# Realtree dog food 30/25



## Shell (Oct 19, 2009)

While my other two recent commentaries/reviews on food were based on one bag each, I am on my 4th bag of Realtree. It is the retail version of Inukshuk, made by Corey Pet Foods in Canada. Inukshuk is found from some online retailers but is mainly sold by the pallet or half pallet. Realtree has what I consider kind of silly branding, but can be found at Tractor Supply during hunting season and at a few other retailers.

Ingredients----
Chicken Meal (Natural Source of Glucosamine), Chicken Fat (Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols (Source of Vitamin E), Fish Meal (Herring and Anchovy – natural source of Glucosamine), Ground Whole Grain Corn, Whole Brown Rice, Ground Whole Grain Wheat, Dried Whole Egg, Chicken Liver, Dried Beet Pulp (Sugar Removed), Dried Brewer’s Yeast, Herring Oil (Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols – Source of Vitamin E), Kelp Meal, Malted Barley Flour, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Calcium Propionate, Flax Meal, Taurine, Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Sulfate, L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate (Source of Vitamin C), Zinc Methionine, 3 Yucca Schidigera Extract, L-Lysine Hydrochloride, Niacin Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Copper Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Riboflavin (B2), Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Iodate, Vitamin D-3 Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate (B1), Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (B6), Cobalt Sulfate, Folic Acid, Beta-Carotene, L-Carnitine, Selenium Yeast, Biotin, Vitamin B-12 Supplement, Vitamin E Supplement.

It is a very dense kibble both in terms of calories and weight, the kibble is dark colored and about the size of a pencil eraser. It smells very meaty. It has corn and wheat which some people are not fans of but i think the proportion of corn and wheat is lower than in many kibbles that contain corn as unlike when feeding some more corn heavy brands, the dogs are doing very well with it. I like that it has selenium yeast vs sodium selenanite as i understand the yeast to be better digested/absorbed. Using chicken meal and fish meal is better than whole chicken and fish in the sense that they account for higher proportions of the food since they have less water weight. 

When the dogs first started eating it, they pooped several times a day which made me wonder about the food but then they got settled on it and the high fat content seems to have kept their coats and skin well for the winter. I started feeding this around November and have fed it since except for about 5 weeks in between. I think it would be a good food for a hard keeper.

Retail seems to be about $55 for a 33 lb bag. Calorie wise, it ends up a bit cheaper per serving than the price/weight numbers seem.


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## Little Wise Owl (Nov 12, 2011)

Thanks for the review. I was checking out this food the other day.


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## Shell (Oct 19, 2009)

Little Wise Owl said:


> Thanks for the review. I was checking out this food the other day.


Eva would eat cardboard if i presented it to her as treat. But while Chester is still a food hound, he ranges from mildly pleased with the food to wildly happy. Raw tripe gets the wildly happy but surprisingly this food gets a reaction just a bit toned down from raw. He tries to stick his nose in the storage bin and eat from the serving scoop rather than waiting by his food bowl like for most kibbles. He eats all the kibbles pretty steadily, but he seems more interested in this one than most.


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## luv mi pets (Feb 5, 2012)

Shell said:


> Eva would eat cardboard if i presented it to her as treat. But while Chester is still a food hound, he ranges from mildly pleased with the food to wildly happy. Raw tripe gets the wildly happy but surprisingly this food gets a reaction just a bit toned down from raw. He tries to stick his nose in the storage bin and eat from the serving scoop rather than waiting by his food bowl like for most kibbles. He eats all the kibbles pretty steadily, but he seems more interested in this one than most.


I think no matter how much you pay for a bag or what the ingredients are, the real tester is the dog. How well the dogs do on it and if they like it. I will have to look for this one and see how my dogs like it.


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## Inga (Jun 16, 2007)

Interesting thread. I wish more people would do honest reviews of food they chose to feed. Sadly, so often everyone thinks their dog is "doing good" on everything and maybe they are. ha ha 

I came across a food the other day at the petfood warehouse called "Real Meat" It is by the Real Meat company. I purchased a bag as training treats as it is quite costly. I wouldn't be able to afford to feed this as a general daily food. It as around $19.00 for a 2 lb bag (yes, you read that right) That said, the ingredients look pretty good and for treats it will be great. Lamb, Lamb Lung, Lamb liver, Lamb Heart, Parsley, pumpkin, Rosemary, Inulin (from Chicory Root) Ground Lamb Bone. All ingredients from the US. Have you ever tried this food?


