Product: Nutrisca Chicken Dinner Bites
Quantity: 5 oz (one resealable pack)
Price Paid: N/A, part of the Pawalla.com haul, usually $10.99 on Amazon.com
Ingredients: Chicken with ground bone, chicken liver, apples, chickpeas, peas, flaxseed, chicory root extract, cranberries, salmon oil (a source of DHA), dried kelp, potassium chloride, salt, zinc proteinate, iron proteinate, vitamin E supplement, copper proteinate, manganese proteinate, mixed tocopherols (a natural source of vitamin E), vitamin D3 supplement
Guaranteed Analysis:
- Crude Protein: 40.00% (max)
- Crude Fat: 30.00% (min)
- Crude Fiber: 6.00% (max)
- Moisture: 5.00% (max)
Country of Manufacture: USA
Company Information: Dogswell, LLC, 1964 Westwood Blvd., Ste. 350, Los Angeles, CA 90025; Phone: 888.559.8833; e-mail: info@dogswell.com
Web Presence: Dogswell.com, also on Facebook, Twitter; specific production information here
Raw diets appear to be hitting the mainstream these days. Since not all pet owners are prepared to handle slimy, germy raw meat, it seems like there are more pet food companies catering to the raw-but-not-really-raw niche of the market.
There are a few dehydration processes that preserve the nutritional integrity of foods without subjecting them to high heats and effectively cooking them. Freeze-drying, or lyophilization, is one method that I’m seeing used by more pet food and treat manufacturers. Apparently, each raw Nutrisca patty is flash frozen, then all the ice is vaporized out of there in order to extend shelf life without the use of chemical preservatives. Neat process.
These biscuits smell really good, very rich, like the shredded rousong/meat floss that I grew up stirring into my congee. And they’re just as dry.
Each wafer can be fed as-is, or rehydrated. I tried feeding as-is first. The Bows were eager to consume their portion, but without adequate chewing, pieces of the dry little puck ended up lodging in Bowpi’s throat so she gagged and hacked for a bit before finally choking down the crumbled remnants. It’s better to break down each piece before offering, but this makes for a messy process and stinky fingers.
So I don’t really like feeding it as a treat. I had better luck adding it to their meals. The rehydration process, however, was a disappointment. The package doesn’t say how much water one should add, so I steeped the nuggets in just enough hot water for them to sit waist-deep in a serving bowl, and I waited, expecting each wafer to swell as they soaked up the moisture like sponges…
Five minutes later, the water was still sitting in the bowl, and each piece was still stiff, hard, and basically the same size. Magic grow capsules, these are NOT!
Breaking down each wafer and adding more water helped move the process along. In the picture below, you can see a couple of the whole peas which are part of the recipe (in small amounts). But the final result after about fifteen minutes of soaking in hot water looked… well, pretty unappetizing. The Bows don’t judge a meal by its looks though — they ate it right up, with gusto.
Ultimately, I found the best results when I broke each wafer down and stirred it in with Honest Kitchen mixes. That’s how I would recommend feeding it: as a topper or meaty filler to an already complete meal.
Though this could be fed on its own, a Bow-sized dog (20-30 pounds) is supposed to eat 19 to 26 of these cakes to get their daily fill, according to the feeding guidelines on the bag. Are they freakin’ kidding me?? Are there even 20 of these guys in a single 5 oz. bag?? And at this price, Dogswell is telling me that it could cost up to $12 or so to feed one of my dogs for a day?? Hell, *I* barely spend that much money feeding myself on average!
So frankly, feeding this as a complete meal would be ridiculous. Nutrisca recently updated their feeding guidelines to acknowledge this, advising that their nutrient rich meal is only meant to be fed “intermittently.” The more practical table on their product website suggests feeding up to four pieces with 1 to 1 1/2 dry cups of food a day for 21 ~ 30 pound dogs. I’d say that makes much more sense.
This product is very high in protein, chock-full of quality ingredients — grain-free, potato-free, with “NO Gluten, soy, corn, wheat, flour, BHA/BHT, ethoxyquin, added hormones, artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives” — just the way we like it. But it’s still no substitute for a truly fresh diet. In terms of convenience, I find other dehydrated raw brands to be more efficient and thus much higher on our list of preferred foods.
