Caturday: Instinct Limited Ingredient Rabbit Formula Canned Cat Food

I found these cans of Nature's Variety Instinct Limited Ingredient Rabbit Formula cat food at my local auction house. Yeah, I know that's kinda weird. They sell a bunch of totally random stuff aside from the auction items, most recently I got several cans of Surge soda and a bunch of bully sticks for the dogs. Anyway, these were $0.40 per can, not expired, and a super great deal.

Nature's Variety offers some of the few limited ingredient diets for cats, and the foods they make are quite high quality. They're also super expensive, which makes me glad that neither of The Hellions has food allergies.

The limited ingredient rabbit food is made from rabbit, peas, vitamins, and minerals. Nature's Variety also makes an Instinct rabbit-based cat food that contains pork, and the labels are very similar.

I'm a fan of Nature's Variety and the Instinct product lines, they're pricey but worth the money if you're battling food allergies. Brisbane, who was allergic to everything, particularly loved their canned dog food. This company does not own their own production facility, their cans are co packed by CJ foods, along with several other brands.

This is a loaf-style food that will appeal to a lot of cats. Mine go crazy for it, but they also just love food in general. I would absolutely try this for a picky cat, especially if I really needed to get them to eat.

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: Nature's Variety Instinct Canned Dog Food

Instinct is the grain-free dog food line by Nature's Variety. This company makes raw, kibble, and canned pet food using a variety of protein sources. They have a surprisingly large number of products, some of which are extremely similar to one another. We tried the venison and rabbit varieties, but not the Limited Ingredient Diet versions which look almost exactly the same.

The Company

I think this may have been one of the brands of raw food Brisbane ate as a baby, but I can't even find any information about how long the company has been around so I could be wrong. Though most of the information available about Nature's Variety states they are an independent company, investor Catterton Partners appears to have bought them out in 2008. I definitely recall people having issues with ingredient changes, like pork being added to the raw rabbit food, right around that time. 

 Nature's Variety does not have their own manufacturing facility. Their kibbles are co packed by CJ Foods in Nebraska, along with Timberwolf and some Blue Buffalo foods. The cans are co packed by Simmons Pet Food along with a ton of other brands including Petcurean, Dogswell, Ol' Roy, Canidae, Blue Buffalo, Life's Abundance, Nature's Logic, and Evolve to name a few.

The Food

This is a loaf-style food that can be used in a variety of different ways. I sometimes give Brisbane his pills in a spoonful of it. Mixed with a little warm water, it also convinces Sisci to eat when she's not so sure about the kibble of the day.

Both the rabbit and the venison formulas have pork liver in them, which is the major difference between the regular varieties and the limited ingredient formulas. Besides the main ingredient meat and the pork liver, they just have some flaxseed and some peas and carrots. 

The Verdict

I like the Instinct foods because they offer a variety of protein sources that work well for dogs with allergies. I'm pleased that neither includes sweet potatoes, which feel like they are in all things grain-free. Sisci and Ru both enjoyed the rabbit and venison cans, and Brisbane of course devoured everything because he loves any kind of food. 

Instinct canned formulas rate five out of five stars on the Dog Food Advisor site. There have been a couple of recalls for Nature's Variety raw foods, but I can't find any recalls for their canned or dry foods. I found these at Petco, so they are probably widely available. This makes them a welcome addition to our meandering rotational diet.