Taking too long? Close loading screen.
October 23rd
TruDog’s food is free from gluten, fillers, and grains. It is made by using real, fresh meat. Find out if TruDog gets the Uptown Badge of Approval.
TruDog’s creators were inspired by the loss of their beloved dog to cancer. Their research into canine nutrition and pet health uncovered most grocery store pet food is the equivalent of feeding your pooch a hamburger and french fries every day—meaning, not great.
When dog food companies create food that’s both cheap and easy to store, they make sacrifices—mainly by substituting healthy proteins, minerals and vitamins with cheap cereals and unhealthy grains.
TruDog claims that because dogs are descended from wolves, they should be eating similarly to how a wolf would eat—meaning lots of real meat, real bones, and real organs.
But feeding your dog a diet of expensive, fresh meat, bulky bones and difficult-to-find organ meats is definitely a challenge. It’s also expensive!
TruDog addressed this challenge by coming up with their own brand of freeze-dried food.
Freeze dried dog food doesn’t have to be refrigerated, solving the issue of storage and convenience. It’s also cheaper and less of a headache than sourcing your own meat and bones from around town. When it’s chow time, all you need to do is add water and serve to your pooch. Easy!
Wondering whether you should jump on the TruDog dog food bandwagon? Read on to find out if TruDog gets the Uptown Seal of Approval.
If you don’t have time to read the full review, here are the biggest details you should know about TruDog before you buy.
Overall, we give TruDog a 4.6/5:
If you’re curious about TruDog, there’s great news—Uptown readers can save big on their first order. Click here to check the price right now.
Zero meal preparation time. Save time, provide awesome meals to your pooch while still getting to work on time and relaxing in the evening.
Easy shipping.
TruDog provides next-day shipping for larger orders, which is the next-best thing to picking up food at the store.
Tons of variety.
Lots of different food, treats, supplies, health and grooming products. TruDog is a real one-stop shop.
Trusted.
TruDog is family-owned, and they control all aspects of their company’s production.
TruDog tends to be on the pricier side of things, especially if you’re trying to feed a large dog (or multiple dogs). However, you really do get what you pay for.
TruDog food originally started with two freeze-dried formulas—turkey and beef—and has since expanded to offer a variety of other options, such as their TruDog Boost Me Topper, which we’ll talk a little bit more about in a bit.
For our trial, we selected TruDog Feed Me Crunchy Munchy Beef Bonanza. The ingredients of this specific recipe are beef, beef tripe, beef lung, ground beef bone, beef liver, beef heart, beef kidney, beef blood, beef fat, herring oil (natural source of vitamin D), mixed tocopherols (natural antioxidant), d-alpha tocopherol (natural vitamin E).
On a calorie-weighted basis, the recipe breaks down as follows:
Right, now let’s dive into those ingredients. First impressions?
Wow, look at all that beef!
If you’re wondering about all the different kinds of beef listed, know that “pure” beef (in the ingredient label sense) refers to either skeletal muscle, tongue, heart, esophagus or diaphragm muscle.
Beef needs no intro—it’s packed with ALL ten of the amino acids essential to your dog’s life, and of course, it tastes good.
Beef tripe is the second ingredient. Tripe comes from the cow’s stomach—specifically, the first three chambers of said stomach. Sure, tripe might seem gross to you…but dogs love it!
Third, we’ve got beef lung. OK, so again this is not something you’re going to find on the menu at your favorite steakhouse. But beef lung is high in protein, low in fat, and high on your dog’s list of yummy stuff.
Rounding out the list of beefy, major ingredients, you’ll see:
Among Tru Dog Food Feed Me Beef’s remaining ingredients are three standouts:
Speaking of exclusions, here are all the things that True Dog Food Feed Me Beef doesn’t have:
Fine by us—our dogs don’t need that stuff anyway! Ready to jump right in to our TruDog dog food reviews?
Just based on the ingredients you can see above, you can already say that TruDog is a good product—that’s without even feeding it to our lucky “test” pupper. But how good is it really?
One of the draws of TruDog’s freeze dried food is that it looks way, way more appetizing than the chunks of “styrofoam” we all imagine when thinking of freeze-dried food. Far from “astronaut food,” Feed Me Beef looked like, well, beef once we rehydrated it. Our pooch must have thought it tasted like beef, too, because he licked his bowl clean in a flash.
According to TruDog, all of their delicious ingredients are sourced and made right here in the USA, which is perfect for owners who want to know where their pet food is coming from.
Many customers claim that their pets have an easier time digesting TruDog’s food than other brands—and being a raw food, it makes sense!
Judging by our four-legged test partner, TruDog is absolutely delicious. Our pooch didn’t have any difficulty eating his meals, and seemed to look forward to meal time a little bit more than before.
TruDog Boost Me reviews seem to have one thing in common—dogs love it!
Boost Me is a bit different from the beef dog food we talked about earlier. Rather than a standalone meal, Boost Me is used as an alternative to going full raw food diet for your dog.