Would I get this again? Sure, if there was a significant sale, like at least 25% off suggested retail price. It seems like a good product, but ultimately, not as satisfying as I had hoped.
FINAL GRADE: B
EDIT 10.3.2012: I’m impressed that a DOGSWELL rep saw this review, and sent me a friendly message:
Brad, here, from DOGSWELL. First of all, thanks for reviewing our product. Secondly, we really appreciate hearing your feedback, especially that it was too difficult to break up as a treat and didn’t reconstitute well. We hear you loud-and-clear, and we are going to set out to create a new product, or revise our current product, to address your comments. Also, we are going to change the packaging since people told us that this version was a total snoozer.
Veddy veddy eeenteresting. We will be keeping an eye out!
I was just thinking, what in these pucks limit their use for dogs only? Same with a lot of raw dog food marketed items.
Elektra would love the peas and I don’t know that she’s allergic to anything but fleas and her own crazy, so I’m wondering what ingredient warrants the “for dogs ONLY” packaging. If its whole ground meat and stuff, then it shouldn’t be dog specific.
I will never (well anytime SOON) be able to keep from free-feeding the psycho kitty but I’m starting to look for supplemental things that could go alongside her kibble that I could mix goodies into. She didn’t do well with the most meat-focused kibble I could find (Orijen) but if I fed her like honest kitchen in the afternoon or at night before romping her maybe we could get into a routine. I’ve been trying (hen not having my own death issues) before bed to play her to distraction an wear her out so she doesn’t keep us up. This is part of not only a healthy indoor kitty lifestyle but also part of the “feed, play, sleep” routine Jackson Galaxy (he ha a show on Animal Planet called My Cat From Hell, but it’s basic owner-training and diagnosing what kind of play and environments their specific cats enjoy which any in-tune pet owner would know, but his show is about worst cases and those make better tv. Though after dog and catshaming on tumblr is sadly a lot more prevalent than I like to admit). I’m rambling, sorry.
My point is that some companies like Honest Kitchen (I’m pretty sure) make cat and dog versions, or make versions of their product that are ok for both, but I always wonder what makes raw dog items like this only for dogs? Other than cats technically being obligate carnivores – they don’t eat/need all the veggies dogs do – I don’t know of a food that they can’t have that dogs can (medicines like Benadryl or Pepto, yes, but not foods.)
Ok. I’ll stop now. -.- sorry have been searching for food options for Elektra too long and too focusedly so I’m oversaturated and still left empty-handed. There doesn’t exist a full-meat cat food. At all. It always has extra shit like herbs for “well being” or grains or whatever. It’s unbelievably frustrating. I’m ok with vegetables for vitamins/fibre as she will eat them on her own (peas! Also discovered she likes spicy dried olive and tomato Vegan pizza and crust from Tony Tutto’s in Mill Valley. Insanity!)
I should loan you my copy of Small Animal Clinical Nutrition which I just bought for cheapsies, probably because nobody cares about GIANT HONKIN’ BOOK TOMES anymore. Anyway, they talk about both cats and dogs, so maybe the answer is therein, because I can’t answer that one!
I would actually really dig that. I’m all about science. 😀 It’s probably way more interesting (and accessible) than people nutrition. I love books like that anyway. So yes, I’d love to borrow that!
I love these sorts of books. I’ve got several older nutrition (human, unfortunately) books and are completely fascinated with them. The people at the thrift store gave me odd looks when I plopped them down on the counter with a giddy grin on my face.
I’ll bring it over when I *finally* get a chance to visit. 😉
I’m amused that the books we swap are… textbooks. Heh.
I picked up some Stella & Chewy’s freeze dried chicken dinner patties a couple of weeks ago. I paid $12.99 for 6oz which is about 12 patties although they look like they might be a bit bigger than the Dogswell ones. The bag says Kyo should have 7-9 patties a day which I think is a bit excessive for the price. I feed him good kibble and also tend to mix in some good quality wet as well, so I tend to cut the patties into quarters and then once a day or once every other day I rehydrate 1/4 a patty and mix it into his wet. This bag says “pet should consume 1/4 cup of water per patty daily” so I assume that means 1/4 gets added to a patty? I usually add about 1/8 a cup of water to the quarter patty. I also occasionally pull pieces off a quarter chunk to give as a treat.
