Sojos Beef Recipe Complete Adult Dog Food Trial Package, 4 Oz

Note that I had to reduce this review down to 2 stars. After being on this food for around 3 weeks, my dog lost 4 pounds. I've since been supplementing his raw diet with Orijen. He gets a handful of kibble added for each meal. He's gained back 2 of the pounds so far.Original review below...I have that dog. The ultra skinny one. Not a day goes by where I don't overhear comments or get questions about the boy."OMG, look ... look over there. That dog is sooo skinny!""Do you feed your dog?""Is he a rescue?""You realize your dog is skinny?"About the boy. He's a vizsla pup that is a year and 3 months old and still intact. He has an older Vizsla brother who is in exceptional shape. When I got the first one, I thought, "No problem I got this.". I'm active, so I figured a Vizsla would be no problem. For the first year of his life, I kept asking myself "What have I done?". Fast forward a few years later and I thought adding another would make life better all around. Especially for those times where the older boy was left home alone. Who doesn't like a little company? Having been battle hardened, I figure, "Vizsla ... no problem. I got this". Ohhh boy was I wrong. Whereas people had previously told me the first one was "tiring just to watch", this new guy is 10X the fireball than his "more tame" brother ever was. He just never stops. Nap, sure he'll sneak one in. But if he senses you've moved an inch, its go time. I'm back to the "What have I done?". It appears that as a consequence of all this non-stop activity, he just burns through the calories.Ahh, but what calories? The boys are on a raw diet. The younger was getting 2 lbs of food a day for his meals. Yep 2 lbs. This doesn't include snacks which usually is either a bully stick or beef tendon plus other treats. I was looking for a supplemental food (to help ease the costs a bit) for the time being until he "slows" down in both his metabolism and activity. Rather than going the kibble route, I was hoping for a freeze dried food. And that is when I came across the Sojos. It seemed like a good candidate.Upon opening the package, the first thing that I noticed was that it looked like just powder. I wondered if this was the right product, since it didn't look like there where chunks of anything. Sticking my hand in and moving things around, I did indeed come across chunks. My guess is the high proportion of powder is due to transit and he bag getting tossed around. In the long run, it really doesn't matter because when rehydrated, the whole mix is just one soft gruel/stew like concoction (even the "chunks"). A good sign was that both boys perked up the second the bag opened.I made my first batch and the verdict ... dogs loved it. Although only the pup really got to eat it. I started off by adding the serving size for a 10 lb hyperactive dog on top of the 2 lbs of raw food.And this is where the problems began. Or rather I should say problem, singular. There is one main issue. This food has turned my dog into a poop factory. Prior to this, he pooped only the in morning only during his morning run. Granted he went 2-3 times during that run, but I treat that more or less as a "single poop session". Now, he poops almost every time he goes out to pee on top of this poops during his run.Wake up in the morning. It's been a while, better go poop.Middle of the day? Why not, it's sunny. Wait, it's raining? Nothing goes better with rain than poop.After dinner? But of course, volume in means volume out!End of the day? Why not, it's dark, you'll never find it.At this point, my main anxiety in life is being caught without poop bags (a roll lasts 2 days).Perhaps it's a Vizsla thing, because I was talking to a friend that also has a Vizsla and she said her boy also ended up just pooping all the time when on this food.It seems to me that he isn't really digesting/absorbing all the calories and nutrients from this food. There is so much volume and his poop does look very similar to the food. I should note, I've tried several variations of giving this to him. At this point, I make 2 days worth the night before. He gets some with each meal (he eats twice a day). This is within their instructions for optimal digestion of their food.He's now been on this food for around 3 weeks. On top of his normal 2 lbs of raw food, he's eating a serving size for a 21-40 lb dog worth of Sojos. He's still super skinny. I'm currently looking at some other options for food. The older boy used to eat Orijen prior to going raw, so I may just fall back to that as the supplement.I'm not saying this food is all around bad. Clearly it would be a 4-5 star based on taste judging from the boys reactions. However, based on the net results upon the little terror, I question the the digestibility of this food and give it a 3 stars.My recommendation if you haven't tried this food yet would be to get the smallest bag possible and make sure your dog can really digest this properly. If the poops are voluminous, move on to a different food. Also, I read one comment indicating her thoughts on the softness of the food and that being problematic to teeth. I'd tend to have to agree with that comment. The final consistency of this product once hydrated is like a gruel. There is 0 resistance your canine buddy will need to bite through, which isn't good for their teeth in the long run. The boys get parts of a chicken carcass daily, so their teeth and jaws are properly utilized. If you do decide to make this your food of choice, I'd highly recommend you supplement their diet with items that will work out their teeth.

