Posts tagged ‘the honest kitchen’
A food experiment: Boogie’s choice.
There are FOUR different brands of dog food in my kitchen right now. Out of curiosity, I conducted an experiment to see which one Boogie likes best, or eats first.
I presented Boogie with tiny portions of each meal…
Boogie: “Oh wow. The best dinner ever!”
Below is a video of Boogie’s smorgasbord experience. (sorry it’s so dark!)
The bowls from left to right are:
Bowl 1: Sojos veggie mix & sauteed beef (with a bit of olive oil, garlic & peas) – *The Sojos is NEW to Boogie
Bowl 2: Stella & Chewy’s Super Beef patty *NEW to Boogie
Bowl 3: K9 Natural Lamb *Sort of familiar. Has been eating this on & off for a few weeks.
Bowl 4: The Honest Kitchen (Keen) & a bit of canned tuna in water *Familiar to Boogie
NOTE: All the foods were freeze-dried/dehydrated in their packets, and required hydration with warm water. The Sojos veggie mix had been hydrated in my fridge for a few hours.
Observations: Hard to tell if Boogie has a top favorite. He dived straight into #1(human food!), finished this first but not completely… probably left the veggie bits behind. He tucked into #2 with relish, likewise with #4, and returned to #2 and #4 several times. #3 was the least interesting to him.
Anyone here feed Sojos or Stella & Chewy’s?
Rate your dog food, and we have a perfect score!
The questionnaire: http://www.k9cuisine.com/RateYourDogFood.aspx (Warning: There are 31 questions)
We have a score of 100. GRADE A!
This is what I feed Boogie:
KEEN from The Honest Kitchen + home cooked meat & veggies. (roughly 50/50)
Home cooked food recipe:
- 1 lb lean ground turkey or beef or chicken
- 1 large yam or sweet potato or rice
- 1 clove minced garlic
- 1/2 cup of peas or green beans or broccoli (whatever I have in the fridge that’s green)
- pinch of thyme & salt
- water
As for The Honest Kitchen – I have blogged about this food many many times – almost obsessively …here’s an illustration of the THK feeding process that I did way back – and I have been feeding this food to Boogie EVERYDAY for over 2 years, either alone or mixed with other foods. The Honest Kitchen is the first commercial dog food that Boogie has eaten which doesn’t make him throw up, produce squishy poos, and emit super stinky gases. No fillers, no weird byproducts, no allergens like corn and wheat, and Boogie loves it. He has tried all the formulas – Force, Embark, Thrive, Preference, Verve and Keen… with the exception of Prowl, which is for cats. I read somewhere that THK will soon be coming out with a new formula with haddock (Zeal) which I am excited for Boogie to try.
In fact I am such a fan that I joined the THK’s Allies program a few weeks ago with the promise to continue feeding and blogging about this food. To my surprise, a HUGE BOX arrived on my doorstep tonight. I can’t believe it! I now have a gazillion samples of THK food, information pamphlets, a t-shirt and free treats!
I don’t intend to hoard all these food samples for myself (ahem, as tempting as it may be) and I plan to distribute these to friends, rescues, anyone who comes into contact with many pets and their owners.
Interested in trying some free The Honest Kitchen samples? Please get in touch! Seriously.
Food and Poop!
(I have this on my kitchen wall for Wes to refer to, if I am away)
Boogie has been eating The Honest Kitchen for about 1 1/2 years now. I alternate between most of the formulas: Force, Embark, Keen, Thrive ... but stick mostly to Keen because:
- Boogie does better with grains in his food and Keen has oats.
- Keen is cheaper than the other formulas
- Keen takes the shortest amount of time to absorb water and firm-up. The other formulas, with the exception of Force, stay “soupy/liquid” for a longer time.
- Keen produces the least amount of poop (Will elaborate on this, later! :))
We have had no issues with The Honest Kitchen at all. He has been doing really well on it (compared to previous foods that made him throw up) but I am still always on the lookout for other brands that are of the same high quality as THK . I don’t want to become totally dependent on one brand and its limited range of protein choices. I am also always trying to give Boogie some variety in his diet.
Lately I have been mixing in some HALO’s Spot’s Stew .
I first read about HALO on Tracie Hotchner’s blog.
See THIS post, and Tracie’s reply in the comments:
Halo’s Spot’s Stew is now the only kibble my dogs are going to get because I learned that they use only meat that is fit for human consumption in their dry and canned foods. You can’t get better than that! It is also a high protein kibble at 33% but the vital fact is the origin of that protein. You don’t really know what is being counted as protein in foods with much higher protein levels (EVO being one). Remember that melamine AND the wheat gluten which it polluted were both being counted in a total protein percentage when neither was really bio-available to the dogs digestive system. So don’t be sure of what exactly caused it when your dog has a bad reaction to a food – just avoid it! As for The Honest Kitchen, my dogs have been eating it for years as 1/3 of their meal. As large dogs, I have always given 1/3 of the meal as kibble but now I can feel really good about it! And Halo has joined me as a website sponsor – along with THK – so you’ll be keeping it all “in the family.”
70/30 THK Keen + Halo, with Perfect Form & Ultra Oil
Our local pet store doesn’t sell HALO kibble so I am starting him off with the canned stuff.
I mix it in with THK – maybe 30 – 50%, and Boogie loves it and we have had no problems. So far he has tried the Chicken, Salmon and Lamb. One thing I notice is that when I feed mostly Halo (approx. 80%) Boogie’s poop is harder, darker and sometimes “pebbly” – perhaps a sign of constipation? I wonder if this is because there is lower water and fiber content in the Halo canned food than in THK? Boogie doesn’t drink much water to begin with. (He’s a strange dog)
Speaking of poop…
I think most THK people are already aware that this food produces a HUGE amount of poop compared to other brands. Which can be a little scary at first. For my friend Christa, whose Emma is incontinent and wears a diaper, the poop issue is more problematic. Here’s a little list that Christa and I came up with after comparing our THK “feeding and pooping” notes.
The Honest Kitchen POOP CHART. Yes, I am a crazy dog person.
If you feed The Honest Kitchen and/or Halo, please share your thoughts!
Boogie's blog 