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By ALMA J. BUELVA A startup dog food company, Escuin Pet Food Manufacturing, is making a strong pitch for raw feeding with its fresh line of frozen uncooked meat with vegetables and dog treats made from natural ingredients. Its brand, Natural Goodness Real Food for Dogs, hit the ground running at the start of the year with two ready-to-serve raw dog meals (chicken or beef) and three varieties of dog chews – pumpkin biscuits, chicken strips and sweet potato chips.  Look Ma, no cooking! Natural Goodness products from Escuin Pet Food Manufacturing. Necessity is the mother of invention and for Donna Escuin, a self-taught canine nutrition expert, she built Natural Goodness from the ground up to save her little dog Audrey from obesity due to unhealthy diet. Back in 2012, Audrey, a Pomeranian that should ideally weigh 2kgs max, tipped the scales at 4kgs. For a year, Audrey would see a vet every three weeks for check-ups and x-ray tests. As the dog got heavier, Donna's purse got lighter. Fast forward to 2016, Donna not only got her dog healthy again after putting her on a natural diet, she also left the corporate world for the kitchen where she developed her first batch of Natural Goodness products that are “homemade, human grade dog food that the consumers can trust,” she said.  MOM KNOWS BEST. Donna with Audrey showing off the fruit of their labor. (Photo by MetroPets) Aside from ground meat of fresh raw chicken or beef, every pack of frozen Natural Goodness Real Food for Dogs contains nutritious and calcium rich meaty bones such as necks, wings, and backs for chicken and ribs, necks, tail for beef. It also contains organ meats like liver and muscle meat such as thighs, tenderloin and hearts. For added nutrition and flavor, a cooled slow-cooked vegetable stew is added to the mix along with fresh eggs, virgin coconut oil, apple cider vinegar, raw honey, turmeric and malunggay. “We have four resident testers (two Pomeranians, an Aspin, and a cross-breed) plus dogs of breeder friends who tried our products and they loved them,” said Donna. A 2-kilo bag of frozen chicken doggie food costs P570, and P710 for beef. Donna gives discounts for bulk orders. For treats, Natural Goodness' sweet potato chips (with malunggay flakes) and pumpkin biscuits are both priced P120 each for a small bag, and P370 each for a big bag. A small pack of chicken strips costs P150 while the big pack sells for P450. The raw meals can be frozen for four months from manufacturing date, while the treats are good for one month when kept in room temperature not exceeding 30ºC, and two months in a refrigerator. She also keeps her products fresh by preparing them based on demand. Most of her initial customers are dog breeders. Donna arranges meet-ups at BF Homes Parañaque with customers who order the frozen doggie food. The treats, however, can be delivered to customers from Metro Manila for a minimum P60 shipping fee. A popular local online pet store is interested to carry Natural Goodness products, said Donna, adding that supplying to other retailer pet stores later may be the way to go to give her more time to focus on product development and marketing.  WHAT'S (not) COOKIN'? With Natural Goodness now in the market, Donna plans to enroll herself in an online course in Australia to formalize her education in canine nutrition to boost her and her products' credibility. To date, she has relied on her own intensive self-study on raw feeding and advice from veterinarians to come up with her own carefully balanced dog food close to the “natural prey model” of eating that is intrinsic in every dog. “I came to fall in love with the Biologically Appropriate Feeding method...I kept sharing my recipes in groups on Facebook. The only thing that saddened me was too many people I talked to would say they could not continue the diet because it was too much work. So, in my head I was like, okay I'll do it then,” said Donna. She believes raw feeding is gaining traction among local pet owners though misconceptions such as how bones will choke dogs or raw meat will turn them into blood-hunting monsters continue to dissuade others from trying it. Raw feeding advocates like her believe that switching a dog's diet of kibbles to raw food should be second nature. “All dogs are designed to consume raw so it should be natural for them to love this diet. However, when a dog is too accustomed to over processed kibbles or canned food, it may find it strange at first. If you are feeding cooked, try mixing some raw little by little. However it is not recommended to mix raw to a kibble because these two foods require a different level of acid to be digested and may confuse the dog's digestive system which may lead to upset stomach,” said Donna. The suggested amount of raw feeding is 3 percent of the dog's ideal weight, but Donna said it is best for a dog owner to first seek a veterinarian's expert opinion before changing a dog's diet and for how much more or less. “Feeding dogs raw food can start with one meal once a week. One natural meal a week is better than nothing,” she added. Meanwhile, she plans to move Natural Goodness' kitchen out of her house in the coming months and to open a Natural Goodness store next year. “We are a very small company—so small that the owner who answers the emails also does the cooking, packing and arranging shipping and meet ups,” Donna revealed. But she's not complaining because advocating raw feeding and offering alternative dog food is what she really wanted to do ever since she saw how it helped improve her dog Audrey's health. “I decided to go into this business to spread awareness and knowledge. To be able to offer much better option for pet owners to better care for their loved ones. If there are any Audreys out there suffering, I hope to help them through our product,” said Donna. YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN: * Mind your pet's caloric intake * A few words from two vets about dogs
