First, I would like to compliment you on your newsletter. I subscribe to several dog-related newsletters/magazines and, after just two issues of Whole Dog Journal, consider yours the cream of the crop! Your articles are informative, well written and pertinent. Best of all, they don’t insult my intelligence. Please keep up the good work.
Regarding the article in the April issue titled “Are Premium Foods Worth It?”, I was quite surprised and somewhat disturbed that your list of foods did not include the “Innova” dog food manufactured by Natura Pet Products in Santa Clara, California (they are also the manufacturers of California Natural). Our household is run by four Golden Retrievers and one “who-knows-what,” all of whom we love dearly. Wanting them to have the best nutrition, we went in search of the best dog food on the market (short of cooking our own). Our search led us to Innova. I won’t take your time with the details, only to tell you that after switching from NutroMax to Innova, we observed a noticeable improvement in our dogs’ coats and overall health.
I should mention that I am not affiliated with Natura Pet Products in any way, except as a devoted customer!
-Jill Besl
via email
Thanks for your compliments, as well as for mentioning this great food. We didn’t (and couldn’t) list every dog food made by every manufacturer, and were more impressed with the California Natural food than the Innova. This isn’t intended to knock Innova at all; from all angles, it, too, looks like a truly “premium” dog food.
Compare its first 10 ingredients with the foods listed in the “Are Premium Foods Worth It?” article in the April issue: Turkey, chicken, chicken meal, whole ground barley, whole ground brown rice, whole steamed potatoes, ground white rice, chicken fat (preserved with natural vitamin E and vitamin C), herring meal, whole raw apples.
These are top-quality ingredients, and the rest of the label (including all of the rest of the ingredients) look just as good. Its guaranteed analysis: crude protein (min.) 24 %, crude fat (min.) 14 %, crude fiber (max.) 3.0 %, moisture (max.) 10 %.
We’ll repeat the phone number: Natura Pet Products, (800) 532-7261.
– Nancy Kerns, Editor
