Wild Herring 483 kcal/cup

California Natural Pork and Sweet Potato 431 kcal/cup

California Natural Salmon and Pea 435 kcal/cup

California Natural Kangaroo and Red Lentil 431 kcal/cup

California Natural Lamb 428 kcal/cup

California Natural Venison and Green Lentil 443 kcal/cup

Canine Caviar Wild Ocean 552 kcal/cup

Canine Caviar Wilderness 595 kcal/cup

Earthborn Holistic Meadow Feast 300 kcal/cup

Evanger’s Meat-Lover’s Medley 387 kcal/cup

Great Life Buffalo 431 kcal/cup

Great Life Salmon 442 kcal/cup

Dr. E’s RX Buffalo 429 kcal/cup

Pioneer Naturals Pork 426 kcal/cup

Pioneer Naturals Vension 434 kcal/cup

Pioneer Naturals Whitefish 451 kcal/cup

Pure Vita Grain Free Salmon 454 kcal/cup

Pure Vita Bison 438 kcal/cup

Natural Planet Rabbit and Salmon 448 kcal/cup

American Natural Premium Buffalo Meal 400 kcal/cup

American Natural Premium Ocean Fish and Potato 407 kcal/cup

Annamaet Aqualuk 426 kcal/cup

Annamaet Manitok 422 kcal/cup

Back to Basics Whitefish and Potato 273 kcal/cup

Back to Basics Lamb and Potato 297 kcal/cup

Back to Basics Pork 424 kcal/cup

Back to Basics Open Range 400 kcal/cup

Best Breed Grain-Free Salmon 437 kcal/cup

Nutrience Grain-Free Ocean Fish and Salmon 415 kcal/cup

Redmoon Lamb and Potato 476 kcal/cup

Victor Dog Food Salmon and Sweet Potato 402 kcal/cup

Wholesome Blend Grain-Free 406 kcal/cup

Wholesome Blend Grain-Free Small Breed 450 kcal/cup