I thik the food is great. After one week, my dogs coat was so shiny it was like the sunshine, and his excrenment started to take on shapes. At first simple objects like stars, moons, and the occassionalhorseshoe - know very complex - laptop computer, SUV's, and even a blender! This HAS to be good stuff.

I have decided to re-write my review in order to make it understanble for some ignorant people (Caugh***Biffsup3, jeryshore**Caugh) who do not really understand Nature's Variety at all.

Nature's Variety consists of 4 different (for lack of a better word) varieties of pet food.

The first, is their Prairie line is equivilant to say canidae or regular Innova. It does contain grains (high quality) but it is also less expensive. What separates Prairie from other similar kibble is the fact that they Bio-Coat the food with Freeze Dried Raw Meat. Since, when you cook meat some of the essential nutrients are taken out of the food, Prairie "sprinkles" them back on with the Freeze Dried Meat. This in effect, adds a little more nutrients to the food than your average kibble.

Their next type of kibble is called Instinct (Previously Raw Instinct).  This is one of the highest quality kibbles on the market. What makes Instinct unique is that they use tapioca as a binder instead of Potato (like Orijen and Evo). The one downside to the food is that Chicken Fat is the third ingredient. However, the fact that Chicken meal is the first and that the food contains 42% protien indicated that they have A LOT of chicken protien in the food. Like their Prairie line, Instinct is also bio-coated with freeze dried raw meat.

Nature's Variety then has Freeze Dried medalions. This is for people who feed raw food but are going on vacation and cannot bring frozen food with them. This is definitely expensive but definitely convenient for all those raw food lovers out there. (I personally like Honest Kitchen a little better...but you must add water to that and this is already formed)

Finally we come to their raw food. They have one of the best formulations on the market (The only one that is even similar is Primal). They have 6 different meat based formulas from Chicken to Rabbit, there is a taste for every dog. Read my Raw Food review to see all the benefits of a raw diet.

Hopefully this will clear some stuff up about this food. I personally do not feed my dogs kibble (I do feed them Nature's Variety's raw food with Honest Kitchen dehydrated though) but I consider Nature's Variety to be one of the best kibbles for any dog. (The others would be Canidae, Innova, Orijen, Timberwolf, and Go! Natural)

Good Luck, Kate

Sulfates copper, ferrous and maganese they use those types of minerals in lawn care products and drain-o. and those can build up to toxic levels in some pets and humans alike. The only type of these minerals the body uses are the amino acid complex ones.

my problem is the ingredients.  These are the first five: Beef Meal, Barley, Brown Rice, Oatmeal, Chicken Fat (preserved with Mixed Tocopherols and Citric Acid), Flaxseed Meal.  The first seems great, but compared to other brands (orijen, EVO) it seems they should be more pallet friendly.  More meat, broth, I don't know.  Not impressed.

Such a complete line of top quality food. No comprimises by them means a long and healthy life for your pet.

My dogs love the Beef and Barley, their coat look great and feed less.

Nature's Variety is a GREAT food. My 1 and 2.5 years old English cocker Spaniels love their meal - licked every single bit of it until it is absolutely empty. The stools are firm, even on the 2nd and 3rd day of the feeding. and the coat is shinny and soft. What's more, the stool is not stinky at all... I tried putting them on Orijen but the stool stinks!!! Can't stand it.

Just didn't work for my dog. They didn't eat this food as well as Evo and the bags were not dated as fresh in the store.
I wanted to try some variety and I like their bones. Cannot recommend.. also, this food seems to have tried to copy the Evo.

I was feed purina pro plan and changed to nature's variety. My two Labs love it!!!!! They actually licked their bowls clean.

Fantastic food. Mt 8 year old dog is acting like a 3 year old. It made all the difference in the world. She lost 10 lbs on the raw back to a healthy weight. Rotation is easy too with no loose stools.

I think this is a great food. If you compare the Natures Variety Instinct to the Orijen I believe the Orijen is a little better but this is still a very good food.  I got free shipping on my $50.00 order from www.k9cuisine.com. They shipped my order the same day.

As close to a 'raw' diet as you can get in a kibble. My dogs love it! Cost is much less if you look at the "feed ratio" compared to other foods. Frozen "raw" cubes are a great way to round out the entire feeding process. A great food.

I was feeding the raw instinct to my dog but switched to orijen. I still really like this food but just like orijen a little better. Would reccommend this food to people who can not afford to feed orijen as this is the second best food ever!

tried the dry, thought buying one of the best would be good, but gave my dog the runs four five days, think its just was not right for me.-trying pinacale

I have a six month old Weim. Dose Nature's Variety offer a dry food for Large Breed Puppy?

My dog has been on the Prarie formula for about a 2 weeks, he cant wait to be fed know his coat is soft and shinier then ever. And it makes me feel comfortable knowing he is eating a very natural, nutrional, feed.

my dog vomited and loose stools.

