# Taste of the Wild Dog Food



## Donna5503 (Mar 13, 2009)

Hi everyone...I posted a few days ago about Paul Newmans Dry Food. Didn't get any good vibes from the answers, and being my dog has sorta stopped liking it - I've decided to change. There are no stores close to me that carry premium brands & since I don't drive anymore, I've decided to have it delivered.

I've settled on Taste of the Wild - after researching & reading fellow dog owners posts. I've ordered 2 different flavors, does anyone mix them together - or should I just split it up - maybe 2 days one, 2 days the other, etc.

Thanks....just wondering


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## Niraya (Jun 30, 2011)

I probably wouldn't mix them up - if your dog has a problem with one of them you wouldn't be able to tell which one he is having a problem with.

I rotate different formulas but I do it on a bag to bag basis not a day to day basis. Once she finishes one bag I'll start a different bag of a different formula and so on. So probably around a month to two months depending on how long a bag lasts I change to a different formula.


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## Willowy (Dec 10, 2007)

Plus, once you open the bag the food starts to get stale. So it's best not to open one bag until the other is gone (or nearly gone, if you want to mix them for a few days). I do mix my cats' food but the dogs get one kind at a time.


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## RonE (Feb 3, 2007)

> I rotate different formulas but I do it on a bag to bag basis not a day to day basis. Once she finishes one bag I'll start a different bag of a different formula and so on. So probably around a month to two months depending on how long a bag lasts I change to a different formula.


I do the same thing.


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## Donna5503 (Mar 13, 2009)

Thanks everyone for your rapid responses ---- I will do the same. Do you feed Taste of the Wild?


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## RonE (Feb 3, 2007)

> Do you feed Taste of the Wild?


Yes I do. Esther can eat pretty much everything, but Molly gets a chronically dry coat on nearly anything with grain. So the get TOTW. I get it from a farm co-op that I drive past every day on my commute.


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## Niraya (Jun 30, 2011)

I also feed Taste of the Wild.


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## RonE (Feb 3, 2007)

BTW, please don't post the same thing on three different sub forums. It's confusing and annoying and sometimes a moderator will accidentally delete all of them.


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## Tofu_pup (Dec 8, 2008)

I mix the different formulas all the time and we've yet to have a bad reaction to any of them. Though High Prairie is not popular with my dogs.


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## kafkabeetle (Dec 4, 2009)

I also just rotate with each new bag, but I usually skip the Sierra Maintain one because it's very similar to High Prairie (for our purposes), with lower fat and protein. Sydney tends to do best on a higher fat food. Pacific Stream is lower too, but I just give her more eggs and fish oil while we're in that part of the rotation to compensate.


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## dustinshaw98 (Feb 22, 2012)

Rotating is a good idea. I rotate from processed to raw until my dog finally gets used to the BARF diet I'm trying to switch her to.


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## kadylady (Sep 23, 2010)

Niraya said:


> I probably wouldn't mix them up - if your dog has a problem with one of them you wouldn't be able to tell which one he is having a problem with.


This ^^ Luke does best on the Sierra Mountain and High Prarie, but does not do quiet as well on the Pacific Stream and Wetlands. I rotate his food every bag, which works out to about a new flavor every 6-7 weeks. I also include other brands.


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## krystina alayne (Jun 23, 2011)

my puppy started on taste of the wild. he ate that his whole first year! i liked that its grain-free, quality meat, and cheaper than most other foods in that genre. winston only seemed to like the salmon, but he would eventually eat the other kinds.


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## nfedyk (Jan 14, 2012)

TOTW has great customer service. I want to change Oliver over to a grain free food. I emailed them and asked for a free sample. They sent me a box with 8 packages of food. Gave Oliver a couple pieces as a treat yesterday and he loved it.


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## xxxxdogdragoness (Jul 22, 2010)

I used to feed TOTW but my dogs stopped eating it for some reason, I think it had something to do with the fact thy were getting very fishy with their ingredients.


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## Sloth (Jul 29, 2008)

...I guess my response was on one of the deleted threads. I had said that while TOTW is a very popular food on this forum, I don't think it belongs in the same category as other grain-free foods. When I have Belle on a grain-free food like Evo or Wellness Core, her....um...WARNING: OFFENSE (? maybe this is why it was deleted?) "elimination" is small. Not much there. I had read this is how it should be when feeding grain-free, as there's less waste because the dog can absorb it more. 

When she's on grain-filled foods, there's much more to her eliminations. Which, as far as I understand, is how it should be.

The exception is Taste of the Wild. When she's on TOTW, a grain-free food, her eliminations are just like the grain-filled foods.

TOTW is cheap compared to other grain-free foods. Why? What shortcuts are they taking? I just don't trust it...I'd rather go with Wellness CORE or Evo.


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## Niraya (Jun 30, 2011)

That may just be per your dog.

