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.

Treat Tuesday: NutriSource Grain Free Rabbit Treats

I got these NutriSource Grain Free Rabbit Treats for Sisci's agility class. Brisbane is allergic to poultry, eggs, corn, barley, and sweet potatoes, so I had hoped that a grain-free rabbit-based treat would be good for him too. Alas, they contain chicken fat, eggs, and sweet potato. Sisci likes them though!

Good For: Small-sized high-value training treats. They're slightly bigger than Zukes Minis, and the dogs like them better.

Not Good For: Dogs with allergies to chicken, rabbit, peas, potatoes, sweet potatoes, chickpeas, eggs, or tapioca.

How Much We Like Them: They make a good addition to our training treat trail mix when I'm just working with Sisci and not Brisbane.

Food Friday: Alternative Protein Roundup, Rabbit Edition

Brisbane's Bark Blog has been around for close to two years now, and in that time we've reviewed a lot of food and treats that use allergy-friendly alternative proteins like rabbit. Since Brisbane is allergic to poultry, I don't normally consider turkey and duck to be alternative proteins. I also know that beef is a common allergen, and that buffalo and bison may not be different enough for dogs with beef allergies. Lamb was considered alternative a couple of decades ago but has become increasingly more common since then. For the purpose of this blog post, I'm going to stick with the more exotic choices.

Rabbit is a high-protein, lean meat that, frankly, should be cheaper and easier to find in the grocery store. Those little buggers are everywhere, on the trail one even leaped into Brisbane's mouth. I bet giant bunny feedlots in the middle of California would smell way better than the legions of cows currently occupying that space.

This picture has nothing to do with this post.
Photo by Erin Koski

Rabbit Food

I think our favorite rabbit-based food is Stella & Chewy's Absolutely Rabbit, freeze-dried is always a winner around here. Wysong Archetype was also a winner until Brisbane's allergy test revealed his barley allergy. Raw is also quite popular, and Brisbane and Sisci both loved the Primal Nuggets we tried. The place where I work used to carry Wild Calling Hoppy's canned dog food, and that was what we tempted picky dogs with until our vendor stopped offering it. Instinct also offers a rabbit-based canned food. Our least favorite was Natural Balance Limited Ingredient Diet Potato and Rabbit, which is high in carbs while being low in protein and fat. Mostly it's just widely available and worth trying if you're not sure what your dog is allergic to and can't get something like Wysong Anergen 2 instead.

Rabbit Treats

In addition to rabbit-based diets, we've found a bunch of bunnymeat treats. Some are made almost entirely from rabbit meat, like Wysong's Dream Treats and Barkworthy's Rabbit BonBons. Others have some additional ingredients, like the Etta Says Crunchy Rabbit Chews that also contain rawhide. Zukes offers a couple of different rabbit-based versions of their semi-moist treats. Their Lil' Links Rabbit and Apple Recipe are still safe for Brisbane's ever-growing list of allergies, but their Mini Naturals are full of barley so those are now off the menu for us.

Have you found a rabbit-based product we haven't tried yet? Please share in the comments!

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.

Treat Tuesday: Wysong Dream Treats

Wysong Dream Treats are freeze-dried raw meat treats that come in disc-shapes. They produced with the same non-thermal technology as Wysong's Archetype foods, and are appropriate for dogs, cats, ferrets, and presumably other carnivores.

Good For: Dogs with food allergies, since these are almost entirely made from rabbit meat. High-value training treats. Getting a picky chihuahua to actually ingest some calories. Smooshing into the grooves on the Everlasting Groovy Ball.

Not Good For: Super-convenient training, since the hefty discs must be broken into pieces. Training while doing other things, since they must be handled like raw meat and therefore I need to wash my hands after touching them.

How Much We Like Them: About as much as we like Stella and Chewy's freeze-dried raw food. The dogs really love it, but the food handling safety aspect somewhat limits its use for training.

Food Friday: Primal Nuggets Rabbit Formula Raw Dog Food

One of our local pet stores recently began carrying a variety of Primal Nuggets raw dog food. We've tried Primal Pronto, the pelleted form, before. The nuggets come in a wider variety of protein sources, with a total of six different options for Brisbane and his chicken, turkey, duck, and egg allergies.

