A Great #PawNatural Raw Dog Food for Adventuring

Only Natural Pet MaxMeat Air-Dried Raw Dog FoodI feed Chester and Gretel all-meat, frozen raw dog food. I didn’t see the difference in energy most claim with raw food until I switched to food that was 90% or greater raw meat and bones. After the switch, my senior dog Chester started acting like a kid again.

Frozen raw food is impossible to take on an adventure road trip (no hotels with freezers) or on an overnight hike with your dog though. I don’t want to risk Chester reverting to his old, slower self so I am really hesitant to go back to kibble for convenience when we are away from home.

I’ve tried feeding Chester and Gretel different “convenient” raw dog foods. We’ve tried:

  • Freeze dried raw dog food (I found that it can crumble and get “dusty”. Gretel chokes on the dust when she scarfs her food).
  • Dehydrated raw dog food that you reconstitute with water (It’s a decent is option when staying in hotels but it’s not convenient when you are sleeping in a tent or your car).
  • Air-dried raw food (The particular brand we tried was thin and had pointy corners which, again, caused Gretel to choke on it).

Finding the perfect raw food to take adventuring seemed to be impossible. However, I think I found the perfect adventuring dog food for us recently when I was given the opportunity to try the Only Natural Pet MaxMeat Grain-free Air Dried Beef Dog Food.

MaxMeat dog food meets our criteria of being made with 90% human-grade meat. The shape of the food is “little chunks” instead of flat, thin squares with pointy edges, and the jerky-like texture is chewy, so Gretel doesn’t choke on it.

MaxMeat Close up CMaxMeat is ready to serve right out of the bag so it has the convenience of kibble while allowing me to stick with Chester & Gretel’s raw food regimen while away from home.

Meeting my “shape”, quality, and convenience criteria is nothing though if Chester and Gretel don’t like the food. I tried feeding it to them as a treat first to see what they thought of it. See for yourself – Chester could barely control himself.

They liked it so much, I immediately ordered two more bags for our upcoming dog-friendly adventure road trip.

Chester Can't Stop Staring
Chester Can’t Stop Staring

The MaxMeat dog food is great because it’s saves space – I can an use it for food AND for treats (Although who are we kidding? I always bring a ton of treats for Chester and Gretel when space allows).

MaxMeat Dog Food, as well as other Only Natural Pet products, is available through Pet360.com. You can also learn more about Only Natural Pet by connecting with them on Facebook.

Only Natural Pet LogoDisclaimer: This post is sponsored by Only Natural Pet on behalf of the BlogPaws Blogger Network. I am being compensated for helping spread the word about Only Natural Pet, but YouDidWhatWithYourWeiner.com only shares information we feel is relevant to our readers and everything we say is really how we feel. Only Natural Pet is not responsible for the content of this article.

About the Author

Hi, I’m Jessica. I’ve been studying the Dachshund breed since 2007, owned 3 of my own, and shared in the lives of thousands of others through their owner’s stories. When I’m not sharing what I know on this blog, you can find me hiking, camping, and traveling with my adventurous wiener dogs.

16 Comments

  1. hmm, I have never heard of MaxMeat. Sounds interesting. I don’t have anything to do with raw, as I do not know enough about it. I would like to learn more about it though.
    Thanks for sharing and hope you have a great day!
    ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!

  2. That does look like a great travel food. I’m sure it’s tons easier too.

  3. We usually use the dehydrated raw that you remoisturize when we’re on the road, since moisture content is pretty important to me, but this looks like it would make awesome treats…

    1. Reconstituting dust with cold water out of the back of my car (or carrying it in my pack and having it leak dust all over everything…it’s happened) doesn’t work for me. I will sometimes put the air dried food into some water so Chester and Gretel are forced to drink the water to get to it 🙂

    2. I do like the dehydrated raw when staying in hotels though. Moisture content is something I am concerned about too…or rather, them drinking enough water.

  4. Great review! Looks like this food is great for travel!
    When we roadtrip for holidays, we pack raw with us and tell my parents to make sure there’s room in their freezer. lol. For our roadtip to Victoria last summer, we knew there would be a couple of stores of the chain we like, so we packed a little raw, and then just bought it when we were there. Our hotel had a full-size fridge and kitchenette (useful when staying >1 week), so we were set up nicely.
    However, when we’re backcountry camping, we stick to the dehydrated stuff you reconstitute with water. Backcountry camping, packing anything with significant weight or volume isn’t preferable, but we’re always able to add water, since we have a filter or can boil it, so that makes it pretty easy.

