Shih Tzu Review Board: Orijen Freeze-Dried Dog Food

Our Human, whom we call Mom, makes us “meatloaf” every couple of weeks, and we get it every morning for breakfast with our kibble. We love it! She makes it with lean ground beef, lean ground turkey, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, green peas, and she throws in other vegetables, like zucchini and squash from the garden. Sometimes she adds fruit. It is soooo good!

However, once in a while she gets things from Chewy.com and lets us try it. This time, she got Orijen Regional Red Freeze-Dried Dog Food. We weren’t sure what she meant when she told us it was “freeze-dried.” We thought it had something to do with our last name, which, ironically, is “Freeze.” Well, it doesn’t. It’s the process they use. Why Mom wanted us to try it was, first, because it is a “whole prey diet” containing really fun “wild” stuff: angus beef, wild boar, ranch-raised lamb, heritage pork, and free-range bison, and even fruits and vegetables. The second reason was that she said that since it is “freeze-dried,” it is fresh and has no preservatives.

Before Mom gave it to us, she did some weird things. First, she took these “medallions” out of the package, broke them into four pieces (one for each of us!) and then poured warm water on them. The hard part was that we had to wait about five minutes while the medallions “un-dried.” Then, Mom divided it into four bowls as an “afternoon snack.”

Orijen Freeze Dried Food

Today we tried Orijen Freeze Dried Food.

What happened next? Well, Mom set the bowls down. First, she set one down for Nigel, and then one for Flower, Candy, and me. However, in the few seconds it took for Flower to get to her bowl, Nigel swallowed his piece and came and stole hers! Mom scolded him and then had to split up the last two pieces for me, Flower and Candy. Mom was surprised we liked it, because she didn’t think it smelled as yummy as her meatloaf. The good news is that because of Nigel’s bad behavior, she fixed us another one to share!

You are not going to believe what happened next! Mom had us girls go outside, since we are better behaved than Nigel. She put his bowl down on the kitchen floor, quickly went outside with our bowls, and shut the door so he couldn’t come out and steal our food. Then, she put down our bowls, and FLOWER ate hers and then ran and stole my piece before I could get to it! Sometimes it just isn’t fun living with three other shih tzus! I hope Mom feeds that stuff to us again!

Shih Tzu Week 45: May 3 (Day 309) – May 9 (Day 315), 2012

Shih Tzu Day 309: May 3, 2012

Thursday

Flower is pawing the air and giving me her come hither look. She definitely loves attention. She went back over to her couch, so she could stare at me from there.

Shih Tzu Day 310: May 4, 2012

Friday

The dogs seem so bored. I need to practice walking them, because I know they need that exercise. At least Nigel and Candy and Flower play together sometimes.

Shih Tzu Day 311: May 5, 2012

Saturday

Nigel and Candy in werewolf mode.It doesn’t seem like I got much done today. Keeping up with the dogs grooming sometimes seems overwhelming. We really need to make sure their paws are groomed, trimming their nails and getting the fur out from between the pads, and get them walking!

Shih Tzu Day 312: May 6, 2012

Sunday

I have been having trouble keeping Flower’s attention when it’s breakfast time. She keeps leaving her food bowl in the mornings, to fend off cats or squirrels from the back of the yard. This morning, instead of guarding her bowl, I went ahead and let Candy eat the rest of it. She needs more food anyway, and maybe Flower will learn not to run away so often.

Shih Tzu Day 313: May 7

Monday

Bath time for Flower before my sister arrived.I am very happy with the chicken jerky I have been making them. It makes me feel good to know exactly what they are getting. On my latest batch of jerky, I marinated them in lemon/lime juice and olive oil, and then sprinkled them with fresh sage, paprika, and rosemary. I read that dogs don’t really like citrus, but they were a bit hit. I also made more apple and chicken treats and chicken and sweet potato treats. They like all of them. Buying the dehydrator is one of the best purchases I’ve ever made.

