My ST Bernard never adjusted to this food, would not digest it at all.

Our dog uses the lamb&rice with great success. For those of you with your dog's having
diarrhea problems, my question would be, did you slowly start introducing the new food
into their diets by using less of the other food and slowly increasing the amount of new
food? If you make an abrubt change that can cause that issue.

Nature's Recipe... for DIARRHEA!
Ever since our three month old puppy has been eating Nature's Recipe, he's had the runs. Took him to the vet to look for parasites, but none were found. The vet told us it is most likely the food. Maybe your dog won't have diarrhea and gas on Nature's Recipe, but it looks like a lot of people have experienced the same problem as we did. We're now switching the Blue Buffalo dog food.

Let me start off by saying - and I am ASHAMED to admit this - that when we brought our 5 year old Golden home from the shelter, we kept her on the Beneful that they had been feeding her. I know, I know. I might as well have fed her sawdust. But it's what the adoption agency was feeding her so I figured it was okay. Boy, I'll NEVER make that mistake again!!!

Anyway, Nature's Recipe came to the rescue - after I tried Purina One, Purina Pro Plan, and Blue Buffalo. She would try those for one or two months and then lose interest. I mean she would go a whole day without eating. Thankfully, we were at the very end of the 30 lb. bag of BB before she stopped eating it and became lethargic. So, out comes the Nature's Recipe, and I have my playful dog back. And it is one food she eats consistently.

We started her on the Easy to Digest formula (dry) because of the problems she had while on the Beneful. Now, she is devouring the Farm Stand Selects.

Oh, and the breath treats work VERY WELL!

My large-breed dog has been fed "Nature's Recipe" Adult Lamb Meal & Rice exclusively for about five years. Her stools are reasonably compact; diarrhea is only a problem if she accidentally eats something -- like six huge blueberry muffins from Costco that were not put away!

As far as I know, this was one of the few generally available dry dog food brands that was never recalled for melamine contamination.

The ingredients are not ones that are known to usually cause allergies and the price is manageable. (An 80-pound dog can go through a 40-lb. bag of dog food a lot quicker than you think!) PetsMart often has sales on this and overall is cheaper than Petco, I think. All in all, a good compromise for us.

I've been feeding my dog Nature's Recipe her whole life. I was turned on to the food by my cousin who feeds it to his pit bull and swears by it. My baby is now 2 and as healthy as ever! She has the cleanest teeth I have ever seen and her breath is not bad. Her coat has always been very shinny. She is a hyper and full of life dog. She loves the taste ( or at least I assume she does, she basically inhales it!). I have always been very happy with this product. The only thing that I am not happy about though is every once and a while she will get bad gas, but it usually doesn't last long. The training treats they make are also great! She can't get enough of them!

I recently switched my German Shepherd to Nature's recipe (from Canidae) and he has been having harsh allergic reactions towards this dog food. His entire muzzle no longer has fur because he has been finding every place to scratch it- from the ground, to grass, to the side of buildings, and even our feet. I cannot be certain it is the food, but I have switched him back to Canidae, and he seems to be improving. I have also added Omega 3 Fish Oil and Vitamin E tablets to his diet and he's slowly recovering. This food is not worth the price. My poor dog!

My dog loves this food and i am happy with the vegetarian recipie, not just because i am vegan. My dog's coat has improved, her breath smells better, she seems more active, flexible and she is not constipated. There are no fillers like corn, it is humane, and i even tasted it myself. I reccomended the brand and product to my friend and her dog enjoyed it too!

I recently started giving Natures Recipe Lamb and Rice brand to my greyhound. What a huge mistake that was!

He has had chronic diarrhea, horrible gas, and has been vomiting ever since he started on this garbage.

Buyer beware!!!!

My 11 yr old dachshund seems to be doing better on it. I am using the vegetarian recipe. Mixed with Wellness canned (that's what they were on before). Her stomache issues seem to be calming down. And a by-benefit...her breath is improving! She seems to have more energy (but she is also getting a joint supplement). Now my 2 yr old beagle mix is being very picky lately. She eats different brand for a while and then suddenly quits eating it. I'm not really sure how she likes Nature's Recipe...we have been hand feeding her (I know)...but, she won't eat out of her bowl. She wouldn't touch the Wellness even hand fed! Don't really know what to do with her. I've researched all kinds of dog food. I want to give my dogs the best because I want to look out for their health. Through trial and error, I am finding out that the "premium" 5 -6 star foods may not be the best for your dog. As said on here before, every dog is different. The dachshund gives NR 4 stars...for the beagle 3 stars.

Nature's Recipe was no good for my dog.