Rather than small rapidly-defrosting pellets, Primal Nuggets are rectangular prisms of raw meat. Each weighs about 1 ounce and provides 39 calories. The food is 85% rabbit meat, bone, and organs. The other 15% is made up of things like squash, celery, collard greens, and vitamins. This is a single-source protein food that would be a good choice for a dog with food allergies. There are a number of fruit and vegetable ingredients, but these are less likely to be allergens. Of course, for a really serious elimination diet you would want to be feeding straight rabbit meat.

Primal Nuggets predate the Pronto pellets, but they are smaller than the patties I fed Brisbane when he was a baby. I actually found them to be nearly as convenient as the Pronto, Brisbane and Sisci would both happily eat them frozen. The nuggets didn't stick together in the bag so I could just grab a couple, toss them in a bowl, and serve them up immediately. Of course this would never work with Ru, as refrigerated food makes him shiver uncontrollably and he definitely won't touch anything frozen. He's not a fan of raw food in general because it's always cold.

The Primal website specifically states that their food should be fully defrosted before serving, but I have been feeding Brisbane frozen meat for a decade with no issue that I can see. Frozen or defrosted, raw or cooked, fresh or kibble, it all comes out looking the same.

The how-to-feed page also uses the term 'toxins' without specifying what substances they are referring to, which usually means they have no idea and are just throwing the word around.

Like all raw foods, Primal Nuggets are fairly expensive. That said, my dogs don't eat a ton and I'm not using this as their entire diet. It's definitely a worthwhile food to have in the rotation, and is something I would be comfortable feeding for an extended period of time. It's a great option for dogs with allergies, and awesome for rotating between protein sources. Brisbane can have their rabbit, venison, pheasant, pork, beef, lamb, and beef and salmon foods, and I would definitely be comfortable rotating through those on a permanent basis if I had to choose just one food for some reason. Primal frozen foods are rated five out of five stars on Dog Food Advisor, with the chicken and lamb formulas meriting four stars due to their high fat to protein ratio.

Have you fed your dog raw food? What type?

Food Friday: Wysong Archetype Rabbit Formula

Wysong Archetype is a freeze-dried raw food that has not been heated above 118F. It is a genuinely starch-free food, made from over 95% meat. Archetype comes in four different formulas based on chicken, rabbit, quail, and pollock fish.

Wysong makes a wide variety of foods for dogs, cats, and ferrets. While well-known among the internet communities I frequent, Wysong foods are not widely available in my area.

A couple of weeks ago, a reader suggested I take a closer look at the foods available from this company, so I visited the Wysong website. As soon as the site loaded, a banner popped up offering me a free sample pack. I filled out the form and included Brisbane's allergens, and a week later I received samples of three different Briz-safe Wysong foods.

I was expecting this to be a packet of kibble, but it turned out to be freeze-dried food. The only other freeze-dried food we've tried so far is Stella & Chewy's Absolutely Rabbit. Our Wysong Archetype sample is also rabbit-based. I really like that there is also a quail formula, as I haven't found another quail-based food and just used frozen raw quail for Brisbane's elimination diet.

I love that Wysong's website includes a tool that explains each individual ingredient. When I was building my Dog Food Wizard, I read the ingredient "meat protein isolate" and wasn't sure what to make of it. Thanks to the Wysong website ingredient tool, I was able to determine that this is a pork ingredient and therefore safe for dogs with allergies to other proteins.

As a pet food company, Wysong seems to have a lot of integrity. The company was founded in 1979 by a veterinarian and at least claims they use a lot of solid science and concrete evidence in developing their products. The only Wysong recall I can find any information about was a voluntary one in 2009 initiated by the company when they discovered that certain bags of food contained too much moisture and therefore had the potential to grow mold. Unlike most pet food recalls, this one was not mandated by the FDA, Wysong did the responsible thing and recalled their products themselves when they realized there was a problem.

This is a very high protein diet, and with its limited ingredients it would be a good place to start with an elimination diet. It is not, however, a food I would be comfortable feeding exclusively for the long term. I am also uncertain of how the cost compares to other freeze-dried foods since the recommended feeding amounts are measured by volume and the bags of food are measured by weight. I also have not found any mention of the caloric content on either the product packaging or the website, so it is difficult to compare Wysong Archetype to other dog foods.

