Sojos Dehydrated Raw (from Chewy) vs Farmer's Dog (factory direct)

I've mentioned before that Katy has been eating Sojo's for most of her life. It's a dehydrated raw diet:

https://www.sojos.com/complete/sojos-complete-senior-food-turkey-salmon-recipe

I had another dog (a beagle mix) that was special needs, and at a young age the vet said that he probably wouldn't make it to 10 years old and would probably die of liver failure. I switched from Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul kibble to Sojos for him, and of course gave the same thing to Katy. She was probably 3 years old when she started it.

I used to buy from the local small business, but after several times of going to pick it up and she was out of stock, I eventually gave up and started ordering from Chewy.com (owned by PetSmart).

Now, I usually don't trust big box stores. I know that they sell 2nd and 3rd quality products, so it's not the same as what you see in the higher quality stores. But I didn't have much of a choice.

One thing I learned with Chewy was that, about every other time I ordered, the bag would come in opened!! So I'd have to report it and send them pics, then they would send a new bag.

(When Katy had her stroke, it was 2 or 3 days after opening a new bag from Chewy. I'm still not entirely convinced that there wasn't mold or something in the bag that caused her stroke.)

Then a few weeks ago, about halfway through a bag of food, Katy just stopped wanting to eat. She would come over with interest, sniff it, and walk away! Now THAT was scary, because refusing food is usually the first sign of organ failure. And when that happens, you might have a week or two before they're gone :-( But she was eating her treats happily, and if I scrambled her an egg then she would eat it happily. So she wasn't refusing ALL food, just the Sojos.

There's another variable here: I had recently discovered that my water had a pH of 5.8-6.0, and I'd been adjusting it to 7.0 using baking soda. I initially did this for my girlfriend who was having bad acid reflux, but after reading the advantages of alkaline water I was giving the adjusted water to Katy, too. And mixing her food with it. A thread on here led me to realize that I was inadvertently increasing her sodium intake by WAY too much!

First step, I tried crushing up a few of her treats and sprinkling it on top of her food. Then she would eat it, but afterward she would just lay around and sleep. Eventually, she stopped eating even with treats sprinkled on top.

Next, I got her a new bag of food. She still wouldn't eat. At this point she was literally sleeping for 22 hours a day, only waking up for brief periods to potty or eat a treat. She was clearly having hip pain, too, which I attributed to arthritis.

This was when I learned about the baking soda issue, so I changed her to distilled bottled water (Springtime brand) with a pH of 7.0. That had no noticeable impact on her eating, but some of her pain did go away.

So next step, I bought some Instinct Raw + Kibble from the local PetSmart and sprinkled that on top:

https://instinctpetfood.com/dog/raw-kibble/

This time she would eat the kibble, but stopped when she got to the Sojos. So after a few meals with the same result, I just abandoned the Sojos and just gave her the kibble... she ate with interest, and wasn't sick after!

I ordered Farmer's Dog after that:

https://www.thefarmersdog.com/

I started it yesterday (half Instinct kibble, half Farmer's Dog, then just Farmer's Dog for breakfast this morning).

Immediately, I can see a difference. She's eating with excitement, she's alert more throughout the day, and she's wanting to play again! And even though she's still struggling to stand up, it's nowhere near as bad as before... which makes me think that her pain was more intestinal or kidneys rather than joint.


My takeaways:

1. Was the initial issue with Sojos food, Chewy, or just the adjusted water? I don't know. Sojos could have just gone down in quality like Chicken Soup did, but it could also be that Chewy is selling older, lower quality versions of Sojos. Or it could be that Katy associated the Sojos with the adjusted water and didn't want it. I guess I'll never know.

2. Katy seemed happy with the $35 Instinct, but improved even more when she got the $150 Farmer's Dog. Was the reason for the improvement simply that more time had passed, or did the higher quality food really have that much of an impact? I don't know.

Moving forward, though, I'm operating under the theory that factory-direct will always give me the first quality product and big box stores will always give me the lowest quality, so I'm sticking with Farmer's Dog. It's a bit of work to separate it, and I'm going to have to buy a chest freezer to store that much frozen food, but I want her to have the absolute best quality that I can find.

 

I'm in North Wilkesboro, NC... a small town about 2 hours North of Charlotte. Unfortunately, there's nothing cool like that 'round these here parts! LOL At one point (a few years ago) I did talk to a local butcher about it, but by time I bought all of the meat, veggies, and supplements, it became cost prohibitive.

I'm not familiar with Blue Ridge Beef, but since I'm in the Blue Ridge mountains... their NC facility is in Statesville, about an hour away! That's interesting.

 

The drama of living in a small town, though... the closest store is 1 hour and 15 minutes away :-/ There's only one pet store within a 30 minute drive (not counting PetSmart), which is where I used to buy Sojos. It's only barely larger than a shed, though, and I know they don't have room for refrigerated or frozen food.

I checked for raw or fresh from all of my local grocery stores, too. The only thing they had was Fresh Pet, but that's pretty commercial so I chose to order Farmer's Dog instead.

 

Kinda what we've been talking about, too. Farmer's Dog sends 42 days worth at a time (so 21 packs), and I could barely find room for 7! So I'm gonna have to do something for storage, no matter what.

I don't really have a place to put a chest freezer (the garage is the best place, but it only has a 15A breaker and my hybrid car takes 15A! So nothing left over for a freezer), but I'm looking at remodeling the laundry room to see if I can find a place for it.

 

I wanted to give you an update:

First off, Katy just turned 13! And she's doing great, no long term symptoms of her stroke at all

She's still enjoying Farmer's Dog, and eating with gusto! But! After awhile she started having diarrhea almost every time she ate. Some research led me to a Purina probiotic, and with that the diarrhea went away immediately! So now I give her one of those each day, sometimes 2 in a day if she has diarrhea.

I obviously don't love having to give her another supplement, but she loves the food and I'm relatively confident that it's a good quality for her.

Oh, and for storage? I ended up just dumping everything in my freezer that wasn't important, and roughly half of it is devoted to her food now! LOL