Positive experience with Orijen Puppy

[Raj and Teddy]

Hi All,

I just wanted to share our positive experience with Orijen Puppy just in case other new puppy owners are deciding to switch to Orijen Puppy food. We made the switch roughly around 2 months back.

Quick Background: Our puppy was initially on TOTW prairie wild as that was what breeder was feeding him. Being a first time dog owner i ordered a 30lb bag of TOTW not knowing how much food the puppy would eat. I opened the bag and put the contents in a 40 lb Vault 2 air tight container. First few weeks were fine, but we did notice our puppy lost interest in the TOTW and we had to constantly add toppings (fresh boiled carrots or beans). We even put Wild Alaskan Salmon oil. It could be that the food was losing its freshness, but I was afraid we would end up creating a picky eater.

Switch to Orijen Puppy: Thanks to Karen's help and reading a lot of articles on food group, we decided to switch to Orijen Puppy, initially we had planned to switch over a week, but given our puppy loved the Orijen puppy food so much, and would not touch TOTW in the mix we ended up switching cold turkey. This is what we did different this time, bought a 15lb bag from Chewy.com, divided it into 1 week servings and put it in Ziploc bags and then stored those in the Vault container, we would only open one ziploc bag at a time. This maybe overkill but i feel it kept the food fresher till the last kibble. We are now on our 2nd bag of Orijen Puppy.

Here are some of our positive experience.

1. The transition to the food was smooth, we switched to twice a day feeding (7am and 5pm) from thrice a day feeding. We supplemented it with a small snack in the afternoon (1/4th apple peeled and deseeded or 1/2 a banana with every other day addional a tablespoon of lactose free yogurt). We try to keep fruits separate from his kibble. I am hoping its ok to give a small snack in the afternoon.
2. A 15lb bag lasted us roughly 6 weeks which is not bad from cost perspective, I did not care for the cost as I wanted our puppy to have the best food provided his body can handle it.
3. Our dog finishes his food in less than 2 minutes and is excited to get his food. No more toppings, he eats his kibble straight. I am thinking of getting a slow feeder :-) as our puppy seems to be eating the food fast.
4. Our puppy is doing well health wise and has good energy, his BM are regular, nicely formed and easy to pick up. He has BM in the morning and evening so more manageable. Our puppy rings the poochie bells when has to go outside to do his business, I cannot believe what a great thing as I was skeptical about it but so grateful that we trained our puppy to use poochie bells.
5. Our puppy's fleece coat is much softer and healthy looking.
6. Other dog owners have asked me on what I feed our puppy during our walks as they notice a healthy and softer coat puppy who is playful and generally happy. We do need to train him to not get too excited as he likes to greet everyone on the trails and not everyone wants to pet a dog.

Just thought I will share our experience. One additional thing, we did get antlers for our puppy to chew on and he liked them initially, but when I introduced him to the beef marrow bones (boiled and cleaned of marrow), they were  a hit with him. We give him a new bone every 2 week and throw away the old one as he chews it pretty good. We get a 3 -4 inch plus long bone. This is great as it helps him chew on appropriate things, his mouth gets a workout especially as he is losing his baby teeth and it keeps his teeth clean. We no longer get nipping but instead get sweet licks :-).

So far our puppy experience has been positive (potty training was a breeze), we allow our dog in family/breakfast/kitchen area which is gated more freely and other areas of the house we let him go when someone can keep an eye on him. These dogs are really smart and family friendly and want to spend time with the family, its made a huge difference in our family life.

I love the food group and this forum as I have learned so much, its a valuable source of information.

Thanks for reading,

Raj

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Thanks so much for posting this discussion! It's very helpful. I hope your pup continues to do well, sounds like he is off to a great start! 

[Raj and Teddy]

Hi Karen,

I really appreciate your contribution to this group and forum, its making a lot of new dog owners like me more educated leading to healthy dogs and happy families. I get much better information reading on this forum than reading a book. I have a lot of respect for your dedication in helping others.

The least I can do is share my positive experience based on my learning so that it can help any future new puppy owners.

Regards,

Raj

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Thank you for the kind words, Raj. Much appreciated.

I truly believe Doodle Kisses is the best, most caring, most informative doodle forum anywhere. :)

[Sonal & Coco]

Thanks for sharing your experience Raj! I'm nodding my head vigorously coz I did exactly the same thing of ordering in bulk!! :D LOL

Much like you, I went ahead and bought the TOTW 30 lb bag too. Thanks to Karen recommendation, we're switching to Wellness CORE puppy formula and I'm looking forward to it. 

I too have a giant air-tight container from Simple Human. Any ideas on what to do with the left over TOTW food? Did you just throw it out or give it back? 

 

[Raj and Teddy]

Hi Sonal,

I ended up throwing it away as I was not sure given the food may have lost its freshness and nutritional value. I did not want to take a chance at giving it to another dog.

Raj

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Thanks for posting.  This will be a great help to other new puppy owners as you wrote about both the 'problems' you had and the solutions you found.  Sending hugs to both you and your puppy for such a great start.

[Raj and Teddy]

No Problem Nancy, I do want to add that our puppy does get fairly good amount of daily exercise/walks and that helps him with maintaining good digestion. He goes for walks twice a day and in addition plays fetch games with my kids in our yard. In couple of months I look forward to transitioning our puppy to Orijen Adult and Six Fish food.