Food Friday: Stella & Chewy's Freeze-Dried Absolutely Rabbit Dinner

The food of the week is Stella & Chewy's Freeze-Dried "Absolutely Rabbit" Dinner, an incredibly convenient form of raw food for dogs. Most "rabbit" dog foods contain a small amount of fresh rabbit meat, and are actually based on chicken meal or some other inexpensive protein. Not Stella and Chewy's, this is the real deal. It contains ground rabbit including bone (bone is very important if you feed raw) plus some fruits, veggies, olive oil, and vitamins. No chicken fat, no egg products, no dairy. This is a grain-free, poultry-free, egg-free, beef-free, pork-free, lamb-free, single protein food that is awesome for dogs with allergies. It's fabulous for elimination diets. It's also crazy-expensive. Like really, really crazy.

As the World's Worst Dog, it's not enough for Brisbane to merely steal pizza off the counter and plot the destruction of the entire United States Postal Service, he also needs to warp my perception of reality. Briz accomplishes this by requiring so few calories that I am certain he must be performing photosynthesis when he's out there sunbathing. Aside from the occasion half a pepperoni pizza (somehow pilfered from the counter while leaving the box entirely undisturbed) this dog basically lives on air. I started by feeding Briz the recommended amounts of food on the label of the bag/box/wrapper/can, but quickly found that he ballooned up unless I fed him like a toy breed dog. This was not completely clear to me until I acquired a chihuahua and determined that they required the same number of calories. Six-pound Ru and 40-pound Brisbane eat the same amount of dog food.

Along with various training treats and stuffed Kongs, Brisbane and Ru both get about a quarter cup of kibble per day. I suspect that heelers are just super efficient, because 50-pound Ulysses eats between a quarter and a half a cup a day.

The point here is that, at a cup of food or less per day between the three of them, the dogs have completely warped my sense of how much it should cost per day to feed a dog. This has led to my willingness to try everything under the sun, from freeze-dried and dehydrated dog foods to super-ultra-extra-uber-premium kibbles. There is no way I would be able to afford to feed real, actual dogs Stella & Chewy's, no matter how awesome it is. (Note: Ru is not a real, actual dog.)

Stella & Chewy's freeze-dried dog food comes in 5.5 and 15-ounce bags. A large bag contains approximately 32 patties. One patty contains approximately 70 kcal, which I'm going to call calories because it rolls off the tongue (keyboard?) easier. Most of the kibbles I feed my dogs are around 400 kcal per cup, or a bit more. I feed them a quarter cup per day, so that's about 100 calories a day. For Brisbane, that's probably also breaking the laws of thermodynamics. Brisbane eats 1.5 freeze-dried Stella & Chewy's patties per day, meaning the large bag lasts about 21 days. A large bag of Stella and Chewy's Absolutely Rabbit costs about $32, so that's a dollar a patty, and about $1.50 a day to feed Brisbane. For amazingly high-quality dog food, this doesn't seem too bad.

When I contrast this to super-high-quality kibble, it doesn't seem so bad at first. I tend to get 5-pound bags of kibble, and at this size Orijen Six Fish costs about $25. At $5 a pound (about two cups of kibble) it costs about 62 cents per day to feed this to Brisbane. That's less than half the cost of the Stella & Chewy's, but they both seem pretty reasonable in the above quantities.

Here's the thing: Stella & Chewy's food doesn't come in a larger package, and it becomes prohibitively expensive to feed to a larger dog. How expensive? The Stella & Chewy's website feeding calculator says I should be feeding 40-pound Brisbane nine patties per day. That's $9 of dog food per day, $270 per month. Yikes! Meanwhile, the Orijen Six Fish gets down to $3 a pound at the largest size, and would cost a bit over $2 to feed Brisbane the manufacturer-recommended 1.5 cups per day, $67 per month. Big difference.

