Hello Friends!
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve hopped on here. Puppy life, or pawrenting, is a serious full-time job (on top of my full-time job)! But I wouldn’t change it for a thing!
We are privileged to be able to welcome a new puppy into our home. We’ve been talking about it since we started dating and it just finally made sense to make it happen, considering our working from home situation. It was definitely a blessing.
As the welcoming day grew closer, I had been doing research on which brand and type of food we would want to feed our new pup. Quite honestly, she is not just a dog, she is our family, our child.
We are both health-conscious individuals. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about diet culture—just healthy eating, but also mindful of what our body is wanting and needing at the same time. So finding that balance is key for us. Healthy has a different meaning for everyone, but I won’t get into that here.
We took our puppy to the vet the very day we brought her home. It’s really where we made our decision on what to feed her moving forward. We decided to go with Just Food For Dogs. They were one of the brands I was considering—the other was Farmer’s Dogs. Both brands offer fresh, human-grade food options for your furry friends.
Why did we go with fresh food instead of dry kibble? At face value, I really didn’t want to be feeding our puppy dry, hard pellets. It’s not bad for them, it contains all the nutrition they would need to grow, but they also contain a lot of fillers as well to preserve it. Would you eat it? If you wouldn’t eat it, why should your furry friend?
Canned foods aren’t bad for you. Some contain enough nutrition to deliver a decently balanced meal to your tummy. But a fresh, home cooked meal is always best. Yes, of course, canned foods are more affordable. Again, I recognize that we are privileged in our decision to go with fresh home cooked food.
Our puppy was eating dry kibble when we got her at 8 weeks. I even purchased a 20lb bag so that we can transition her into fresh food. However, as fate would have it, she was having some digestive issues right away—before we even fed her anything. I tried giving her some kibble before we took her to the vet, but she wasn’t even touching it—getting nowhere near it. She was diagnosed with possible colitis and was put on antibiotics immediately. So, since she was already having loose stool, the vet recommended that we transition her out of the dry kibble to whatever food of choice at 100% transition rate. A normal transition of food (even if you are switching from chicken to beef of the same brand), can take weeks. If you transition them too quickly, you can upset their stomachs. Their digestive system is very sensitive.
Since she was just a pup having digestive issues, we started her off on a bland diet from JFFD called Balanced Remedy. It’s a highly digestible, limited ingredient meal with high quality protein. She was on this diet for a few weeks until we felt her stools were on the more normal side of the spectrum. From there, we transitioned her over to their Chicken and White Rice recipe. This is one of two options for puppies. The other option is the Fish and Sweet Potato recipe.
She absolutely loves her food. I’ve had a taste of it and it’s pretty good—I mean, they are human-grade food
We get the Fresh Frozen meals, but they also offer PantryFresh meals as well. No refrigeration is required for the PantryFresh meals and they are shelf stable for up to 2 years!
There is a local JFFD store here in Downtown Los Angeles. They also sell JFFD at local pet stores such as Petco, so be sure to look it up on their website. Of course, you can also purchase online and have it shipped to you. I believe your first order is free shipping!
We’ve noticed a major difference in her coat. It’s super shiny and looks super healthy. The first signs of health on a dog is their fur. It’s what you see the most of at first glance. Her breath is decent as well. There’s also more hydration in fresh food so she’s plenty hydrated, in our opinion. We also add a little extra water to her meals too. Her energy level is great and we are slowly learning how to channel that energy into training and walks versus zoomies/witching hours.
Have you tried JFFD or Farmer’s Dog? How do you like it? Leave a comment or send me an email and let me know!
I hope you found this helpful, but really it was just an opportunity for me to talk about our puppy!
XOXO,
Karmen
Darling My Dearest 