Dutch Shepherd Forum

Here is some feedback on feeding Wysong Optimal Performane Dog Food.....

After our local grocery store, Publix, sold us twice ROTTEN chicken backs (not border line fresh but stinking to heaven rotten when opening the package with a expiration date a week away!), I decided to boycott them and look for another fresh meat source. Not so easy when you do not have space for a freezer to buy in bulk and save. Winn Dixie has sometimes some nice sale on split chicken breast but not always.

So I decided to look into dry food again. Better than poising my dogs with rotten raw food loaded with who knows what toxins. My dogs are on raw/home cooked food for about 2 years. I remembered Orijen gave them incredible gas , the Honest Kitchen Turkey/Oats were not bad but the oats came out un-digested. IMHO grains need to be cooked for digestion. When I cook them oats with raw eggs mixed under the oats get fully digested.

So what's left? I remembered Wysong. In business since 1979, have their own manufacturing plant in the US, never on recall, invented the probiotic covering but now get sued by the big guys for claiming it since they didn't put a patent on it. Their website is a wealth of nutritional info. They are for food rotation big time, even argue against their own food and give some recipes for home made food.

I am on their e-mailing list and when they had free shipping, I ordered the Optimal Performance, 40% protein, with dehydrated chicken chunks in it. I am happty to report NO gas, no loose stool, no constipation, no nothing. I mix it with my home cooked chicken/veggie/rice and they go crazy over it. And these dogs haven't had commercial dog food for 2 years!

4x 8 lbs bags costed about $50, considering what Orijen, etc cost, not too bad. Here is a link to their website. They have supplements, for humans too: http://www.wysong.net/pet-health-and-nu ... elcome.php

I hope this might help someone who is searching for a different dog food. They have also developed a true grain and starch free food.

Glad you seem to have found something that you can live with!!
I have been feeding 'Victor' and simply love it. No corn, wheat, soy, artifical colors, flavors or preservatives.
(www.victordogfood.com) It is local to me, but I do believe they ship too. Reasonably priced for an excellent quality food.

Let me ask this question, why feed that if your guys are getting, chicken , veggies and rice? Does it have stuff the chicken etc dosnt? I dont have the freezer space either so I go to the grocery store about twice a week for their food.

I've gotten a bit lazy lately so I'm using HK Thrive or Embark(1/2 cup) as a base, and add meat (chix leg quarters,breast,or backs--beef roast, hamburger, pork, liver whatever's on sale), fish 2 x per wk., whole raw eggs 3 x per week, homemade yogurt, DE, liquid vit. 2 x per wk.(to fill in the holes--so to speak).

I'm getting ground beef @ $1.69 lb. or up to $ 1.99 lb.(Kmart)/ chix leg quarters @ .69 - where's the cents key?,( @ Aldi or Shop Rite, or local butcher by the case)/Split Chicken Breast @ $1.00 lb.( almost anywhere lately)/ pork shoulder roasts @ $1.49 (@ Hannaford markets)/ whole pork loins @ 1.69 (@Price Chopper or Shop Rite)/ Beef Roasts @ $1.89 & up (@ Price Chopper or Hannaford markets.) The fish I buy in the frozen section from whoever has a good deal--it varies.

I use 1/2 cup Honest Kitchen, 8 oz. ground or chunked meat, eggs, etc. with Lyric and my JRT getting appropriate portions of the mix, as their breakfast meal.

For evening meal they get just meat, on the bone, raw.

It doesn't cost a lot if you really shop for the specials, or have even a small extra freezer.

Those are about the same prices I pay around here too for the meat. I love getting the big slab of pork on the bone, then I start hacking away, the dogs are drooling and the kids think mom went mad.

Dutchringgirl wrote: the dogs are drooling and the kids think mom went mad.

Beside Publix we only have Winn Dixie. I don't trust Publix,that leaves Winn Dixie and they don't have good sales right now. Our K-Mart doesn't have fresh food, there is a Walmart Super Store 15 miles away which I haven't checked out. I am not aware of a local butcher. There is a Haitian/Jamaican grocer which has some unusual animal body parts. But they are cut in pieces, no chewing action there.

The home cooked chicken/veggie/rice might get too one-sided, so I thought I switch it up a bit.

From Germany I am used to go directly to a slaughter house and get a big bag of green tripe and a whole beef heart, etc. But Florida, Palm Beach County, is such a drag when it comes to things like that.

Have you looked for any food co-ops that supply do dog folks? Yahoo groups has a few that I found in my area where I can order green tripe, whole frozen rabbit, etc. You either meet everyone at a location where the seller comes with the orders to be picked up/ or sometimes ship with dry ice from the sellers store.
I live 10 miles from the stores, but have a freezer outside that's just for the dogs.

I have to admit that I do sometimes feel guilty that my dogs eat better than some people's children. The looks on peoples faces when my cart has 70 lbs. of chicken in it and they ask what in the world I do with that much meat! Now I just say I'm stocking up for a party.

I used to order with a yahoo raw dog food group. Very nice people but I had to order in 40 lb cases and the biggest turn off was that the stuff (green tripe, trachea, ground up with beef and bones) was a good part thawed when I got it. The freezer truck stopped somewhere in the Orlando area where the order was split up going North/South/West/East and then members drove the split up orders closer to their folks and so forth. South-East Florida is not the place to drive raw meat, even if frozen, around for several hours. Bacteria begin to develop, get frozen again, thawed again, I don't know but I had a bad feeling about it and stopped ordering. And I don't have a "dog" freezer. The green tripe stinky bloody stuff together with my food was just too much. Publix raw chicken backs and the sales at Winn Dixie for split chicken breast worked until Publix began to repackage the expired meat and sell it (the only explanation that meat can be so rotten one week away from the expiration date) Chicken leg quarters, thighs and such do not work, for whatever reason Marco is not able to digest them properly and big pieces came out the rear and he even had a bloody poop hole because of it. I feed digestive enzymes but it didn't help. So I stuck with chicken backs and split chicken breast.

I read in another forum that wolfs don't eat the bones of their prey. That was posted by a wolf expert. He wrote that the care takers of wolfs in a zoo always have to gather the bones after they're done eating.

I think they do eat the bones of Rabbits, the occasional bird, and smaller prey---larger prey like deer probably not. Weight bearing bones from larger prey are just too big but the dogs have lots of fun while cleaning the meat from them, and I also dispose of those when the meat is gone, to prevent tooth fractures.