[Julia Halter]

I just recently decided to add dehydrated food to my rotation to change it up from just kibble and canned. Of course, the only issue I have is I can’t seem to find any good brands. I’m not exactly sure what I should be looking for in a good dehydrated food, nor do I know what to watch out for in a dehydrated food.

Of course, if you guys could help me that would be amazing! I would like to know, what to look for, what to watch out for, if you do have dehydrated food in your rotation what brands do you use and how often do your dogs get it?

[InkedMarie]

You can’t find good brands???? The Honest Kitchen is fantastic! Go to their website, there is a lot of information. They are transparent about their ingredients, sourcing, if you have questions, they’re very helpful. They are one of two dog foods that can call themselves human grade, the other is Weruva.

Another dehydrated is Grandma Lucy’s.

THK is smoother, GL is chunkier.

[pugmomsandy]

Ziwipeak, Only Natural Pet Max Meat, Smack, Vital Essentials, Addiction.
As far as ingredients go, look for named meats, named fats, real veg/fruit, superfoods, and protein at least around 30% dry matter. Because just like kibble, there are high and low protein dehydrated foods. 30 is just around average. I don’t think Ziwipeak and Vital Essentials absorb water well so I would use those like kibble. You can use rehydrated foods like you would canned foods. They can be given any time as a meal or as a topper to kibble. My senior gets mostly wet food.

[InkedMarie]

Sandy, I thought most of those we’re freeze dried?

[pugmomsandy]

I put freeze-dried and dehydrated and air-dried in the same bucket since their water has been removed – the mechanism doesn’t matter for me. Grandma Lucy’s is freeze dried, not dehydrated.

[InkedMarie]

Well then, I know nothing today.

[pugmomsandy]

LOL! You know lots! 🙂

[Hound Dog Mom]

I’m like Sandy, I group dehydrated/freeze-dried/air-dried all into the same category.

I find that freeze-dried foods tend to not rehydrate well – the only exception being Grandma Lucy’s.

As the for best dehydrated type foods, my favorites are The Honest Kitchen, Grandma Lucy’s and Ziwipeak. I also really like Addiction’s dehydrated in terms of ingredients and digestibility (for my crew it digested better than a lot of other brands I tried, poor digestibility is a common problem with dehydrated foods) but if you feed Addiction I’d highly recommend mixing it with a high protein canned or raw food because the protein levels are too low for my tastes. I also like Wysong’s Uncanny but it’s ridiculously expensive and as far as feeding as an exclusive diet, I don’t believe it’s complete and balanced (could be a good mix in for a lower protein food like Addiction though!).

• This reply was modified 10 years, 6 months ago by Hound Dog Mom.

[pugmomsandy]

Oh, and there’s also Stewart Raw Science Science. I might have to try Uncanny with Addiction. Seems like a good mix. I like using brushtail as a protein.

[Molzy]

Hopefully it’s ok for me to add a question to this post – I had read that a lot of dehydrated foods result in more poop? To me, that’s indicative of a lower quality food. Do all of these brands have that problem? It’s not that I mind picking up after my dogs, but I also don’t want them having to go while I’m at work, which hasn’t been a problem for us on high quality kibble or cans.

[InkedMarie]

I feed The Honest Kitchen. I’ve fed it to 8 or 9 dogs over the years, varying thk products. I think I’ve had two or three that had more poops on THK. I do not agree that it is indicative of low quality food. Most of THK’s are very high quality. I don’t like the Verve or Force, too low in protein and such but I feed Zeal and Embark and they’re 5 star foods here. I also feed Thrive and it’s 3.5 or 4, I think.

[Molzy]

Awesome, thanks. I wi definitely give it a try. I have a dog who I think needs a more liquid diet, I have him on canned food now but would prefer to support a company like honest kitchen. Eventual goal is raw, but might not be affordable at the moment. I’ll give the thrive a shot once he is doing ok for a month.

[Hound Dog Mom]

I think the increased stool volume has to do with how the ingredients are processed not the quality of the ingredients. The Honest Kitchen and Grandma Lucy’s both use human-grade ingredients. I believe it’s the fact that the vegetables are in larger pieces and (at least with THK) raw that causes the poor digestibility. Dogs don’t produce cellulase so they are unable to breakdown the cellulose in plant-based ingredients unless they are cooked and processed. With my dogs’ raw diet I cook and puree all their vegetables.

[Molzy]

Thanks Hound dog mom. I am sure you’re right about the processing. I’ll give it a try while I’m researching raw, and see how his system deals with it.

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