Bella has one elimination a day (two if I take her for a bike ride) and it is nothing compared to the 3-5 normal eliminations on other foods. Again it all could just be the dog.


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## xxxxdogdragoness (Jul 22, 2010)

Yeah why is that? Josefina does small poops on high quality grain free food, I was feeding TOTW but they started changing up their formula calling it 'new & improved' & 'better tasting' & my dogs started being "eh, *shrug*" about it so I was on merrick's BG line for a while but both of their foods have chicken as one of the main ingredients & i needed to switch protiens so I tried NVI with half a patty of Stella & Chewy's freeze dried raw in place of the canned & it's great! They love it, even the new rescue dog, Buddy eats it.


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## kadylady (Sep 23, 2010)

I was trying Back 2 Basics with Luke for awhile because I had a bunch of free samples and coupons. No grains, no potatoes. He had horrendous poop! The biggest he's ever had and 2-3 times a day. Large, gross. And I was feeding him slightly less than what he was getting of other foods. He's back on TOTW Sierra Mountain and within 3 days, his poop is back to small, regular poop on a 2 times per day schedule. So the higher quality, more expensive food didn't work well for him. This just furthers my belief that it totally depends on the dog and different dogs will do better with different foods.


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## momof3 (Nov 24, 2007)

Just wanted to add that EVO to me wouldn't be high quality since they just had a buy out and it shouldn't be long before you start seeing it in grocery stores and Walmart.


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## kafkabeetle (Dec 4, 2009)

Niraya said:


> That may just be per your dog.
> 
> Bella has one elimination a day (two if I take her for a bike ride) and it is nothing compared to the 3-5 normal eliminations on other foods. Again it all could just be the dog.


Agreed. Sydney processes it just like any other grain free food. It has a comparable amount of carbohydrate to WC. So, Sloth, it's cool if you're dogs don't do well on it but it's pretty unfair to say it shouldn't be in the same category as other GF foods just because of that. Different dogs react differently to certain foods. On my budget it's pretty much either she gets TOTW or no grain-free food at all. I'm very grateful to have it available as a low-priced alternative and to personally get the results I had hoped for.

And a quick side-by-side comparison:

EVO: 47% protein, 24% fat, 21% carbs
Wellness Core: 38% protein, 18% fat, 36% carbs
TOTW: 36% protein, 20% fat, 36% carbs


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## Tofu_pup (Dec 8, 2008)

kafkabeetle said:


> Agreed. Sydney processes it just like any other grain free food. It has a comparable amount of carbohydrate to WC. So, Sloth, it's cool if you're dogs don't do well on it but it's pretty unfair to say it shouldn't be in the same category as other GF foods just because of that. Different dogs react differently to certain foods. On my budget it's pretty much either she gets TOTW or no grain-free food at all. I'm very grateful to have it available as a low-priced alternative and to personally get the results I had hoped for.
> 
> And a quick side-by-side comparison:
> 
> ...


This! Food, like everything else, comes down to the individual. 

(Heck, there are people that end up anemic on my vegetarian diet)

Tyler and Ozzie do very well on TOTW. Though we recently found out that Wetlands is not a good food for them(Holy gas, batman!). I mixed the Sierra Mountain in and suddenly I can breathe again. Kaki is a different story. It's not that she doesn't do well on TOTW. But there's room for improvement. She eats much more than the daily recommended portion for a dog in her weight range and at 45lbs, she's at the very bottom of that weight category. 

She was on California Natural for a long time. Then we attempted a switch to Evo which was a disaster(poo on the walls...). After that, we made the switch to TOTW. I think she needs more fat in her diet but that fattier foods are $70 or more for a large bag. That's too much for my budget. She gets "extras" mixed in with her meals to supplement what TOTW isn't giving her, more fat.


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## kafkabeetle (Dec 4, 2009)

dogdragoness said:


> I used to feed TOTW but my dogs stopped eating it for some reason, I think it had something to do with the fact thy were getting very fishy with their ingredients.


May I ask what you mean by this?



dogdragoness said:


> Yeah why is that? Josefina does small poops on high quality grain free food, I was feeding TOTW but they started changing up their formula calling it 'new & improved' & 'better tasting' & my dogs started being "eh, *shrug*"


Do you mean when they took out the venison from High Prairie and when they started their puppy line? Because neither of those are really problematic changes as far as ingredients go. I don't remember ever seeing "new and improved" or "better tasting" on a bag, just "Now with more bison" or something like that.


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## donovalhernandez (Apr 2, 2012)

I think Rotating is good to do. I was trying to not give him higher quality food. Because it's did not working for him. He Wants some hard food 2 or 3 times in a day and its really good for him. so I was give him these kind of foods daily.


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## NewLabDoodle (Jun 20, 2011)

I'll look into this one, good thread!


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