My dachshund mix puppy was on this food for about 4 months. She didn't seem to like the taste much and rarely ate a normal amount of food for her size. She had pretty bad gas everyday. She had diarrhea every few weeks. I liked the ingredients and the price, but it didn't seem to agree with my dog.

I don't think it's fair to judge a food based on one dog's reaction to it, so give it a try if it sounds like a good food for your dog!

i'd just like to say half of the people who reviewed this dog food are morons. it does not contain animal digest, the person working at the pet store was feeding you a bunch of BS so you would buy your food from them again. and to the person who said its ok but contains chicken. beef is the meat thats not good for dogs. I personally get the cat fish meal and potatoe recipe for my dogs its great. contains cat fish meal, dehydrated potatoes, and chicken FAT as chicken FAT contains essential vitamins for a dog.

I ended switching from this dog food. Tested this out on my two dogs. Both reacted in similar ways. They started to shed terribly and it got pretty bad. My older guy got a little bald spot right near his tail.

My dog has severe allergies to almost every food out there but does wonderful on the venison and rice formula. I tried using blue buffalo first and he started losing patches of hair all over his back, so i tried this. All his hair came back and his coat is now very shine. I recommend this dog food to every person I meet and all but one loves it.

I think it taste like shit, but my dogs love it.

Hello All!!!

I realize that everyone is going to have a different opinion about a brand of dog food. But living in a place where there are no specialty foods stores I was at a loss to find a good dog food. Everything sold by "Uncle Wally-the retail giant" made my Catahoula Chance break out in red, blistering, scabby sores, gave him severe IBS, and constant diarrhea (bloody). I have a wonderful vet who explained the concept of Food allergies to me and although my other two dogs had not been having problems this could definitely be a result of the cheap food they were getting. I searched high and low and about a year ago finally found this food that was beef, corn, wheat, and by-product free and it wouldn't break the bank.


I have read some alarming tales on this sight and I have to be honest that I only use one kind of the Natures Recipe. It is the Easy-to-digest Fish Meal & Potato Recipe. I am not sure about all the other kinds so my review is solely for this particular product. Within 2 weeks of switching all my dogs over to the new food all the sores were gone, the diarrhea was gone, and Chance was completely off his IBS medication. My Akita, Keiko, who was 10 years old, is a happier dog than I have ever scene and despite being diagnosed with Hip dysplasia 3 years ago she is running around like a dog half her age. And as for my husky, Sava, he always had flaky skin that we assumed as just dry skin.....ALL GONE!!!! I absolutely could not believe it. I thought “this can't all be from just the food." About 4 months ago I unfortunately got to test my theory as the place where I got my dog food had to close temporarily and I was forced to buy a bag of the old junk. Shortly there after all of Chance's problems came back. I was devastated. None of the dogs was happy and that just wasn't working, so after 2 weeks of suffering I drove 50 miles to the next closest store and stocked up on the Fish Meal & Potato Recipe. Once back on their food all the problems went away again. THANK YOU!!!

Now, I don't feed my dogs the Farm Stand stuff, so I was not familiar with this "animal digest" crap. I will never be purchasing that product, but my dogs love their food and they have never been healthier. Chance is thriving and becoming the great working dog he was meant to be, Sava is chasing all his chipmunks and field mice and not worrying about his itchy skin, and Keiko, who is now 11, stills runs around like a young lady and I am hoping to have longer with her than I might have had without this food.

Side note: I also do dog rescue and rehabilitation and all the dogs that come into my home thrive with this food as well. I have not had one adverse reaction.

Both of my Shih Tzus absolutely loved Nature's Recipe Farm Stand Selects Turkey Recipe. I thought I had found the answer to all! I went to my usual natural pet food store where I usually purchase dog food to ask if they would consider carrying it - along with the outstanding canned food that Nature's Recipe Farm Stand Selects offers. (Real slices of real chicken and real slices of real lamb - it also smells delicious.) So, my helpful representative at the natural food store went to the computer and looked up the ingredients to the dry dog food. Reading down, she came upon "animal digest" which she couldn't define, but the rest of the ingredients were OK.

Are you ready? I am very unhappy because I am back to one dog who refuses to eat as I threw out what was left in the bag. I guess animal digest is a wonderful flavor BUT....and I cut and copy:

Animal Digest


AAFCO: A material which results from chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean and undecomposed animal tissue. The animal tissues used shall be exclusive of hair, horns, teeth, hooves and feathers, except in such trace amounts as might occur unavoidably in good factory practice and shall be suitable for animal feed. If it bears a name descriptive of its kind or flavor(s), it must correspond thereto.

