That's The Way The Patty Crumbles - A Chewy.com Influencer Report

This is WITHOUT A DOUBT my favorite activity. I do this two times a day, at a minimum. If I had my way, I would do it TWENTY-FOUR/seven,

You might recall that we are doing a 30 DAY CHALLENGE for Chewy.com for a product called Stella and Chewy's Chicken Dinner Patties. It is a raw food limited ingredient diet which is supposed to feed us dogs like we would in the wild. Well, honestly, in the wild I DO NOT think I would sit around for 10 minutes waiting to reconstitute a meal. That is SHEER TORTURE, I tell you. Even Molly gets in on the WHINE and cheese routine during that eternal wait. And all the while that delicious aroma is wafting down to my adorable twitching PUG NOSE.

This is the food re-hydrated and topped with kibble

So WE, Molly and Noodles, and Sunshine the Cat who insists on having some as a topper to her kibble - we are completely all in on this food. All in. We run when the bag comes off the fridge. We WHINE, as said before, while waiting for our meal to be SERVED. We gobble up each and every morsel as if it were dripping in BUTTAH! Yum yum yummy is how I would describe this food. It is good on the palate and filling in the tummy. It is admittedly a perfect meal.

Note the well-formed round patties. This
will be important a ways down the review

And for the clinically minded, our poops are firm and good sized indicating that our meal is digesting properly and we have no issues with the lack of grain and stuff. Our coats (mine fur, Molly's hair) are shiny and soft and healthy looking. Aside from my eye goop from grass allergies, my eyes are clear and alert. Clearly - we are thriving on this food.

This is a broken patty

Mommy has a PROBLEM, though. Actually, a couple of PROBLEMS.

First of all - it takes a while to prepare. She has to breakdown the patty, add very warm - hot water to the patty, then let it sit to soften AND cool down. THEN she can feed it to us. And all the time we are screeching like BANSHEES to be fed. Even the cat! It is not a fun way to start her day, I am sure. And since in the evening she is usually preparing the family dinner when she feeds us, it is one more source of stress she DOES NOT NEED.

Secondly, portioning is proving to be hard because although the chart is on the bag by pet weight, everyone knows a pug cannot necessarily follow those guidelines. She is watching me like a hawk to make sure I don't gain weight. At the same time, she is worried I am actually LOSING weight so she is watching me like a HAWK for signs of malnutrition. In other words, she is not sure she is feeding me the correct portions.

But what makes portioning HARDER is this 

  

More broken pieces and crumble than patties

That's how the bag of food looks after removing the TOP layer of well formed patties. A lot of chunks AND EVEN MORE crumble. How do you portion 1 - 1.5 patties a serving when there are NO PATTIES? Luckily Mommy anticipated this problem (or maybe she just looked below the layer of PERFECT PATTIES) and decided to measure how much crumble a patty makes. The answer is ONE-HALF a cup. this is how she has had to determine our servings this week - halfway into the challenge.

She knows this is a danger when packaging freeze-dried foods. They break and crumble - that is a known fact. She just wishes more attention was paid to packaging and to the portion table.

We want to emphasize that these are not really COMPLAINTS but more observations. This food is a well thought out meal complete with our daily requirement of vegetables. All in a convenient freeze-dried form.

Mind you, she could also feed us JUST the patty, broken up. It is not necessary to re-hydrate the food although it makes more sense to do so. Expecting a dog to drink enough water to counteract the dryness is kinda WONKY, if you ask me. And the food can be used as a topper to kibble making even a cheap dry dog food a better nutrition source. So that is something.

Stay tuned for the final review in two weeks.