I think you would probably be fine with the Dogswell ones if you use them the same way: divide the patties and add them occasionally to dry food or as a treat.
Also, do you know if the Dogswell ones are made in China?
Stella and Chewy’s came to mind as a comparable product, but I haven’t tried any exactly because of price! I remember browsing at the store, looking at the feeding guidelines, being shocked and wondering if I misread the package because I’d have to bring home several bags if I was going to make it last to the end of the week… But as a topper/additive, it does sound workable.
The packaging on this insists that it’s manufactured in the US. I realize that “made in the USA” doesn’t mean everything is sourced from the US, though. I have to dig around to confirm that the “cage-free chicken, with no added hormones” are from the US.
I must admit though that I had a falling out with Dogswell, a company I used to like quite a bit, because of the Made in China thing. They tried to defend their position on their website claiming cost of production and their own quality and inspection policies… but I wasn’t convinced, and found the position to be increasingly indefensible. Perhaps my suspicion was feeding this review as well.
S&C specifically say they are made in the USA in Wisconsin as well as cage-free birds, although I am always suspicious about what constitutes “cage-free”. But yeah I can’t imagine feeding one dog, let alone two, on a diet of freeze-dried raw patties alone. But if I can make a $13 bag last a month or more as a mix-in or treat I feel like the value goes further.
I got some Dogswell treats before I started hearing about all the “made in china, making dogs sick” stuff, but I haven’t been able to find out about any recalls for the specific treat I bought so I still give them to Kyota but very sparingly. That being said, I doubt I will buy a Dogswell product in the future.
I’d gotten some of these from a petshop a while ago (a large handful for free!) and during that not-gonna-eat-anything-you-want-me-to stint Conker went through a couple months ago, these were some of the only items Conker would eat. He liked them a lot, but I didn’t have enough for him to subsist on, nor would I regularly buy them because of the price and since nobody close to me carries them. I’d use them as a treat or topper, if I felt like spending money for something I don’t think is really needed…
Generally speaking, I haven’t seen a cost effective way of feeding freeze-dried raw to pups without paying up for the number of patties they recommend per day. Is it the dehydration process that’s costly? Or is it the wholesome ingredients that they include? Either way, while we were raw feeding, it was far more cost effective to buy raw meats in bulk.
That’s not to say that I would ever turn down free samples of these patties. We used to get individually packed Stella & Chewys from the local pet shop and those motivated Shio to do all sorts of non-Shibaesque tricks!
Ok, so it’s a bit late for the High Holy Days, but that thing in the bowl cut in half looks like a knadel (matzoh ball). Made me homesick! My late mom’s knadlach were like hockey pucks, and good stuff, even sans chicken soup (I’m a veg).
I suppose that’s a compliment that these look like something a human would eat.
Well, an anthropocentric compliment. Dogs eat plenty of things that I find inedible. But I admittedly feel better in some irrational way when I have something out of *my* cookbooks to which I can compare the Bows’ food.
This food caused my dog severe intestinal problems. After the first time I gave him this food, He pooped ONLY BLOOD for 24 HOURS. After an almost $400.00 vet bill, my dog recovered. At this time I had not realized that this food was to blame. After two weeks of giving him can food that the vet had recommended I ran out and decided to give him the Nutrisca again. Well, to my surprise we would have a second episode of full and only BLOODY stools for another 24 hours. This food is poison. My dog lucky recovered a second time. This time with another vet bill of $80.00 for medications. My dog has had many many other kinds of dog brand foods from least expensive to expensive and never had any sort of reaction. Besides he has even consumed animals (ie: rat) in the yard and never had an issue. My dog is not one with a sensitive stomach. Shame on Nutrisca company, who after notifying assumed no responsibility. Horrible experience. Unless you want to run the chance of experiencing this possible situation with a huge expensive vet bill, I would stay away.