Freshpet Reviews Continued (Plus last week's giveaway winner!)

Hi, everyone, it's me, Tanner!  Tucker is tired from working late last night so  he said I could announce last week's Fresh Pet treat giveaway!

This is the ledge in the mudroom where I eat my meals.  Because I prefer a table with a view, don'tcha know!

And the winner is ............................  wait for it ........................  Hound Girl!  Hound Girl, please email us at tuckertellsall@gmail.com and give us your address so that we can send you your Bison Chews!

And ... 

Anyone who would like to be entered to win the Dog Joy Fresh Bones pictured above, all you need to do is comment to be entered and we'll randomly draw a winner next week.

Now, on to the "meat and potatoes" if you will!

This ....

is this ....

Freshpet select Roasted Meals!


It's for dogs, so I didn't taste any of it, but Tucker and Phoebe and Cosmo all did and they thought it was yummy.

THIS ...

is what Olivia, Finn, and I got to try!

Olivia and I thought it was pretty good.  Finn has been a raw-fed kitty since he was just a baby and he is not as fond of things like canned food or, in this case, cooked food.  (He's a little crazy, though!)  

In addition to this stuff and the treats Tucker has been talking about in previous posts about Freshpet, they also sent THIS ... 

Tucker & Phoebe and Cosmo also tried this and reported that it was yummilicious!  

So overall the response to these products was very favorable.  Even Finn eventually sampled his portion of the Roasted Meals for kitties, and he seemed to find it acceptable, if not downright delectable.  But then, like I said ... he's a little big strange!  

So ok - it's official!  This stuff is delish!  Get your humans to buy you some today! 

Oh, wait ... Mom wants to say something.  

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Hi, everyone - MP here.  I did have to add my two cents to this post.  First of all, I'd like to once again thank the kind people at Freshpet who sent us a really substantial amount of products to try and share with our friends, both IRL and in the Blogosphere.  I offered some of the chews and treats to my coworkers' dogs and they were favorably received by all.  Unfortunately my coworkers did not follow through on my request to photograph their dogs enjoying the treats/chews.  Two were just plain negligent, and the third, little Baby B the Shih Tzu's mom, had the best of intentions when she gave Baby B one of the Fresh Bones before she went out for an hour or two.  She had no idea that Baby B. would have liked it so much that the entire bone had been consumed in her absence, leaving her unable to take a picture.  

Tucker & Phoebe, and my sister, K.'s dog, Cosmo, also enjoyed the treats.  Phoebe's favorites were definitely the Sweet Potato Chews.  They also quite enjoyed the Roasted Meals (which come in a resealable bag) and the Slice and Serve which come in long tubes, kind of like sausages.  The cats (Olivia and Tanner anyway) also enthusiastically sampled the Roasted Meals sent to them to try, and Finn did eat his portion, though he did not initially dive right in.  But then again, he often has the same reaction to canned food on the rare occasions I offer it. While Olivia and Tanner will fall upon it like  they've been starving in the desert for weeks on end, Finn is very much a raw fed boy (he's been on prey model raw since four months of age) and he doesn't often seem to know what to make of even premium quality commercial food, which I would certainly consider Freshpet to be.  


As to MY overall opinion.  Well, ok.  Let me get this out of the way.  Those of you who know me from elsewhere, either IRL, or from discussion forums like Dogster, know that I'm a bit of a freak about my animals' diets.  Both dogs and all three cats are fed a prey model raw diet for the simple reason that 1) it makes the most sense to me because it's the most natural, species-appropriate for my companion carnivores to eat and 2) because with all the recalls and shenanigans that go on in the pet food industry, there are very few companies whose products I unreservedly trust.  So when I got the initial query from Freshpet, asking whether they could send us some products to try, I was cautious.  Before agreeing, I did a little basic research and when I didn't spot any red flags in the ingredients, and my digging turned up no news of recent recalls of the Freshpet products, I figured that even though my own animals are on a raw diet, I have a lot of dog and cat owning friends and family who really love their dogs and cats but for various reasons don't want to or can't feed their dogs/cats this way.  Plus, my sister K.'s dog, Cosmo, is on a rotational diet of premium kibbles (Orijen, Acana, Horizon Legacy, and a couple of others) but K. likes to mix some kind of topper in with it at least a few times a week.  It's usually a similar brand of canned food or some type of cooked meat, but because the Roasted Meals come in a resealable bag, it's somewhat more convenient than canned food is, and plus it SMELLS a whole lot more appetizing.  Let's face it, canned food can sometimes be stinky.  That's how it got its nickname stinky goodness!  


Also, as I've mentioned before, Tucker is on a thyroid supplement that he gets twice daily with food.  It's a powdered supplement prescribed by our holistic vet, and it is a little bitter.  So I am constantly switching up the things I will mix his medicine into.  I've used jarred meat/veggie baby food, canned food, canned green tripe, canned sardines or jack mackerel, etc., The Slice & Serve proved especially useful for this because you can make kind of a meatball with it and roll the powder inside.  For those of you who rely upon Kongs to keep your dogs settled and entertained while crated or left alone, both the Roasted Meals and the Slice & Serve proved great for this.  I mixed the Roasted Meals with a little bit of meat baby food and put it in the freezer for about an hour so that it wasn't frozen solid but still firm.  The Slice & Serve I was able to pack in there pretty tightly and it didn't need to be frozen at all, though for dogs who are Kong-a-holics you might want to freeze it.  

Bottom line, I am not switching the kids from their current prey model raw diet, but I absolutely would buy these products and use them as described above.