A cooked-down broth made from unspecified parts of unspecified animals. The animals used can be obtained from any source, so there is no control over quality or contamination. Any kind of animal can be included: "4-D animals" (dead, diseased, disabled, or dying prior to slaughter), goats, pigs, horses, rats, misc. roadkill, animals euthanized at shelters, restaurant and supermarket refuse and so on.

I believe one can reasonably assume that this ingredient is obtained from the floors of slaughter houses. Basically it is refuse! I had planned to write to Del Monte to protest and ask if they could drop this unacceptable ingredient, but since it is a flavoring ingredient, I doubt they would.

(She found nothing in the canned food that was this unacceptable. Some sugar and other questionable ingredients, but nothing that will prevent me from using a teaspoonful to mix in with the dry food.)

So sad; too bad.

It is okay... It's a premium food without any fresh meats. This is important to see in dog food. They claim no by products on the dry food and this is true, but their can foods do have by products

It is a great choice for people who do not have a dog food specialty store close to them. I feed it to my dog for 6 months untill i did find a specialty store. For the price, about a dollar a pound, it is one of the best foods availible at this price. Compared to blue buffalo, 45 dollars for a 30 pound bag, it is worth the price. MY dog had no issues on this food, except he didn't seem to like it much. My dog is very picky and the only food he has ever liked is purina dog chow, and honestly i will never feed my dog that stuff again. It is disgusting what the put into it.

It was ok but contains chicken

Please, I would urge you not to give your pet(s) this food. I have three dogs and all three got sick after eating this food. My smallest dog developed gas, diarrhea and ultimately started to vomit blood. My middle sized dog (who is the oldest) suddenly refused to rise from a lying position and actually began limping around my house (when he would get up and move). My largest dog deveolped some vomiting and I am pretty sure she would have also gotten gradually worse. We brought the food back to Petsmart (who gets kudos for taking the bag back and issuing a full refund) and exchanged it for the food we were using before Nature's recipe, and all three dogs are now coming around.

I have never had such a horrible experience with dog food in my life.

My terrier has been on this food since soon after we brought her home. We tried feeding her Nutro and she would not eat it, she avoided it at all costs. She is now 2 and loves this food. She has no gas problems or bowel problems. The vet has given her an excellent bill of health and he says that this is as good as any commercial pet food store. It makes me nervous after reading some of these comments that perhaps I am not feeding her well. I would love to hear further comments.

Lamb meal is a popular ingredient in dog food. But, it contains ground rice, and therefore should be avoided. Barley (Hordeum vulgare) is an annual cereal grain, which serves as a major animal feed crop, with smaller amounts used for malting and in health food.

ANIAML DIGEST, holy crap! YEK! Never, never, never.

This food is one of worst food I have  (sorry I did) given my dogs. Scary that the Rep in the store claimed it is great for pets with alergies but yet my dog ended up getting even worse on this food. UN-NAMED "animal fat" and "animal digest"?? Could have some chicken fat or digest in it as my dog is highly alergic to chicken! I should have known better. Also some of thier dog foods have soy, and most of the cat formulas have corn and corn glutins??? What was I thinking.

I was highly recommended, by a Petco employee, the Natures Recipe lamb, rice and barley canned food for my dog that has sensitive stomach. I started it today.. She eats prescription Royal Cannine, but keeps having diarrhea... I hope this brand works... has anyone experienced their dogs having diarrhea with this food? Thanks!

I've been slowly trying to introduce Nature's Recipe Venison and Rice and my 7 month old rat terrier has had explosive diarrhea every since. My 7 yr old rottweiler has had no problems but she apparently has rock gut. I've spoken to people at my dog park who report the same sort of issues with this brand... Another 40#'s in the garbage.....

I have three dogs, two of which had skin problems and allergies, both being rescue dogs. I tried many different quality foods to address this but had problems with many. Finally they seemed to do well with Nature's Recipe, especially the Venison and Rice blend and now they also love the "Farm Stand" blend that had turkey, cranberry, apple, peas and carrots in it. Their coats are in great shape now. I do add vitamins as I already had been doing with the other foods. SO FAR, I have been greatly relieved that none of their blends have been on any recall lists. I feed my dogs Nature's Recipe dry food and wet food too.

This is my first bag of Natures recipe. Right away my dog developed severe gas even tho I slowly introduced it. She doesnt seem to like the taste.