My dogs have been eating the salmon and brown rice for about a year now, and are doing great. It is well worth the price. THey have fewer allergies, and no vommiting/ diarrhea. One of my dogs was on hills rx diet I/D before due to vommiting after pancreatitis, and he has had NO vommiting on nature's variety. Their coats are great, shiny and healthy. The only downfall is one of my dogs is a little prone to weight gain and with the nutritional density of the food she can not eat much, so she is hungry all the time. However, she would have to eat about 4 times as much in bulk to not be hungy, which she cannot do on ANY food without gaining weight. I would recommend this food to anyone.

They changed their formula slightly but enough to make a difference in one of my dogs and the company did not let their customers know. Although a good diet, bad form.

I have 2,under 7lb, miniature dachshunds. I switched to NV recently per my daughters recommendation. Her chihuahua had skin problems and tear stains which were eliminated when she switched to NV. My dogs love the venison dry and recently tried the lamb medallions. I am now using a mixed diet of NV. They love it. My flat coat girl has the most beautiful black coat and my long hair baby boy has a silky coat. Even my vet said they looked really good and asked what I was doing differently. I thank you for this product and so do my babies!!!

I just switched my Great Dane to Venison Kibble NV and he devoured it. Has been on Blue Buffalo Venison Canned due to stomach problems, but they do not make a venison kibble...wish they did....wonderful food, bt over 12$ a day to feed the dane!!! Time for kibble and holistic vet recommended NV....he has asked me to let it moisten with water and then feed..any tips on this???

Give this one a try. Their raw instinct formula worked better for us than evo. Low stool. Great coat. Worth checking out.

I have two Bengal Cats. Brother and sister. They had terrrible irritable bowel and vrious other stuff wrong. I resued them from pet stores. Natures Vaeiety Venison in the raw nuggets is thier favorite. I wish I could get them to try others. I do get some rabbit in on the side. NO more irritable bowel.

I just started my Boston Terrier puppy on the Venison dry food, and so far so good. I had him on California Natural and he hated it and would only eat it if I mixed in wet food, which gave him horrible diareha problems. My dog has a bit of an allergy problem, so I was told this was a great product for that. He seems to be less red and itchy, but I will have to wait a little more time to see what happens. They have plenty of dry foods to switch between, and I would like to eventually try the Raw instinct which does not have any grains. My sister has two boxers and she has switched them to the Raw Instinct and they already seem to have a lot more energy, which she is a little worried about:) I also wrote them to ask some questions and they were quick to respond and very friendly. Give it a try!!

Seems they are trying to just get as much money from people as they can. Food is average at best, but not complete diet. Little nervous so many sales reps. for them have left in last year?

Nature's Variety appears to be committed to high quality ingredients and a good selection of products for dogs and cats. I have tried the canned dog food and my dog loved them all. They are a bit on the pricey side but are high quality ingredients and no grain! I also have tried the frozen raw food medalions and those have also gone over very well with my dog. For people who want the benefits of a raw diet for their pets but don't have the time to make a diet from scratch this is an excellent option (as is the natural balance raw frozen cubes). This company has a very good variety of products and a lot of great options for people who don't want to have grain in their dogs diet (frozen raw, no-grain canned and a dry food that is also grain free). Their grain free "raw instinct" dry food is close to Innova EVO's food with similar high quality ingredients. Would definately recomend this product to anyone who has a nearby retailer and who doesn't mind paying a bit more for their dogs food.

My dog loved the raw and the grain free canned food. The selection and variety is fantastic with this company (dry, grain- free dry, grain-free canned, frozen raw, freeze dried, treats, frozen bones...). Good quality ingredients and very palatable for the dogs. Good selection for rotation to add variety to the diet and they also have a pretty good website.

My dog is on Nature's Variety Rabbit Diet canned food. He absolutely loves it. He even goes back several times licking the empty bowl...he hasn't done this before, not even when he was on Wysong Venison Au Jus.

I needed to adress Tootsie28 and the misinformation given about Nature's Variety. I don't think she / he used this product given the fact that I feed my dogs the canned variety along with Castor & Pollux dry kibble. THERE ARE NO CHUNKS IN THE CANNED FOOD. THERE IS NOTHING TO "MASH UP"

This brand is listed in The Whole Dog Journal as an approved food for dogs. Whole Dog Journal has very strict standards for allowing dog foods onto their list so subscribe and get honest information on dog nutrition.

I have truned many customers onto Nature's Variety and not one of them have had any complaints about the food. It is simply one of the best out there.

