By Amber Jackson –Preston’s Awesome Trainer!
When choosing a dog food for your dog you will want to make sure it is free of by-products, fillers, or anything artificial such as preservatives. You will want to look for things that state what kind of meat is in it as well as the t fruits, veggies and grains that are included. With so many foods on the market who can decide? Canned? Dry nuggets? Raw? I can say that I have tried it all. Having three dogs and the occasional foster dog makes it very interesting when it is the dogs dinnertime. Bosco and Duke will eat anything and with Duke especially I mean anything! If I were toss a rock to them they would gladly swallow it without a thought. My Sullivan is different story, probably the reason he is named King Sullivan because he will only eat only the best and most expensive food or so he thinks. I have tried just about every premium top of the line food there is, with and without grains. He hardly eats treats. With some luck he will eat some dog food for a few days and then just stop all together, others he will barely even sniff before walking away with his nose high in the air. I tried almost all the dry kibble I could find with no luck. I emailed some food companies for samples with no luck in finding a food that he would eat continuously. How can you blame him though, he is sitting at his raised feeder dining on hard brown pellets that looks like cardboard. At the same time I am enjoying my meal of chicken and rice stir fry. Whoever says that if a dog doesn’t get to eat people food he will never beg at the table or want people food has to be a bit crazy. You try kibble and tell me you will turn down fillet mignon and potatoes for it. I decided to add some canned into the mix to make it more palatable. It worked for a while but with 3 dogs that’s at least 2 cans of food a day and at around $2 a can for the better quality canned food that’s roughly $120. Besides being so expensive the canned food isn’t very nutrient dense and they were still eating just as much kibble but didn’t drink as much water. After a while of that Sullivan turned his nose up to that as well. Since being a dog trainer doesn’t bring in the big bucks I could not continue to feed the canned alone so I looked into cooking for the boys while still mixing with the dry. A few of my clients had given me canine friendly cookbooks as gifts for Christmas so I tried out some of the recipes. That went great they loved it but with the busy life I lead, I didn’t have the time to cook the food and no place to store it when I made large batches. Plus making sure it was balanced enough to do the half and half diet wasn’t easy. I needed to use a food that was already balanced and ready to serve or mix but didn’t break the bank. Reading through a few of the dog magazines I stumbled on the option of dehydrated raw. There are a few companies out there but the one I came upon is called The Honest Kitchen. Being a bit skeptical I pulled up the site and looked over the ingredients and read the site from page to page. Still unsure I decided to give it a try and see what it would be like. I placed my order for the formula called Keen. This was very budget friendly and a whole lot cheaper for me than the canned food. It arrived at my house 3 days after I ordered it. I was super excited to try something new for my dogs so I rushed inside to see if they liked it or not. I eagerly opened it and grabbed my bowls and put in the food. It was a powder with a green tint and a few larger chunks of dried veggies. For every dry measured cup you add about 1 cup of warm water and wait. It took only 5 minutes to rehydrate and then I added the kibble and mixed. Everyone goes to their crates to be fed and Sullivan has a look on his face like Great, this again. I place his bowl down and tell him to eat. He sniffs a bit and takes a small bite. He looked a bit confused at first but then something clicked in his head and he realized it was real food! He cleans his bowls when he gets Honest Kitchen. I was so happy to find a food that my big boy would eat. He loves it still and I have been trying other varieties and he loves those as well, the only thing he will leave behind is the dry food. I have been feeding this food for a few months now and he loves it still.
I told Preston’s mom about dehydrated raw when he was being picky with his food and now Preston eats the honest kitchen as well mixed in with kibble. So I encourage everyone with picky dogs or even dogs who deserve to eat like a king to try out The Honest Kitchen’s line of food, treats and supplements. They are made with human-grade ingredients that I trust and are minimally processed, you can easily make this at home.
