Orijens dog food - and cat?

[Primitive Pony]

Hi, I know this isn't the first discussion about this, but am considering feeding my puppy on Orijens - just wondering what anyone's experiences are in terms of how long it lasts compared to other similar sized bags of food? And ultimately is it worth the money? - although if less needs to be fed then I suspect it will work out similar to other 'high end' food?

And can it be soaked like other kibble? - my BT puppy eats like a Hoover...!

Also considering the cat food too, anyone tried it?

Thanks!!

 

[Primitive Pony]

Bumping this up... or indeed Taste of the Wild!?

 

[Jola]

Hi
We used it for our dog who is allergic to everything..he was ok on it but lost so much weigh based on the recommended portions (and they don't recommend feeding more coz its so protein rich) that we took him off it. Bit overrated IMHO. We use trophy now

 

[FinnishLapphund]

I feed a local Swedish brand of dog food since many years to my bitches, so I haven't tried Orijen, but based on what I've heard, if I ever should need to change food, I would consider Orijen. I've heard less about Taste of the Wild than Orijen, so I can't say if it is better or not. To find out what food bag that lasts longer, maybe you could simply compare the feeding guides?

(Orijen's pdf-page with feeding guide) http://www.orijenpetfoods.co.uk/acatalog/Orijen_WP_Feeding_Guide.pdf
(On Taste of the Wild's site you need to click each food type + learn more, to get to a page with more info and feeding guide) http://www.tasteofthewildpetfood.com/

I can only say that personally, I try to not overthink my dog food choice, I found a food that contains things that I want to feed my bitches, I feel it makes my bitches look healthy, makes them satisfactorily saturate, and in general makes their stomach + intestines function normally, so that is what I'm feeding them.


I've never heard of a dry food that you can't soak. But if your main reason to want to soak the food is to slow down your puppy's eating, you could also try to make him/her eat slower by putting toy balls or similar in their feed bowl, now it seems you can even buy stainless steel balls to put in the feed bowl:

There is also a growing number of feed "bowls" available designed to slow down the eating or make the dog think while they eat:

Or you can put the dog food in a Qulan:

 

[Dobiegirl]

We tried it for our Lancashire Heeler puppy and she didnt like it, its very pricey so switched to fish4puppies and she didnt like that either. Eventually we discovered she liked the Arden grange but by that time we were feeding raw.

Finny, I slow my Dobe down gobbling her food by throwing it on the lawn, it works and no dirty dishes.

 

[SCMSL]

Never tried orijen as I much prefer Taste of the Wild, which is actually cheaper!

My dog eats it but doesn't love it, which could be good for your dog. She maintains her weight well with the recommended amounts (and she has a ridiculous quantity of daily exercise) and her coat looks gorgeous - everybody comments on how well she looks.

 

[FinnishLapphund]

I have several times on here recommended people to just throw/spread the dog food out over the floor, as a way to give them a little mental exercise when they eat Dobiegirl, it was just that when I realised how many of those "slow eating" feed bowls/gadgets to choose between there was these days, it made me forget to include that tips in my reply .

Most dogs that I've heard/know of that have gotten their food spread out all over the floor, have learnt after a few times, that if they hoover the food too quickly, they can miss a few bits and pieces here and there! For some dogs it has made them slow down their eating from the start, to make sure that they're not missing anything, for some dogs it has lead to that they begin eating only thinking 'FOOD!' , but that they in the end of the meal have switched over to thinking 'Where is the food?/I'm not missing any food am I?' , but for some dogs it doesn't change their eating style at all.

However, if you have the option of doing it outdoors, e.g. as in Dobiegirl's example on a lawn, it really increases the odds for that you'll be able to slow down the eating for a "hoover" dog, and as a bonus, they get mental activation/exercise into the bargain.

 

[Venevidivici]

We have one of the green prongy feed bowls (in the pics above) for our very greedy 11mth GSP-it works fantastically! (It's called a 'Green' dog food bowl i think.)He takes longer to eat his dinner than our 11yr old, little old lady GSP
Before the 'green',we had the blue one in the penultimate pic-it didn't work
Tried ours on Acana Ranchlands (which is v similar to orijen) for a while and it was too rich (or something!) for him and went thru him like a speed train...

 

[Venevidivici]

Re:the food scattering,that's excellent too and is great mental stimulation but it's not easy when you have more than one dog and/or one is extremely greedy and fast and gets more than their share. (Haven't got time at mo to let them eat scattered food one at a time but I do put some of their portions in a treat ball (set to difficult'!) and let them loose on that)

 

[Primitive Pony]

Thank you for all the replies, that's really helpful. Will look into the foods more, and perhaps it's a question of trial and error. I like the idea of a natural diet but can't cope with a raw diet - I am veggie and can't stand dealing with meat on a regular basis!

Various gadgets for feeding look interesting, will keep an eye out - I'm mostly worried (perhaps unnecessarily) about the puppy choking as even if I feed him kibble bit by hand from the hand he doesn't chew, just swallows - or Rather inhales it! Maybe that's normal and he will grow out of it?

 

[Triskar]

Eden Holistic gets 5 out of 5 stars on whichdogfood.co.UK same as Orijen, and it's Uk based, all the ingredients are Uk and it costs the same as ordinary brands like Royal Canin. It's an 80:20 food. They've just launched a cat food with added taurine too.