dogs

Our Favorite Dog Food and Feeding Resources

I’m continuing my series on dog and cat products that we personally use and love, and today I’ll be discussing our favorite dog food and feeding resources.

If you talk to people about dog food, you’re likely to get some strong opinions. Mavis’ trainer feeds her dogs a raw meat only diet, our neighbor makes and sells homemade dog food, and of course there are options like dry kibble and wet food.

The best advice that I can give in terms of dog food (because we’ve tried them all, aside from raw meat) is to find what works for you and your dog. We do a combo of homemade food and dry kibble and it works great for us in terms of health for the girls, pricing, and the time it takes to prepare.

Below you’ll find our favorite dog food brands. Jimmy and I have worked hard at finding high quality food at an affordable price and these are our top picks!

The Best Dog and Puppy Food

1. Diamond Naturals Chicken and Rice Formula
We started using Diamond Naturals in 2014 when we had two siberian husky puppies. Our breeder actually recommended this food and fed it to all of her dogs, regardless of their age. It is a great wallet-friendly and healthy option for dogs of all ages and life stages! A 40 pound bag of the chicken and rice formula costs around $37.

2. Nature’s Recipe Grain Free Dog Food
This is the kibble that we currently feed both Lola and Mavis, and they seem to really enjoy it. We feed them the salmon, sweet potato, and pumpkin recipe, and a 24 pound bag runs us about $32. I like the fact that it’s grain free and the first ingredient in the formula we use is salmon. Can’t beat that!

3. Taste of the Wild Wetlands Canine Formula
When we just had Lola, we fed her this food and she loved it. We usually gave her the wildfoul formula, but there are also other flavors such as bison and venison, lamb, salmon, and more. My brother also feeds his two golden retrievers this food and they are healthy as can be. Taste of the Wild is grain free, but is a little pricier than Diamond Naturals and Nature’s Recipe. A 30 pound bag costs around $48.

4. Nature’s Recipe Grain Free Puppy Food
When Mavis was younger, this was the kibble we fed her and we didn’t struggle with any tummy issues with this food. Just like its adult counterpart, it’s grain free, affordable, and the first ingredient in the chicken, sweet potato, and pumpkin recipe is chicken. A 12 pound bag costs around $20.

5. Nutro Max Canned Puppy Food
We fed Mavis this canned puppy food when she was teething and it really helped her with not having to chew dry, hard kibble while she was losing her puppy teeth. We bought a case of the lamb and rice flavor and would feed it to her in a KONG or just on its own and had a great experience with it. A 12 pack case costs around $17.

Dog Feeding Resources

Okay, onto feeding resources! I have some great books and websites to share.

1. Dog Food Advisor
If you’ve ever wanted to know the breakdown of your dog’s food in terms of protein, fat, and carbohydrate ratios and which ingredients are good or bad, this is the website to check out. It even gives each food a rating out of five stars. It also has a list of dog food recalls and a lot of informative articles.

2. American Kennel Club Resource Page
The AKC has a wonderful website with a resource page that has tons of articles on dog nutrition, training, health, and so much more. I’ve learned a lot on the AKC website over the years.

3. Dinner PAWsible
Dinner PAWsible is a cookbook filled with homemade meals for cats and dogs written by a veterinarian certified in food therapy. It has over fifty recipes and a lot of useful information on which nutrients are important to cats and dogs. I’ve owned this cookbook for a few months now and love referencing it when I’m making homemade food for our pets.

4. Chewy
Chewy is a website that sells dog and cat food, treats, and supplies. The prices are always amazing, and if you spend over $49, you get free 1-2 day shipping. Another great (and convenient!) way to save on Chewy is to set up an autoship of your dog’s food that is automatically shipped to you every 1-16 weeks (you can choose when and even delay or speed up the autoship). When you set up an autoship, you save 5%! I’m literally on Chewy at least a few times a week and highly recommend checking it out!

5. Feed Your Best Friend Better
Feed Your Best Friend Better is a dog cookbook written by Rick Woodford and contains recipes for meals and treats. I’ve owned this cookbook for almost a year now and I have used it so, so much. There are tons of delicious recipes that Jimmy and I have totally tried (yeah, you read that right!) and liked, along with information about determining portion sizes, healing common health problems, and so much more.

