Treat Tuesday: Earthborn Holistic Earthbites

Earthborn makes these soft little sausage-shaped Earthbites that work well for training. These are grain-free mostly made out of chicken meal and peas. These also come in lamb, peanut, and cheese flavors. They're not terribly crumbly, and they break apart easily, which is nice because each bite is about six times the size I want for a training treat.

Good For

• High-value training treats
• Riding around in a baggie in my pocket without going all crumbly

Not Good For

• Staying moist for very long when exposed to air

How Much We Like Them

I used an entire bag of them on the trail while practicing tolerance of mountain bikers with Godzilla.

Food Friday: Earthborn Holistic Duke's Din Din Stew

Earthborn Holistic makes some convenient little tubs of wet food with cute names, like Duke's Din Din Stew. Each flavor appears to be named after a dog with an incredibly common name: Lily, Chip, Pepper, Toby. These are grain-free foods with visible bits of vegetables, all packed into a resealable 8oz tub. Perfect for tiny dogs!

 Midwestern Pet Foods

I've mentioned Earthborn's parent company in the past. Midwestern Pet Foods also makes SportMix and ProPac foods. They have their own manufacturing facility, so they're more than just a marketing company. They are a subsidiary of Nunn Milling Company, founded in 1926 in Indiana and still owned and run by the same family. 

Nunn Milling Company began as a miller of corn and flour. They started making pet food in the 1940's from, presumably, mill byproducts. They still make a value-brand dog food called Nunn Better, but it's no surprise that the company isn't out shouting from the rooftops that Earthborn traces back to a milling company. Last time I wrote about Earthborn, I was puzzled over the lack of readily-available history for the company, but this information completes that puzzle nicely. Earthborn is still a super high-quality food from a reliable company with a long history making pet food, and I think that's pretty cool.

Duke's Din Din

This is a fish-and-pea-based food, the first ingredients are fish broth, fish, egg, and then pea protein. It also contains tapioca, duck, sweet potato, carrots, pumpkin, and apples. You can see the vegetables clearly, and then meat is in nice little flakes that are just the right size for tinydog mouths.

At 8oz per tub, these really only work as a meal for a very small dog. They actually last Ru two meals. I think most pet owners use them as a kibble topper, and the resealable tub is absolutely perfect for that. 

Earthborn's dry foods are all manufactured in the USA, but their wet food is produced by USPet Nutrition, in their production facility in Thailand. This isn't terribly unusual in the world of high-quality pet food, Weruva also produces their wet foods in Thailand. The foods are made in facilities that also make human foods, so they have to follow extremely strict guidelines about how the foods are handled and what ingredients may be included. A whole lot of canned fish other meat products for humans are packaged overseas, check out the fine print on a can of tuna sometime.

The Verdict

This is one of the few food that Ru will eat reliably. The tiny size of tubs is just right for him, and he doesn't pick out the vegetables or anything. It rates 4.5 out of 5 stars on the Dog Food Advisor website, and it's one that I'm happy to keep in his wet food rotation.

Food Friday: Earthborn Holistic Great Plains Feast

Earthborn Holistic is a company I've been hearing about for a while. I picked up this bag of Great Plains Feast kibble for Sisci and Ru to try, since the price was a bit less than I'm used to seeing for bags this size. Although Brisbane would love to try it, this and most of Earthborn's products contain egg. The only food they make suitable for dogs with poultry, egg, barley, corn, and sweet potato allergies is their Meadow Feast kibble. At 300 calories per cup, that was once the lowest-calorie Briz-safe kibble out there, but it seems the formula has changed and this is now a 400 calories per cup food. 

The Company

Earthborn Holistic pet food is produced by Midwestern Pet Foods in their own facilities. This is a private company that also produces and markets foods under the brands ProPac and Sportmix. On the ProPac website there is a tiny blurb about how this is a fourth-generation family-owned company that has never had a recall. Aside from that little paragraph. Midwestern Pet Foods Inc is doing a mighty fine job of being a faceless corporation. There's absolutely nothing about the family that owns the company, the history and development of their brands or products, or the pets that inspire their innovations. It's kind of weird.

The Food

As dog foods go, this is a pretty nice one at a decent price point. It merits five out of five stars on the Dog Food Advisor website. All of their grain-free options scored at least four stars, so I'm pretty sure they've reformulated some stuff in the last couple of years.

The first ingredient for this food is bison meal, which means there is actually more bison in there than if they used just plain bison meat. This pleases me. Next on the list is peas and then pea protein. This means this is also a pea-based food, and that the plant protein is boosting the protein content. Not ideal, but not terrible either. The Dog Food advisor website does, however, describe this as a plant-based kibble.

The Verdict

Sisci loves this food. Ru is a bit skeptical, which is interesting because he's usually fine with red meat-based kibbles. Obviously I'm ok with feeding this to my dogs for an extended period of time, since I bought a rather large bag of it. 

Treat Tuesday: Earthborn Holistic Bison Meal Recipe Grain-Free Biscuits

We got these Earthborn Holistic Grain-Free Bison Meal Recipe Biscuits free with the purchase of a big bag of Earthborn Holistic dog food at the nifty new pet food store near us. These are light, airy, oven-baked cookies decorated with tulips. So cute! They contain Antarctic krill meal, which is supposed to be awesome. I really like that the first ingredient is bison meal, which is a much more concentrated ingredient than fresh meat. It means there's a whole lot of bison in there. Aside from the krill and the bison, these things are made from peas, tapioca, and canola oil. There's also some apples, carrots, blueberries, spinach, and cranberries in the mix, but that's pretty much it.

Good For: Handing out for the dogs to crunch before I leave the house. Dogs with egg and poultry allergies. Picky chihuahuas who don't like most crunchy biscuits. Mid-value training treats. Cramming inside Kongs along with peanut butter and EZ-Cheez.

Not Good For: Dogs with beef or bison allergies. High-value training treats.

How Much We Like Them: Ru doesn't usually have to think very hard about eating them. Ru usually has to think very hard about eating things.