Review of Nature's Recipe Puppy Lamb & Rice : (this is not nature's Variety which is an excellent dog food) Use of low quality grains, fat of unidentifiable origin. The first ingredient is a named meat product in meal form. This is the sole meat product in the food. Rice is a decent quality grain, but the use of wheat is a significant negative: wheat is believed to be the number one cause of allergy problems in dog food. This is another ingredient we prefer not to see used at all in dog food. It is a concern to see a fat as the fourth ingredient. Research at Purdue University has identified fat in the top four ingredients of a dry food as a factor that increases the risk of bloat in large breed dogs. Smaller breeds are untested. Animal fat is a further low quality ingredient and is impossible to determine the source. Unidentified ingredients are usually very low quality. Tomato pomace is filler. The above review from the www.dogfoodanalysis.com website rated this food 1 out of 6 stars. (please go to this site to read and make a good choice) Some of the 5 and 6 star rated foods from above site: Nature's Variety, Orijen, Solid Gold, Timberwolf, Artemis, California Natural, Canidae, Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul, Evangers, Fromms, Go Natural, Innova, Merrick, Natures logic, Wellness, Some of the 4 star rated food: Blue Buffalo, Dr's Foster & Smith, Natural Balance, Performatrin Ultra, Pinnacle, Premium Edge, Sensible Choice Some of the foods above are priced very reasonably (Canidae at my local store is only $32 for 40# bag) The above foods have more calories per cup of food than the cheaper grain based foods. Usually about 450 quality cal/cup versus 350 low nutritional cal/cup. Therfore less food is needed to maintain weight, this offsets the small added cost of the above 22 listed premium brands. Good luck on your choice.

You guys are rating 2 different food brands - Nature's Recipe vs Nature's Variety. There is a world of difference between the two foods. All the negative reviews are regarding Nature's Recipe, which is in the right thread. Nature's Variety should be posted on a different thread. If you scroll further down, you will find the correct link/section.

I just started my dogs on Nature's Variety. They really love it, especially the canned food. The canned food has 95% real meat and they also offer freeze dried raw diets and frozen. I also really love the fact that they use Bio-Coating which is a unique process that enrobes the kibble with freeze dried meats, organ meats, and nutritious oils. This allows the dog to get the much need enzymes, amino acids, essential fatty acids, probiotics, vitamins and minerals otherwise degraded or lost during processing which is necessary to produce kibble. This cold pressed living food in made available in its natural, nutritious state. Other kibbles cannot offer this although they try to add the probiotics and enzymes into their kibbles it's vertically impossible to keep them in their natural state. This food is also great for us lazy folk who would like to feed raw but are too lazy to make it up and freeze it! LOL I like the fact that they offer organic proteins and products in their line as well. I also like the fact they strongly suggest to rotate protein sources and food types. A dog really needs to have a variety, not the silly old school type thinking of sticking with one thing..no wonder so many dogs are suffering. Dogs need to have fresh live uncooked meals in part of their feeding routine and Nature's Variety helps you to do this. I have 5 dogs, 4 of which are purebred dogs, many of their siblings and relatives suffer from health issues which I blame directly on poor diets. Don't think that by just pouring some kibble into a dogs bowl is healthy...you need to keep in mind that dogs are scavengers and need and require variety. I could live on dry cereal for the rest of my life, I would not be at my peak health...but, I would survive. Is this what we want for our furry buddies? just allow them to survive without giving them the optimum diet and allowing them to be healthier. I still rotate between different brand of dog food as well, including Natura, Wellness, Solid Gold, Holistic Blend and Canidae...I think they are all fantastic foods...but, not as fantastic as the raw foods I can provide them myself or with the help of Nature's Variety.

This brand used to be my alternative when I couldn't find a specialty store and had to go with what was available at the chain stores. The company has earned my ire through what I consider deceptive labeling. It's Allergy alternative protein venison & rice formula also has poultry fat and animal digest -hardly reassuring if your pet has allergies to, say, chicken or beef. Sure, many lamb formulas also have chicken, or fish, or other animal protein, but they shouldn't advertise as allergy formula or alternative or novel protein sources if don't eliminate the other proteins. I asked the company about this, their response was basically we can't make a formula tailored to individual allergies and that fat is not protein. Hmmm.

This food itself is OK, but the company changes the ingredients without noting on the front main lable that there is a new formula. My dog was doing well on it for several months and then started getting gas. BAD gas. Two months went by before I thought to check the ingredients list to see if they had changed anything. Sure enough, they had. And the part that made me the most angry was that it was the Chicken, Rice & Barley easy-to-digest variety. (They had added LAMB! The lable specifically states a single-meat protein formula!) People who buy this dog food variety have dogs with digestive problems. To change the ingredients without changing the lable to say New Formula is irresponsible.

Ever since this company produced whole lines that made dogs sick and had to be recalled, I don't know how anyone could trust this food for their loved pet.

I fed this food for many years and would have given it a 4 star but since it was sold to Pet Foods, it is no longer the same quality. It does beat most other Pet Store foods such as Eukanuba, Iams, Nutro & Pro Plan