Along with all of the above resources, your veterinarian is one of your best resources for figuring out a balanced and healthy diet for your pet! It’s always a good idea to check with him or her about what you feed your dog 🙂

Our Favorite Dog Toys and Puzzles

I’ve wanted to post about what Jimmy and I use and love for our pets for such a long time, and I think I’ve finally gathered together all of my thoughts. Once I started writing this post I realized I’m going to need to split everything up into seperate posts or else this would be one long post.

So, let’s start with our favorite dog puzzles and toys and be on the lookout for our favorite cat puzzles and toys in my next post!

The best dog toys and puzzles

1. Hide-A-Squirrel Puzzle Toy

I kept reading great reviews for this toy and didn’t understand what the fuss was about until I bought it and saw how much Mavis loves it. Basically, you can put the squirrels in the holes of the “tree trunk” and your dog figures out how to get them out. She thinks it’s so cool to pull the squirrels out. I also see her just playing with the squirrels a lot, too.

2. Paw Flapper Interactive Puzzle

If your dog is a fast eater, I’d recommend this feeding puzzle. You put food inside the holes and the base of the puzzle spins. Your dog first has to open the flaps and then spin the base of the puzzle to get all the food out. It’s a great way to get them to use their mind to work for their food. You can see Mavis figuring out this puzzle around the 5:00 mark in this vlog.

3. KONG Classic

The KONG is such a great toy for feeding treats to strong chewers. I usually spoon peanut butter into a KONG and stuff a treat inside to make it harder. Lola and Mavis then have to use their paws and tongues to get the peanut butter and treat out. It takes them a good 15 minutes or so and they love it. If you really want to make it last longer, you can freeze the KONG with peanut butter inside. Other fillings you can use are apple sauce, bananas, and the KONG Easy Treat (it basically looks like Easy Cheese spray and is a lot less messy than using peanut butter!).

4. Hol-ee Roller Ball

This was another toy that I didn’t get what the fuss was about until we tried it ourselves. This is definitely Mavis’ favorite toy. She loves to play fetch with this ball and sometimes I stuff pieces of old t-shirts or rags inside it with treats rolled in them and she gets to “destroy” the toy by ripping the t-shirt and rag strips out of the ball and eating the treats. If your dog likes to rip apart toys, I’d recommend this toy with the t-shirt and rag strips idea. The ball comes in different sizes and there’s also an extreme version for heavy chewers.

5. Chuckit! Paraflight Frisbee

This is actually a toy that my brother’s golden retriever, Jax, loves. He’s obsessed with playing frisbee and usually destroys frisbees pretty quickly. He once cut his tongue on a plastic frisbee and that was a bit of a disaster. This frisbee is soft, flexible, and designed to fly well. I can’t wait to see if Mavis will play frisbee once it warms up outside!

6. Trixie Flip Board

This is a bit of a challenging puzzle, so I’d only recommend spending your money on this one if your dog already has shown interest in puzzles and enjoys them. This puzzle has sliding discs, levers, and cones that need to be moved or lifted in order for your dog to get their food or treats. Mavis and Lola both love this puzzle! Trixie also has other levels of puzzles that are more or less difficult than this one that I’d recommend checking out!

7. Busy Buddy Kibble Nibble

This is a puzzle feeder that we use multiple times a day in our house. It comes in small or large sizes (we use the small for Mavis and the large for Lola). You unscrew the ball and put dog food or treats inside and then twist it back together. The top and bottom of the ball have holes that you can customize the size of (by cutting little rubber nubs) based on your dogs kibble size or how hard/easy you want to make it. Your dog then has to roll the ball in order to dispense their food or treats. We use this for at least one meal a day for Mavis and Lola and it takes them about 30 minutes to finish their meal plus they have to walk around to get their food out, which gets them some extra exercise. Bonus: it’s also dishwasher safe!

8. Dogwood Stick Chew Toy

Has anyone given their dog an elk antler? Our dogs love them but man are they expensive! This is a cheaper alternative to an elk antler and is made of real dogwood. I have no idea why dogs like to chew dogwood, but ours really enjoy this! It doesn’t splinter like a simple stick would and comes in different sizes and flavors. I keep one in our house and one in my truck for Mavis to chew on while we drive to pet sitting jobs. She gets to excited to get in my truck because she knows her dogwood stick is in there!

So, there you have it! Those are some of our favorite dog toys and puzzles. I could have listed about a million more, but I tried to pick our absolute favorites and have good variety for dogs that like to chew/fetch/solve puzzles/etc.!