Boost Me delivers a boost (get it?) of extra protein as a topping on your dog’s existing food. You can use it to supplement your pup’s current diet, or to begin transitioning to a fully raw diet. Or, if you’re like lots of picky pet parents, you can use it to get your choosy pooch to scarf down their food a lot faster!
Like Feed Me Beef, Tru Dog Boost Me Mighty Beef Booster is created with USDA sourced beef, bone, blood and organ meats. While a lot of the other food toppers out there are cooked and processed (which eradicates a lot of those important vitamins and nutrients), Boost Me is freeze-dried—sealing in all of the great things your dog needs for a healthy life.
What we liked about Boost Me is that its texture looks sort of “shredded.” Unlike hard kibble, sensitive dogs had no problem wolfing down their food. It should also be easy on your dog’s digestive system.
So there you have it. Boost Me doesn’t just boost nutrition—it also boosts flavor. But how did our dogs like it?
We picked one of our pickiest eaters to review TruDog. With just a couple tablespoons of Boost Me, our prissy little girl’s nose went down, her ears pricked up, and she pranced over to the bowl faster than you can believe.
Even if you’re not interested in switching your dog to a 100% raw diet, we believe that TruDog’s Boost Me is one of the best nutritional boosters/food toppers available. After going through our entire supply of Boost Me, our test dog was loving life.
Surprisingly, TruDog’s biggest seller isn’t food at all—it’s called Spray Me, and it’s an all-natural dental spray used to improve your pup’s teeth and breath (according to the company and many Tru Dog spray me reviews).
The company claims that True Dog Spray Me can help eliminate bacteria and soften stubborn plaque deposits, leading to a fresher mouth and whiter teeth. For pup’s with not-so-nice dental health, TruDog says you’ll be able to see visible results in just 3 weeks.
TruDog Spray Me ingredients include lots of fresh smelling stuff like peppermint oil, grapefruit seed extract, rosemary, thyme…basically, a whole bunch of stuff that smells better than a stinky mouth.
For our TruDog Spray review, we “borrowed” a friend’s Yellow Lab named Jasper. Jasper struggles with stinky breath and gets a bit grouchy when our friend tries to brush his teeth.
We used TruDogs Spray Me as directed on our volunteer. After three weeks, his breath definitely smelled better, which seemed to be right in line with other TruDog spray reviews we’ve seen online. Mission accomplished—Spray Me TruDog did the trick, and our friend will never have to throw away a chewed-up doggy toothbrush again.
Since TruDog has quite a few products, we wanted to try a few to give you guys a broader look at what you can expect when you order from TruDog. We also bought Treat Me, Crunchy Beef Delight and Chew Me Canine Cracklin’ Pork Strips. Here’s what we (and our dogs) thought.
Treat Me contains a bunch of delicious nuggets of (of course) real beef. They’re treats for when your pooch has been a really, really good boy—and our dogs seemed to be on Cloud Nine when they indulged in these morsels of awesomeness.
Chew Me is, you guessed it, a dog chew. They’re mainly made of pork skin and…beef pizzle. Yes, beef pizzle. For those who aren’t in the know, beef pizzle is, let’s just say, only found on bulls.
Anyway, the Chew Me strips went over like gangbusters, pizzle and all.
If your head is spinning from all of these cool products, we’ve got you covered. Click here to take advantage of our TruDog discount and check your price right now.
Based on what our dogs tried, yes! TruDog seems to be a solid, reputable company. Our dogs loved their products, and we feel confident recommending them to anyone interested in putting their dogs on a raw diet, or anyone who’s just looking for a healthier, tastier alternative to dry kibble.
On TruDog’s website, you can find a map of all the brick-and-mortar stores that currently sell their products. A lot of families choose to buy TruDog online through retailers like Amazon because it’s more convenient, and you’ll often be able to find more variety of sizes and flavors than you would at physical locations.
Even better, all of our readers can save big on TruDog by clicking this link to check your price with our discount.
Whether your still reading Tru Dog food reviews or not, choosing the right dog food is so important! Here are some tips to help finalize your decision.
Consider your dog’s size.
Dogs come in all shapes and sizes, and a small bag of food is going to go a whole lot faster when you have a big dog. Keep that in mind when calculating the price of your pal’s new feeding routine.
Understand the food’s nutrition standard statement.
Dog food ingredient labels list items by weight—meaning that, more or less, ingredients listed first make up a bigger proportion of the food. For example, Feed Me Beef (which we talked about earlier) is made almost entirely of beef. What you really don’t want to see are bags of food that list unhealthy items (like corn) as their main ingredients.
Ask your vet.
Your vet is your pet’s wellness partner, and will be more than happy to assist you in any new dietary changes. Remember, dogs can often have trouble quitting food cold turkey. They’ll often need to switch gradually, meaning you’ll want to replace a bigger and bigger portion of their original food with new food with every meal.
Dig a little deeper.
Your choice of dog food is really important! But you probably knew that already if you’re reading this review.
Choosing the right food can mean the difference between a healthy pooch and allergies, an upset tummy, and a generally bad quality of life.
More Puppy Insights
Find the Perfect Puppy