After transitioning from Natural Balance Duck and Potato, we've gone through several bags of Sojo's Turkey over the course of several months, so I feel I can write a fair review.Our dogs are small poodle mixes, rescue dogs, weighing 10 lb., 10 lb. and 7 lb. We follow the Sojo instructions mixing water to food in the recommended 2:1 ratio. We feed twice a day. I've spoken to customer service a few times with questions and they've been super nice, although they didn't always have helpful answers.Impressions: The food smells great (even to me!) and the dogs go bonkers for it. They love every bite.Sojo's has variable consistency - some bags were a powdery consistency - creating a mush when mixed with water. These are the best bags - everything becomes part of the thick mush.Other bags have big chopped pieces of veggies/meat - these are not my favorite bags. The added water hydrates the pieces and then creates a ton of watery gravy - too much fluid to feed the dogs.After a month our dogs each lost a pound of body weight. They had no body fat to lose so it was a bit distressing. They warn that fat/weight will come off a dog after switching to Sojo's and then an appropriate amount of weight will be gained back. Our dogs never gained it back. I was feeding the amount recommended for dogs up to 12 lbs (which should be more than enough food for our pups).Despite this, for an hour or two before each meal time all three pups were clearly in distress - shaking, quivering, starving. This went on for many weeks before I decided there is something lacking in this food. (I didn't know if this was excitement for the yummy food or actual weakness/lack of energy, so I gave it some time.) I even tried feeding more than the 12 lb. dog amount - enough to supposedly sustain a much bigger dog - and still they were quivering and weak (and our dog food budget was taking a big hit).I should mention that during this time, in an attempt to maintain a Sojo's-only diet, I bought Sojo's Grain-free and added some of that to the turkey blend in their bowl. The Grain-free deserves a review of it's own, but let's just say it's pretty smelly. It's smells strongly of broccoli. Not bad thing, just smelly.I have slowly transitioned them back to a mix of the two Sojo's and Natural Balance (ratio of 2:1). Now our pups are happy again, they aren't shaking and panicked at meal time.The claim that dogs will have better teeth and better breath... Sojo's breath does seem a bit nicer (due to the parsley I assume) but their teeth were not cleaner. I imagine a professional cleaning plus feeding Sojo's exclusively might result in teeth staying cleaner. Feeding this food doesn't change the current cleanliness of their teeth (though their customer service rep tried to spin it this way).Sojo's has high water content so our dogs urinated constantly. That's a good thing for their kidneys, but a bad thing for our little guy who can't hold his pee. He had a million accidents while on Sojo's.Sojo's has high fiber content so our dogs became poop machines. Non-stop poop makers. This is good for their anal glands, but it really gave me and our septic system a run for its money (we dispose of their feces in the toilet). Tell-tale was the comment by our groomer when we picked up our little 7 pounder: "He did a human size poop. How did he have all that in him?" Exactly. That's Sojo's.And the worst, most telling, example that Sojo's didn't provide adequate nutrition... About 4 hours after eating, our little guy would go out to the dog yard and chew on old Sojo's poop. There are visible bits of undigested veggies in Sojo's poop (from the Grain-free) and he would pick them apart and eat them. He was starving. Now that Natural Balance is mixed into his meals he no longer eats poop. He's happy and content. [Only on an all-Sojo's diet did he have this pica behavior. The veggie bits are still in the feces, but he has no interest and no need to eat them. Another spin from customer service: "The dogs love Sojo's so much I've heard they will eat the poop." Now we know the pica behavior is driven by hunger, not passion.]I equate Sojo's to the old saying about eating Chinese food "two hours later, you're hungry".In any case, I think we're all very happy now with the mix of food. They have lots of yummy veggies, some turkey and the kibble that sustains them. I wish Sojo's was enough, but it's not. I'm glad to have found a solution without giving up Sojo's altogether. And so are our dogs.UPDATE 072013: We've been feeding this combination for a good while now and we just took one of our dogs in for a dental cleaning. The vet was surprised to realize our dog has a bunch of teeth that are loose but not diseased. She said the dog needs something to chew on for resistance, to help strengthen the teeth. She recommended we feed a raw chicken wing as a meal once or twice a week. This is a vet who sells ONLY Sojos food. So, be aware that feeding an extremely soft, wet raw food may affect your dog's health both positively and negatively.

Smells like cup noodles. There are chunks of meat which i like... I used it to mix with grandma lucy artisan pork. My goldie eats almost anything. She enjoys it.

My dogs love it. Only catch - has to pay custom duty as its shipped from the US. Didn't expect and it was not specified at checkout.

Our bischon was not a fan

Great quality, great service. I am a repeat buyer from this seller. My dogs look and act healthier now that they are being fed sojos.