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## Shell (Oct 19, 2009)

Inga-- I have not heard of it. Sounds like it is maybe a dehydrated food? I have used lamb lung as treats before and that was very high value. Higher than home-dehydrated turkey heart to give a comparison.

Beef or lamb etc lung isnt sold for human consumption in the US, but i have eaten it myself in other countries and consider it a good meat source for the dogs.


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## Kathyy (Jun 15, 2008)

Inga said:


> Interesting thread. I wish more people would do honest reviews of food they chose to feed. Sadly, so often everyone thinks their dog is "doing good" on everything and maybe they are. ha ha
> 
> I came across a food the other day at the petfood warehouse called "Real Meat" It is by the Real Meat company. I purchased a bag as training treats as it is quite costly. I wouldn't be able to afford to feed this as a general daily food. It as around $19.00 for a 2 lb bag (yes, you read that right) That said, the ingredients look pretty good and for treats it will be great. Lamb, Lamb Lung, Lamb liver, Lamb Heart, Parsley, pumpkin, Rosemary, Inulin (from Chicory Root) Ground Lamb Bone. All ingredients from the US. Have you ever tried this food?


I bought it to use for training treats and it was a flop. The cubes were too hard to swallow easily during training and Max kept upchucking the pieces. I used it of course, great in a puzzle toy. Since only small amounts were used daily I couldn't say whether it actually suited his gut or not.


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## Willowy (Dec 10, 2007)

Is it OK for not-terribly-active old dogs to have such a high-fat food? I've been dissatisfied with my dogs' coats lately, and their muscle tone seems to be lacking a bit too (maybe because of less exercise this winter or age or. . .?). So I was looking for a higher protein and fat food. But 25% fat seems extra high, idk. Maybe I'll go back to DN Extreme Athlete.


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## Shell (Oct 19, 2009)

Willowy said:


> Is it OK for not-terribly-active old dogs to have such a high-fat food? I've been dissatisfied with my dogs' coats lately, and their muscle tone seems to be lacking a bit too (maybe because of less exercise this winter or age or. . .?). So I was looking for a higher protein and fat food. But 25% fat seems extra high, idk. Maybe I'll go back to DN Extreme Athlete.


25% is high compared to most kibble, but on a dry matter basis, its lower or comparable to a lot of raw diets. I wouldn't necessarily want to go from a 10% fat kibble to a 25% fat kibble, but I'd think that if a dog eats 18-20% fat kibble on a normal basis, that he'd be fine with a bit more fat. 

I ran a few sample numbers from pre-made raw: 
Stella and Chewy's beef has 12% fat and 68% moisture so on a dry-matter comparison, its 37.5% fat. 
Bravo Basics Chicken would be 34% fat, dry-matter and the duck would be 41% fat
K-9 Kraving Beef and vegetable would be 49% fat dry-matter basis (62% moisture, 18% fat listed in the analysis)


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## Losech (Apr 5, 2011)

Willowy said:


> Is it OK for not-terribly-active old dogs to have such a high-fat food? I've been dissatisfied with my dogs' coats lately, and their muscle tone seems to be lacking a bit too (maybe because of less exercise this winter or age or. . .?). So I was looking for a higher protein and fat food. But 25% fat seems extra high, idk. Maybe I'll go back to DN Extreme Athlete.


Diamond Naturals Extreme Athlete is 25% fat too. If your dog did fine on that, they should be fine with the fat in the Real Tree as well.

The highest fat percentage I've seen in a kibble is Inukshuk's 32/32 formula. I wouldn't feed that to a dog that wasn't really active. I regularly feed 20%-25% kibbles to my dogs without problems, but I think the 32% would be pushing it a bit.


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## Willowy (Dec 10, 2007)

Oops, I was thinking Extreme Athlete was 30/20 but it is 32/25. They haven't had it in years, not since when I was having trouble keeping weight on them in the winter. I'm just thinking about pancreatitis but I don't even know if that's high enough to cause a problem or if it has to be something super high-fat like fried chicken skins. 

They've been on Kirkland (26/16) for a while now and I felt like it's not working for them anymore. 2 of the 3 are eating poop all of a sudden and all of their coats look less-than-great. I sort of worried about the food because of their recall history so I picked up some Sportmix Wholesomes but that's only 26/16 too . I'd prefer something around 30/20 I think. Back to reading labels.


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## ctn830 (Jan 25, 2014)

I had my dog on Kirkland but I stopped because of the recalls and online horror stories. But he did like it a lot. I now have my pointer on native dog food. He doesn't go crazy for it and I'm not crazy but his coat but it is rated very well.


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