    1. I DID think about bringing some raw in a cooler. It would have thawed and stayed cold most of our trip to the conference. I would worry though about it going bad and also it would require a dish. This “dry raw” can be thrown into their car seat so they can munch as we drive 🙂

      It’s definitely a little heavy and bulky to take on an extended backpacking trip. I’m still looking for the perfect food for that.

  5. Have any of you tried Darwin’s raw? It’s a Tukwila company, they offer a variety of raw proteins with veggies, it comes frozen to your doorstep, contains a plastic box to put two packets of frozen food into for defrosting in the fridge, included is a return label so you stick that on the box with the styrofoam cooler inside and back it goes to Darwin’s.

    I bought the Duck and veggies for a foster with allergy issues. When the dog was adopted, i’d that one packet of food and put a large dollop of it on the kibble for breakfast and dinner. They loved it!

    http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com gives a five star rating on the four foods they reviewed: duck, turkey, chicken and beef!

    1. I am aware of Darwins but have never tried it. We have a frozen raw food we love. This food is not a long term substitute for frozen raw but an option I like for when you won’t have access to a fridge or freezer for a while. It’s also neat and tidy like kibble but still raw.

      If you try Darwins and like it, please post on our Facebook page and let us know. http://www.facebook.com/YouDidWhatWithYourWeiner

  6. The Shocking Truth About
    I searched to find out WHERE Max Meat Dog Food is made and could find nothing other the “Country of Origin – USA.” I want to know if the ingredients, the processing and manufacture of the food comes entirely from the USA..or not! I won’t buy anything that comes from China. I didn’t know what “Country of Origin – USA” meant so went to http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com and this is what is on their website:

    “Country of Origin Labeling Laws
    Here in the U.S., current country of origin labeling laws are either weak or non-existent. They offer little protection to consumers, especially when it comes to the source of a dog food’s ingredients.
    For a product to be labeled “Made in the USA” (or for that matter, any other country), regulations require only that the product be “all or virtually all” made in that country.
    Nowhere do labeling rules mandate the identification of sources of the individual components that were used to make a product.
    So, even though a company reports they manufacture a dog food completely in a U.S. or Canadian facility, there’s no way to assure a consumer the ingredients weren’t sourced from a foreign producer.”

    So with this in mind? Where DOES Max Meat come from? Where do the ingredients come from? Where is it manufactured and the meat processed? If this product is made in the USA or Canada, the ingredients are from the USA or Canada and it’s processed in the USA or Canada, why doesn’t the company state that on its labeling? Why the labeling “Country of Origin – USA”??? Sounds too obscure.

    1. You are right to be concerned about where your pet’s food comes from Barbara. The truth is that VERY few treats and foods are entirely sourced in the US. Even if the meat is, the herbs and veggies can come from other countries. There has currently been some controversy over herbs sourced in China.

      I can tell you this, it is very expensive to source all ingredients in the US. Also, because of today’s concern about chicken from China, it is a VERY big marketing point if a food/treats are sourced entirely in the US. You will know foods that are because they will be among some of the most expensive and they will expressly state on the label that they are made AND SOURCED in the US. You can also be pretty sure that anything that doesn’t explicitly state that, isn’t (so they will use things like “made in the USA”.

      “Made in the USA” is often used even though it is knowingly misleading. A food or treat may be MADE in the USA but the ingredients could be sourced from multiple countries. Personally, I feel like this term is used to be purposely misleading – they want you to THINK it is all sourced in the US and are counting on you not asking further questions. “Country of Origin – USA” is sometimes synonymous with “sourced in the US” but not always.

      It’s been a long time since I wrote this review (in blog years anyway) but, from what I remember, their meat sources were “human grade” for sure. This company has been around for a long time and is very concerned about the welfare and health of our pets. Whether or not their human grade ingredients came from the US, I don’t specifically remember but I would be very surprised if they did. I will certainly confirm for you though.

  7. I’m curious: you mention you feed a frozen raw product on a regular basis… Is it a commercially available product? If so, would you be comfortable sharing with us what brand you use? I feed a raw frozen commercially available diet for my doxie, too, but I love your in-depth review about ONP’s MeatMax because it sounds like a great traveling substitute for the raw frozen we usually use. 🙂

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