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 By Alma J. Buelva INTRIGUED. That best sums up our motivation in learning more about and trying out the APT Formula Nutramix and the Little Mate Enermix rice additives for dogs. Manufactured in Australia and locally distributed by AVLI Biocare, Inc., the Apt Formula Nutramix and the Little Mate Enermix are unique dog food formulas that come as a concentrated meat powder. For big Fido's dining pleasure, add one heaping tablespoon of Nutramix to half a cup of cooked rice (for puppy) or up to two heaping tablespoons to two cups of cooked rice for large dogs that weigh more than 20 kilos. If you are a dog owner looking for a faster way to prepare your dog's meal (aside from just pouring out kibble onto their dish), then you'd appreciate the convenience of simply sprinkling of this rice additive on top of cooked rice. We know of dog owners who boil chicken or other kinds of meat that they cut into small pieces and mix with rice. Nutramix and Enermix completely do away with all that kind of mise en place while promising pet parents that the powder-rice combo is perfectly complete and balanced, if not healthier. We obtained sample packs of Nutramix and Enermix during a recent pet show and we enlisted our resident dogs to help us do this dog food product review. Our first dog reviewer is a full-grown black Labrador with the appetite of a hungry hound all the time. The second dog reviewer is a prissy, young Beagle who is always skeptical about new things, especially when it comes to food. So, here's how our “rice topping” looked like when we prepared it: And, here's what our “professional” doggies think of it: We purposely hid a very small piece of bone under the mountain of rice topped with Nutramix to see if our Labrador would ditch his warm meal once he discovered it. To our surprise, he simply took and dropped the bone on the floor and continued polishing off his bowl until there was nothing left. The Beagle, as we expected, was harder to impress. She gingerly inspected her dish and threw us a couple of reproachful looks for substituting her favorite boiled chicken rice diet with something “orange” (the color of the Enermix powder). Then she started tasting it and though she slowly got the hang of it, she eventually finished her first bowl of Little Mate Enermix meal. The next day, we made an effort to inspect how the dogs' digestive systems reacted to the new food. Fortunately for us, there was nothing gross to report. Brochures and advertisements about Nutramix and Enermix claim that this product packs the following: * Concentrated meat powder (30 kg of raw meat can produce 1 kg high protein concentrate) * Vitamins and minerals in concentrated powder form * Animal protein / meat sources that provide superior amino acid balance. * Full-fat soya (38% protein, 20% fat, linoleic acid, Vit. E, sulfur, choline and lecithin) * Maize flour that offers protein, fiber, antioxidant, Vit. B, magnesium and Omega-6 * Extruded corn-soya blend that is highly palatable and easily digestible * Corn flour * Arrowroot that gives 8% protein, 5% fiber. Vit. B, Vit. C, iron and magnesium * Cocoa butter with high percentage of saturated fats derived from stearic and palmitic acid, as well as omega fatty acids. * Bovine gelatin (with natural protein and used as binder) with amino acid such as proline, glycine, alanine and arginine. * Rosemary extract as antioxidant * Meat oil for flavor The low-salt products are available in liver, beef, lamb, venison and salmon flavors. The distributor claims one heaping tablespoon of Nutramix or Enermix added to a cup of cooked rice will provide your pet with 20 percent crude protein, 14 percent fat, 5.9 percent fiber, 7.5 omega-3 fatty acids, and 175 omega-6 fatty acids. It follows that by increasing the ratio of base mix to cooked rice, the nutritive value of the mix will also increase to suit a dog's physical requirements. Both products are also recommended as an appetite enhancer and supplement or additive to dry pet foods. You won't likely find them in supermarkets, but they should be available in select pet shops and pet clinics. Truth be told, we didn't find this product in popular pet supplies stores like Dog City or even in Tiendesitas' Pet Village, but AVLI Biocare said NutraMix and Enermix are sold in Pet Express branches.  Did you like this dog food product review? Please let us know by leaving a comment below or by posting a message in our Facebook account (MetroPets). Until next time... |
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