Questionable Claims
The biggest claim that this company makes all over their website is that, being made from raw meat, their food contains flavors that pets "naturally crave". My dog is a dog. Basically everything he does is "natural". Other things Brisbane "naturally craves" include flourless chocolate cake, smoked gouda cheese, and cold pepperoni pizza. Yes, this is a highly-palatable delicious food that can tempt picky eaters, but Im pretty sure that's just because it's stinky. Dogs love smelly stuff, the more it reeks, the more they love it. I need to start mentally replacing marketing phrases like "flavors your dog naturally craves" with "stinks to high heaven". I would also like to invent a drinking game involving this dog food's advertising and the word "natural".

Following the Trail
Stella and Chewy's food is made in Wisconsin, and the bag says "Made by Stella&Chewy's" so we know it isn't being manufactured in someone else's facility and doesn't share a supply chain with other brands. The bag also states that all of the ingredients are sourced from reputable North American and European suppliers. Hopefully this includes the vitamin and mineral supplements as well, since I've heard some sketchy things about various supplements coming out of China.

The Good Stuff
Basically it's all good stuff. Aside from poking fun at their marketing hype, this is an excellent food that I would readily choose to feed my dogs on a daily basis if I needed to just pick one food. The freeze-dried patties are an excellent way to add raw food to a rotational diet without sacrificing freezer space. They are great for bribing tiny dogs into eating, can be crumbled over or stirred into food to make it more appealing, and is really easy to stuff into Kongs. It's perfect for exclusively rawfed dogs while traveling, can be broken up into training treats, and just might be enough to tempt reluctant eaters in stressful situations like boarding. It's a fairly non-yucky raw food that pet sitters and squeamish relatives might be willing to feed my dogs for me, and also a nice gradual introduction into the whole world of raw dog food. The venison, rabbit, and pheasant varieties are fantastic for dogs on elimination diets, and for adding variety for dogs with many food allergies. Of course they are rated five stars on Dog Food Advisor.

Product Review: TugAway Bungee Reward Pouch

The TugAway Bungee Reward Pouch is a tug toy with features. The nylon bungee handle is attached to a velcro pouch that is covered with real fur. It comes in several colors and with different bits of real animals, I've seen them in bunny, bison, coyote, and sheepskin.

Photo by Erin Koski

This toy is clearly designed with Brisbane in mind, because I haven;t found anything that he goes quite as crazy for. Sure, he likes to tug, but the TugAway really ups the ante. First, it's basically an extremely sturdy pouch that closes tightly with velcro all the way across the opening so that no treats can leak out at all. This means I can stuff it with the most horrible, smelly, godawful treats on earth to make it uber-motivating.

Photo by Erin Koski

Second, the TugAway is covered with actual dead animal. Brisbane has bunny fur. Between that and the treat smell, this toy gives him an instant case of crazy-eyes. The rabbit skin isn't totally durable, he has managed to rip a big hole in it so the toy looks extremely ratty, but this has not decreased his motivation in the slightest.

Third, the TugAway has a bungee handle. This means that it creates tugging action like a springpole, storing some of the energy Briz exerts and uses it to tug back so I can use less effort to swing him around by his face.

Photo by Erin Koski

Pros: Where to begin? The sealed pouch means I can use food as a motivator along with the toy. I can toss it in front of him and have him run to it and then open it and give him the treats. It's sturdy enough that he can't get to the food on his own in the time it takes for me to catch up and open it for him. The bunny fur probably taps into the part of his brain that we normally only use when hunting gophers.

Cons: I'm told that when the dog lets go the bungee effect can cause the toy to snap back and hit the handler in the face, but Briz doesn't willingly let go of it so I wouldn't know. Bunny fur isn't the toughest material out there, and bit of it are currently blowing across my lawn. The slightly-shredded pelt and general disorderly appearance of the TugAway is kind off gross for non-dog people. I suspect the velcro fabric pouch concept goes over best with herding breeds, retrievers, and other dogs who are on board with the concept of humans solving their problems for them. I think a more independent dog would just take off with it and shred it at their leisure, but I have not actually experienced this because I'm not a big fan of primitive/Nordic/hound/terrier breeds.

Bottom Line: At agility class I carry this thing draped over my belt like a sordid trophy. It's slightly macabre, just the way I like things. Also, Brisbane wants to bite it more than he wants to bite almost anything else. Best tug toy ever, I just have to keep it out of his reach when we're not training.