mgt818:
On the itchmo.com forum, the US sales manager for Orijen posted his e-mail address to answer questions. Here is the link to that board: http://itchmoforums.com/index.php?topic=311.60.

I am seriously looking at this food as well, and share your concerns about the protein. I read an excellent article in The Whole Dog Journal which said that senior dogs require more protein than the average adult dog, yet most senior formulas cut down the protein. This is why I really want to boost my dogs' food.  However, I just found out my oldest dog has hypothyroidism, so I have asked Clark if this food would be safe for him and his nutritionist is looking into it.

My vet thought 40% was a bit high, but suggested I slowly ease into it and then maybe mix 1/2 and 1/2 with the Canidae they are on now to bring the level down a bit. (I asked about this food before we discovered the hypothyroid problem.)  That said, I would think you could give a little less of the Orijen  and mix with Honest Kitchen. That would bring the protein level down a bit. You might want to ask Clark if that would unbalance the ratio. Also, there are a lot of botanical ingredients in the Orijen, and you might want to check the Honest Kitchen and see if there are any ingredients that might counteract the botanicals. Does that make sense?

Just came back from the vet. My boxer was in to have two small moles removed and biopsied as a precaution. Anyway, his pre-surgery blood work was clean as a whistle. His kidney values were great. I've been feeding him Canidae lamb & rice for a month now, with Canidae canned and Evangers duck & sweet potato or beef with beef chunks canned. We are in Rochester, NY so possible close enough to PA that we might have the same distributor?  Anyway, just thought I would post his results for any Canidae owners who are concerned about the food.

I'm glad to see that Pied Piper explained why they pulled the listing. I'm sure they and Canidae were inundated with calls and e-mails yesterday. I've been defending Canidae and their secrecy for a while now because I was pretty certain where their food was made and I have a legal background so I get confidentiality agreements. I just don't understand why they are doing such a poor job of PR during this mess. I too am sticking with Canidae and Evangers because I don't see anything better out there. I was looking at Orijen, but the high protein and "meals" scare me off. Don't like Kumpi's ingredients although Evy has been forthcoming on the blogs. Not ready to go raw. So until there is a problem with Canidae, I'm just chalking it up to a small company with no PR department not prepared to handle this crisis.

I'm just trying to make it more like what they are used to eating. I didn't want to make any radical changes. The brochure that came with it made it sound like it could give them diarrhea and would take their intestines a while to adjust to raw. I'm just looking for flavorful food that I can trust, not necessarily the nutritional benefits of raw. So I'd like to avoid the diarrhea and not upset their systems if I can help it. I thought cooking it might minimize that?

This is going to sound like a stupid question, but can you cook HK food? I bought a few of the small bags as a backup to canned food. I don't really want to switch my dogs to raw because one has a sensitive stomach and the other two are older dogs. I bought it because they seem safe and I like the ingredients. I plan on using it periodically to mix with their kibble for variety and flavor. I'm not sure how you would cook it? Any suggestions?

My mother was feeding this to her 6 yr old boxer over the fall based on a recommendation from the pet food store. In October she was diagnosed with lymphoma and died one month later. Seeing how Evolve is not responding to Terese's inquiries, I'm getting suspicious. Now my mother didn't ask the vet a lot of questions, because she could see the dog was having trouble breathing and had lumps and swollen glands. And her vet is very "old school". But I can't help but wonder if there was something bad in the food.

My three dogs have been getting Evangers canned along with their Canidae dry now for about a week. I have a case of the duck & sweet potato and a case of the beef with beef chunks. They really love it. The beef formula really smells like roast beef. So far I'm really happy with their food, and so are the dogs who drool like crazy when I open the can. I paid $1.29 and $1.39 a can for it, which isn't really any different than the Wellness they used to get. I'm looking forward to trying some other flavors too (for the dogs, I'm not eating them, but I bet I could).

By the way, I read on another site that Metro Pet is a subsidiary of Pied Piper, so I wouldn't consider them to be an independent source of information.

Their cannery is Evangers. I've seen that in several places on the web, and one poster from IL said she knew for certain it was.

I've also seen references to Pied Piper on the web, and the similarities in how each company describes the plant and the fact that they just expanded match up as well. I wrote them to ask if Diamond manufactured their food, and they just answered "no".

I wish they'd just answer the question as well, but many manufacturers (especially chemical companies) sign contracts with confidentiality clauses when they are manufacturing for someone else under their name. So Canidae is probably afraid of being sued if they release the name and something is wrong with the food. I know it sucks from a PR perspective but from a legal perspective they are just covering their ass. They've invested a significant amount of money in this plant it sounds like and if Pied Piper sues them for breach of contract they are out a manufacturer. Sucks sometimes thinking like a lawyer.

It also sounds like in Pied Piper's response they are confirming it in a backhanded way. If they weren't a client, they wouldn't need permission, would they?

I just want to clarify that the point of my post was not to scare people off from Wellness.  Everyone has to do their own homework and figure out what is best for them. There are still people out there who don't know Menu makes some Wellness canned and I wanted to make them aware.(Or they are misled by Wellness' statement that none of their food is made in Menu's Emporia plant.)

 That said, I read in a post on Itchmo that if your Wellness cans have a code that begins or ends in "S1", the can was made by Menu. Apparently this poster was told that Wellness has one facility on the east coast (Menu) and a different one on the west coast. I checked the 6 cans I had left in the closet and they all have S1 on them. I'm glad I didn't open them.

After reading a post on itchmo, I thought I should post this here so people are aware.  Wellness does use Menu Foods to manufacture "some" of their canned formulas. They would never tell me which formulas. They told me that they use Menu's NJ plant (but not to worry because that plant wasn't involved in the recall--NOT TRUE).  They also gave different answers to me and my husband as to where their dry food is manufactured. My pet store was given a completely different answer.  So beware of any answers they give you--chances are the next person you talk to will tell you something different.

JC,
First, my condolences on your loss. I can't imagine your pain having to endure this.

Melamine? That is incredible. I'm sure they didn't give any possible answers as to how it got in there, considering they don't use any wheat. If it is cross-contamination, I'm glad I by-passed all Diamond food out of that exact fear and went to Canidae. Unfortunately, one dog doesn't seem to like the Canidae anymore and another dog has vomited twice now, so the hunt for the perfect food continues.

I switched my dogs from Wellness to Canidae, and so far the oldest dog has thrown up twice. I'm starting to research other options if he doesn't tolerate the Canidae.

After much research, I switched my 3 dogs from Wellness to Canidae lamb & rice dry and canned. I was also supplementing with Natural Balance canned, but not anymore after reading today where American Nutrition gets their protein. So I just wanted to double-check that I'm not missing something bad and/or objectionable about Canidae. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'm not!

If anyone missed the message I posted in the blog, I'm reposting it here:

When I was reading can labels at my Petco, I noticed that several brands of Natural Balance canned food still listed menadione (synthetic vitamin K) as an ingredient, but the NB website did not show it. I e-mailed the company to ask about it, and a nutritionist responded as follows:

“Please know that our Canned Formulas no longer contain menadione, as they now contain Vitamin K1, which is a more natural formula of Vitamin K. When making changes mid run, we have to use our older lables/packaging, while our new ones are reprinted. Our website, has the most updated ingredient listing.”