Shih Tzu Day 314: May 8

Tuesday

My sister Sandy arrives today from Florida for a weeklong visit. We have been concerned because she has severe pet allergies. She’s like me, too, in that she can’t handle a lot of smells. I washed doggy beds and blankets this morning. I used to clean them more regularly, since they tended to have messes on them from accidents, but these days, that doesn’t happen, so I forget. Hurray for that!

John is on vacation. We have been steam cleaning the carpets with pet/allergen formula. We even tackled the carpet downstairs in the exercise room, which hasn’t been steam cleaned for years, since we hired someone to come in and do it. Flower followed me downstairs. I kept one eye on her, waiting to pounce if she tried to squat to pee. She sniffed a little, but then ran back up the stairs.

Shih Tzu Day 315: May 9

Wednesday

Flower and Dottie after bath.We went to breakfast this morning with Mom and Sandy. Mom treated us for my birthday at Gunther Toody’s. Sandy is trying very hard to make friends with the shih tzus. The female shih tzus growled at her and barked when she came downstairs this morning.

Shih Tzu Day 120: Wild Shih Tzu Banshees

breakfast twist for the shih tzus

a shih tzu lounging on a couch.The shih tzus got a twist on their breakfast food this morning. I normally mix together rice, ground beef (or ground chicken or turkey) and frozen vegetables. I have wanted to try Sadie Shih Tzu’s homemade dog food recipe, but I still haven’t gathered all the ingredients at once. I did compromise though. We bought veal, turkey and ground beef and mixed them together. Then, instead of the normal vegetables (carrots, corn, green green beans and peas), I used more of a fall mix, which included squash, baby carrots and zucchini. They all seemed to like it. Of course, they had their kibble too.

a shih tzu next to a stuffed elephant. Nigel is still the most adventurous when it comes to food, meaning I think he will eat anything. John had toasted and butter and bananas for breakfast, and he shared the banana. I tried to give Flower some banana, but she dropped it out of her mouth and Nigel grabbed it up and ate it. Nigel also grabbed up a carrot that fell off the floor. The girls hadn’t tried a raw carrot before, but John put one in front of Flower and she chewed on it a little and took a bite.

wild shih tzu banshees

I gave the shih tzus something to chew on a little later. I could hear Nigel chomping away from his position on one side of the couch and Dottie and Flower on the other side. After that, I had to abandon the children for several hours, because I went to meet a former coworker for lunch way across town.

a shih tzu on a dog bed.The three youngest shih tzus were a little rambunctious after I got back this afternoon. Candy and Flower were wild shih tzu banshees running up and down across the floor, scuffling with each other. Nigel was running up and down too, but I think he was mainly trying to join in. It must have been wild shih tzu girls day, because they mainly ignored him. It’s very hard to tell when they are really irritated with each other sometimes or just play fighting. I don’t understand how all of that wild shih tzu face biting doesn’t result in injury.

After their frenzied play, Nigel, Candy and Flower sprawled out on the floor in front of me, in a sort of line. It was about time for John to get home, so they could have been listening for sounds, or their play just plain tuckered them out.

Nigel sat on John’s lap all night. He sneezed about ten times in a row. I’m very conscious of that, since he had pneumonia when he got here.

Shih Tzu Day 95: Chicken Sunday

Chicken Cuisine

four shih tzusblack and white shih tzuWe picked up two whole chickens at the store yesterday. We put both of them in our crockpot last night, so we could make two dishes out of them. When we got home from church, we used one of the chickens to make chicken noodle soup. The other was for homemade dog food.
When I was helping Delores groom the newest foster dogs, she was feeding the dogs a recipe made from chicken, rice, chicken broth and frozen vegetables. Since I am experimenting with their diet, I thought it sounded like a good recipe to try for them. Dottie, Candy, Flower and Nigel quickly gobbled it down.

I tried it before giving them any, and I really liked it. I took some out for us. All it needs are a few spices and we can have it as a small meal.