Rebel Blog — raw feeding

The rebel pack is 100% raw fed so when it comes to treats, it's pretty much homemade or nothing...until now. Remy's K9 Kitchen is the answer to every dog prayer. Their exclusive line of treats focuses on wholesome, minimal ingredients, all locally sourced and processed right in the USA so you know your dog is getting the very best.

Whether your dog is raw fed or not, commercial treats are laden with fillers, preservatives, dyes, grains and even sodium. Eck. Natural freeze dried treats, however, are the absolute best product on the market for your dog. Freeze drying the ingredients preserving the majority of the nutrition.

We sat down with the owner and dog mom, Lisa McMillan, of Remy'S K9 Kitchen to get some inside info and offer you an incredible giveaway.

What inspired Remy’s Kitchen?

When we adopted Remy, we knew we wanted the best possible nutrition for him. After discovering he had sensitivities to certain ingredients in his food, I started preparing his meals for him. Through trial and error we learned what those sensitivities were. That path led us to starting this company. We wanted to create a line of food and treats with clean, healthy ingredients and no fillers. Food that your pup loves and you feel good about feeding to them.

How did you decide on the featured recipes?

Our Superfood Snack line came about because Remy loved another freeze dried treat that wasn't meat based, but the first ingredient was potato. I thought we can definitely do better than that. Why put a filler in it? Why not have pure nutrition in every bite? Right now, we offer a Blueberry Coconut treat with Greek yogurt, Blueberries, Garbanzo Beans, Kale, Chia seed, Flax meal, and Coconut Oil. Coming soon is a Pumpkin Kale version of that. Freeze dried in their natural state, preserving 98% of their nutrients. Our Just line is just that - meat and organs , freeze dried in their raw natural state. Single sourced protein. No guessing on what else may be in that bag of treats. 

Where do you source your ingredients from?

Our meats are all pasture raised locally to our facility in southern Wisconsin. The ingredients for our Superfood Snacks are also sourced locally and in the surrounding Midwest.

Where are your treats manufactured and packaged?

Our treats are made and packaged in a USDA inspected, state of the art facility in Wisconsin. We work closely with a Holistic Veterinarian who helps us perfect our recipes for our Superfood Snacks and our line of complete meals, which are still in development. She is actively involved in overseeing our production and quality control.

Why should dog owners choose these treats over others?

We are dog owners too! Not some big company tying to convince you through marketing what your dog needs. We truly care, and only want only the best for your pups and ours! Presently, we offer the only Freeze Dried Superfood dog treats that do not contain ANY fillers - no potatoes, grain, or filler of any kind.

What are the benefits of your treats?

Our focus is clean, healthy, biologically appropriate raw food with a single sourced protein for each recipe. Great for dogs with allergies or sensitivities. You know exactly what you are getting in each bag. Our Superfood Snacks offer pure, clean superfoods for your dog in every bite. We are so excited for your pups to try them! Remy and his friends do all the taste testing, so you know you are getting pup approval on everything you try from us!

You can find Remy's K9 Kitchen treats exclusively online on their website, Instagram and Facebook. 

To enter to win a years supply of Remy's all natural treats, check out our Instagram right here.

Pet Fooled: Why What You’re Feeding Your Pet Could Be Killing Them

As pet parents we are constantly trying to do what we believe to be the very best for our pets. We buy them the softest beds, the funnest looking toys, the prettiest collars, we take them to the dog beach, to the dog park, to doggy day care and on play dates with other dogs.  And when  it comest to meal time, we feed them what we think is the very best food and treats. We try our best, but sometimes we still fall short. And sometimes we feed them pet proclaimed products that are absolutely terrible quality without even knowing. This has nothing to do with being a bad pet parent, and has everything to do with the pet food industry promoting misleading slogans and beautifully packaged products that simply house the subpar food and treats they are selling. Over the course of time, we as a society nutritionally abuse our pets and cause overall health decline by not feeding a biologically appropriate diet and we have no idea we are doing this.

If you have a free night we highly recommending making it a point to watch the Netflix documentary PET FOOleD.

If you don’t have time to give it a watch we’ve summarized the wealth of information it contains for you. In short, most all pet food is not species appropriate for our cats and dogs and over time causes many ailments that would not come about if they were fed more wholesome meals of raw meat. Dogs and cats are carnivores, they require and thrive from eating meat. 

But why does my vet tell me not to feed my pet raw food? For the most part, Veterinarians are not educated in the realm of pet nutrition. They receive minimal classes pertaining to pet nutrition and this education has primarily been hijacked (i.e. funded) by huge pet food corporations so the information is not biological but rather skewed so that vets actually believe kibble is better for a dog than raw. It’s not. 

In 2016 pet parents spent an estimated $23 billion on pet food in the United States alone.  Pet food companies are a huge industry. One of the scariest parts about this is that big corporations like Mars, Nestle, and P & G manufacture dozens of separate brands under their company’s umbrella. When you’re deciding between dog food brands, there’s a good chance that the two “brands” you’re comparing are really the same main company.

But what is really inside the bag? Is what’s inside a bag as healthy as the shiny outside label would like you to believe? 

Beneful brand kibble by Purina has won many packaging awards for their stunning packaging.  They consciously mislead the consumer with their blatant tag line  “playful life”, yet the first four ingredients in Beneful are ground yellow corn, chicken by-product meal, corn gluten meal (which is highly allergenic),  and whole wheat flour. Nothing about nutritionally lacking fillers says “playful life”.

The pet food industry survived about 100 years with no incident and no questioning from the public. In 2007 dogs started dying. This high rate of incident was linked to dog food and it was discovered that the super toxic substance melamine, which is used in fertilizer and plastics, was present in dog food. This is the first time people started to realize how grossly unregulated the pet food industry really is. Unlike food for human consumption there are few standards or regulations on what goes into pet food. There is no regulation on the grade of meat that can be added to pet food and no accountably or documentation on where this meat is sourced, meaning it can come from anywhere and be in any state of death or decay. The pet food industry is a self regulated industry that sets their own requirements, which means no one is accountable and no one is ensuring the safety of our pets.  Integrative veterinarian Karen Becker who feeds and recommends raw feeding reveals, “There’s a problem in the pet food industry but most pet owners don’t know there are significant issues.”

So why is nothing being done about it? Why aren’t pet food companies more concerned with making better food? Pet food companies are already making billions of dollars a year so there is no reason for them to spend the time and money to do the research to better their food. Profits, not your pet, are their main goal and our pets are suffering because of this.

Dogs evolved from wolves, so although they have been domesticated on the outside they still share 99% of the same DNA as their wild ancestors. They are still carnivores and require such nutrition. Dogs and cats are equipped to process whole living protein, their teeth and highly acidic stomach acid provides the perfect environment needed to process pathogens potentially present in raw meat. 

A huge problem with feeding dry food is that it is completely devoid of moisture which puts your pet in a constant state of dehydration. Raw fed pets actually drink very little water because they are hydrated from the inside out. An expensive kibble is still kibble, it ultimately is not going to provide the maximum nutrition for your pet that raw feeding will.

Life is already short for our furry best friends, and providing them with a poor diet can make this unnecessarily shorter. As pet guardians it is our responsibility to feed the very best species appropriate diet we can afford. It is our job to educate ourselves to select the best foods for our pets.