The Kibble Trails: Before Grain Pork Results

I am not exactly sure how much of this food Conker needed to maintain weight since he was "recovering" from his ordeal while on it. Actually, he was still being a dipshit about eating when I'd transitioned him to it, but was eating well by the end of the bag. He got roughly 1 1/2 to 2 cups a day, so something in that area is what he needs to maintain bodyweight. I think.

Conker would eat the kibble with or without additions at the end of the bag. In the beginning I needed to dress it up with... whatever his chosen food of that day was. After I ran out of dress up items I started giving it to him plain, and much to my surprise, he ate it that way. Whatever dog. Confuse the utter crap out of me with your odd eating habits.

Supercrap cellular phone picture (taken before the Olympus was fixed)

Anyways, the kibbles were shaped like most grain-free kibbles I have seen so far. A generic roundish semi-flat shape. It did not smell too strongly but it wasn't the greatest. Conker did not think it was good enough to eat as a "treat" but would finish it if it was part of a meal near the end of the bag.

The 6.6 pound bag lasted about 16 days, however, I had been feeding it mixed with the Fromm duck food so fed alone, it would probably last a bit longer than that.

Conker was in pretty good shape while on this food. He had gained a bit of weight before he was fully transitioned to it but solidified nicely in the weeks he ate it. He is still a bit on the thin side, but I think that if he'd continued being fed this food, his condition would have continued to improve.
He did, like usual, develop a slight dog smell. It wasn't as bad as some other kibbles and wasn't noticable unless you were very close to him.
Conker's teeth remained in good shape while on this food. Very little tartar built up while he ate it.

Unfortunately, Conker's poop on this kibble was biggish, green (yes, it was green!), and very smelly. I find that smelly poops often mean there is something wrong when it comes to Conker, but I could not figure out exactly what it was. The green color confused me, and the only other time I have seen this was when he ate Origen as a puppy. but he did not agree with that food at all so I am stumped for the time being.


Overall I was quite satisfied with this food. Conker put on good weight (muscle, not fat), had a good amount of energy, and didn't lose coat or tooth quality as quickly as he had on some other foods. The green smelly poop thing is a put off, but I will be given another chance to see if it's a problem with the whole food line or just the pork version when I try out the buffalo (and chicken...) formula I also bought.

Note: Before grain is being discontinued. It can be found at select online retailers and stores who still have some in stock. It is being replaced with a "generic" Merrick label food that is very similar but different slightly. I will try out the newer versions and compare them later on.