Zoey has been on raw for most of her short life - she is 2 yrs 4 mos. I started with Primal but she had a lot of eye boogies and I switched to Natures Variety. She loved both. I hated giving her cold food so I switched to Stella & Chewy's dehydrated. The fat content was 30% and I was very concerned about that. After asking a few questions on YT and talking with the pet store people I started Zoey on it. Within one month she had pancreatitis. All the info about the fat content being reduced by rehydrating it was hoey. We are back on Natures Variety which is a complete diet. Good luck with your choice. Chella & Chewy's "wet" raw was low in fat content.

So is she on Nature's Variety raw, now?

I was worried about that about the dehydrated and I had read about the Fat Content, so I messaged a Primal Rep. on Facebook, about their new freeze dried nuggest. This was the conversation:


Primal Pet Foods: Hydrating is easy. You'll add 1 tablespoon for every nugget. You'll want to mash it up a bit with a fork to mix in the water.

The calculator works the same way. You'll feed based on nuggets only, not weight. (i.e. if you feed 5 nuggets of canine chicken raw formula, you'll also feed 5 nuggets of canine chicken freeze-dried formula.) They are both the same product only the freeze-dried has the moisture removed.

Theresa: Is the Fat Percentage in the freeze dried a higher percentage?

Primal Pet Foods: Hi Theresa, thanks for your question. The canine beef freeze-dried formula is the exact same product as our raw frozen canine beef formula with the moisture removed during the freeze-drying process. You can't directly compare guaranteed analysis of a wet food to a dry food because the moisture has been removed from the dry food (3% moisture vs. 67% moisture). If you look at the crude fat in our canine raw frozen beef formula (with 67% moisture), you'll see that the value is at 14% crude fat. All of our products list guaranteed analysis "as sent". You can read a good blog entry on our website that explains guaranteed analysis in wet and dry foods and how to compare them. Primal Blog Understanding Guaranteed Analysis

My goodness, I have not had time to read all the responses because I have a busy day but I will as soon as I can.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THAAAAAANK YOUUUUUUU!!!!

oh yeah, natures variety instinct raw frozen medallions
is a "raw frozen diet" not "dehydrated"..
oscar & kaiah my shih tzu love it .
i gave them each 2 nuggets for lunch and they devoured it...


this is the one i get...

http://www.naturesvariety.com/InstinctRaw/dog/chicken

To answer your question - yes, Zoey is back on Natures Variety. I will never take a chance on dehydrated again, no matter who the company is. One day at the vet's cost $936 for pancreatitis. Lesson learned.

Cool!!
I have Never fed the dehydrated freeze dried stuff.

I started Riley with the Nature's Variety Frozen Medallions... then we tried Stella & Chewy's... then Answers... and now we are on Primal. These are all frozen raw medallions. Well, the Stella's looks like hamburger patties... :) but the Nature's Variety, Primal and Answers are all nuggets. :thumbup: :D

OUCH! I'm so sorry you had to go through that!!
That is good to know though!!
I feed the frozen medallions. :thumbup:
Have never tried the dehydrated freeze dried ones.

So far I like the ingredients in Primal, I was looking at the Nature's Variety but noticed they don't have a limited ingredient food except for the lamb and the organic chicken.

I've done prey model and premade raw before. I really like Bravo - They do have limited ingredient diets that are ONLY meat/bone/organ.

Oooo, I should do this, they would love it. So you just get regular frozen green beans, dethaw under water, and chop them up, is that how you're doing them?

I like the nugget/medallion size too bc it fits the amounts they need so well.

They're both good brands (in my experience). One thing I do like about Primal is that it doesn't have flax seed in every formula as the EFA - flax can make some dogs itchy since it's a grain derivative. I prefer they use fish/salmon oil. But many dogs do well on flax.

Thanks to many of you felllow YT answering my questions about raw, Gizmo has been on it since January, and we've had no upset stomach, great coat, and only eye boogies due to recent environmental allergies.. Wish I would have switched before i spent over $1,900 in vet bills for vets to tell me "Oh, it's just allergies..":rolleyes:

But, I'm glad the results came back with nothing.

hi , as you know i too have also had a problem finding the right food for oscar.
Well i bought then natures variety instinct frozen raw
for my cats and they would not touch so for the fun of it
i gave oscar 1 medallion and he loves it.
He has been eating it for two days now and wow,
what a difference. His poos are perfect and his itching is less.
Finally found the right food.
I think it would be a good one for you to at least
try for sheldon....

Thanks Oscar's mom! I am so glad you found the right food for Oscar :) So, how much does it cost a month to feed on Natures Variety Raw?

@Willy'smom, how in the heck you are able to quote 3 posts at once, I can't figure it out I am on my second cup of coffee hahahaha

Sasha has been eating Primal for at least 2 years now and absolutely loves it. I still feed her kibble as well and have never had an issue with her eating both. She gets Primal in the morning for breakfast and then kibble (Blue Buffalo Wilderness - grain free) with a spoonful of canned (Blue Buffalo) for dinner. She loves all varieties of Primal except for the Turkey & Sardine formula. She would still eat it but not with as much gusto as the other formulas so I haven't bought that kind after the first bag of it I tried with her.

Feeding this way is so cost effective to. I usually buy two 4lb. bags of Primal (different flavor for each bag of course) and it lasts me about 3 months so I don't mind forking out extra money to buy such good food. Feeding time it definitely Sasha's favorite time of the day.

Two bags of 4 lbs for 3 months isn't bad so I am guessing if I go all raw it would last about 1 1/2 months?