Just received an email from Nature's Variety customer service letting me know that they are removing Menadione Sodium Bisulfate from all their foods. Looks like all the better brands are following suit. I've been feeding my little squirt NV for two months now and he's doing great. I just found out about this Menadione Sodium Bisulfate/synthetic vitamin K issue recently and am glad it will no longer be an issue. I'm staying with Nature's Variety!

I have been feeding my small dog the raw frozen variety for almost a year. She loved it for the first few months , but lately we have been getting torn bags and therefore, rotten meat. My dog is the first to notice if it has spoiled. My local store which carries the product has been very helpful: they let us bring a half of a bag back and get a new one. But I'm so frustrated with this that I'm about to contact the company to complain about the quality of their packaging. I don't feel entirely safe about this raw meat thing, I worry that it has made my dog sick more than a few times. Occasionally she will refuse to eat anything but grass.

I am changing my rating because Nature's Variety is a responsible company and is doing the right thing. I just received an email from Nature's Variety letting me know that they are removing menadione sodium bisulfate the synthetic form of vitamin K from all their food. This is very good news.

I tried this food on my dogs. None of them liked it at all. Too many ingredients and the canned was very hard for my smaller dog to chew, the chunks were too big and it was not easy to mash up. They all also vomited the food up whole. The company is extremely hard to get a hold of and when I finally got through the gentleman was extremely rude and unhelpful. He didn't answer any questions about where they get their meat, feeding instructions and overall reason why I should buy this food. Awful.

I have fed my dog the Chicken & Rice medley for a year and he has done absoultely wonderful! His coat is amazingly shiney and he is at a perfect weight (previously I have had trouble w/ keeping weight on him due to his high level of activity). Awesome food, I highly recommend!

Really great food! A breeder nearby (breeds Yorkies) feeds the Nature's Variety Frozen foods mixed with the dry and ALL of her dogs look amazing. Very high quality food!

My 6 month old Cocker spaniel is doing wonderfully with this food. We tried Iams Puppy and Wellness Puppy....loose stools with Wellness despite a very gradual transition. After a week she refused to eat it. Luckily, the owner of our local dog bakery recommended Nature's Variety since her Cocker Spaniel enjoys it. My pup loves the Venison Medley; she starts running around the house as soon as I grab her food bowl. The ingredients are top notch as evidenced by my pup's beautiful coat and great energy level. I was initially nervous about the "all stages" approach ie, no puppy or senior formulas but you alter feeding amounts based upon activity level and weight/age. The website is very helpful in figuring out what will work best. I am very happy I found this food and will be buying some more bags for my brother's 6 year old rat terrier who is currently on Wellness but is also having issues with loose stools. I trust Nature's Variety will work great for his dog as well.

Yes, it does look like this is a food with good ingredients,providing variety of formulas with an appealing website. The reason for low rating is the price. It is much too expensive when you compare it with other 'natural' foods on the market.

I really like Nature's Variety, I love the variety they offer and the freezed dried raw foods which I mix in with their kibble. I feed the kibble mainly mixed with the canned which can be pricey but is 95% meat with no grain. I love it...only one of my dogs cannot tolerate it due to allergies...there are a lot of ingredients in this food.

I used to feed Royal Canin GSD24 and Canidae to the dogs prior to switching over to a 100% homemade RAW diet about a year ago. One dog did great on RC where the other did better on Canidae, so to make it easy, I switched both to raw, and have to say they are in optimum condition. That said, I started researching the huge variety of kibbles that are on the market right now, wondering if there was a kibble I could change them back to as my time has become limited now and preparing their foods by attaining a great variety of meats was becoming more difficult. After much research, I came down to only 2 I would switch them off of raw to try out: Nature's Variety PRAIRIE, or Timberwolf Organics. Of the two, I opted to try Nature's Variety first because it was more readily available without having to mail-order. Taste-wise, the dogs devoured the food with more fervor than their raw diets, strangely enough. The contents fo the bag smelled fresh and the packaging was very nice. I switched them cold turkey considering you're never to mix raw and kibble in one feeding and experienced absolutely no problems. Within days, their coat quality is improving even more than how great it was on raw. There has been no stool problem, or gas problem. The kibble size is rather small (smaller than Canidae) and one of my dogs is having to learn the hard way that it is in her best interest to chew her food instead of inhaling. The calorie content per cup is very high and both my German Shepherds weigh about 60-64 lbs, and are fed 2 cups per day. The company recommends rotating foods, as well as including raw from time to time, which I continue to do. There is obviously no big difference to their digestive systems to go back and forth, and I feel I made a very good choice in food for my dogs. Excellent food, topnotch ingredients, and comparable to the 20-30% average meat percentage in other high quality kibble, Nature's Variety has 40% meat. They also use a process called bio-coating that sprays pulverized freeze-dried raw foods/enzymes on top of the kibble, coating them with the closest-to-raw freshness and digestibility that you coud attain from a kibble. I recommend trying this food!