Learn how to select the best premium affordable dry and canned dog food with this Nature’s Recipe Pure Essentials dog food review* and photos from Tripawds Spokesdog Wyatt Ray’s recent shopping trip to PetSmart with his mom.
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Pure, Essential Goodness in the Pet Food Aisle
A trip to the pet supply store is fun for our dogs, but an emotional experience for me. All my Wyatt wants is something that tastes good, he doesn’t care about good nutrition for dogs. He is only thinking…
“Mmmm, smells good. Must eat!”
But when I walk through those doors, my guilt trip down memory lane begins. As we stroll past the cheap dog food aisle I think back to a time when I innocently fed Spirit Jerry foods that were all flash and no substance. In my heart, I believe that the junk food I forced on Jerry may have kick started his bone cancer.
Wyatt Walks Past the First Food Aisle
Though he does like the idea of quantity over quality!
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Today I have an active, five year old healthy adult dog at my side who’s also a chance to redeem myself for those early bad food choices. As he happily hops down the aisles sniffing away at the dazzling selections, he puts absolute faith in me and trusts that whatever I put in his bowl will make him feel good and keep him thriving on three-legs for years to come.
We Agree on Finding an Affordable Premium Food
Wyatt likes them all, but I’m picky!
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I’m smarter these days and know that it’s better to choose quality over quantity, so I steer him toward premium dry dog food with simple, limited ingredients that I can pronounce – and better yet, are things I would actually eat myself.
Pure Essentials Catches His Eye
And mine too!
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Wyatt patiently waits for me to scrutinize labels. If a food has controversial artificial preservatives like BHA and BHT, back on the shelf it goes. We also avoid dog food ingredients that will upset his sensitive German Shepherd belly, like corn or meat by-products (aka, ground up hooves, feathers and worse!). One by one, I narrow my choices, then I spot a new option: Nature’s Recipe Pure Essentials.
Real Ingredients Is a Good Thing
Really simple ingredients are even better!
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I’m a sucker for good packaging and this one’s no exception. The plastic, reclosable bag feels sturdy, which means the food is better preserved from air contamination. But what’s really fun is the side window that lets you look inside and see real chunks of dehydrated veggies – the same kinds that I regularly use to jazz up Wyatt’s kibble; apples, carrots, peas and cranberries.
We Take A Closer Look at Pure Essentials
And we both like what we see!
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Pure Essentials is available for all life stages, and for an adult dog like Wyatt it comes in four recipes: a grain-free chicken, lamb, duck or salmon with brown rice. Both wet and dry dog foods are built on the same foundation of simple, uncomplicated ingredients for healthy dogs: no beef, no corn, no artificial preservatives or animal by-product meals. By reading the label and peeking into the bag, it’s easy to see that all of his nutrition needs are covered.
We Are Happy with Our Decision
But Wyatt wants treats too!
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After filling our cart, Wyatt leads me to the treat aisle, where a dizzying selection of choices overwhelm me once again. But then we find Pure Essentials Treats and we’re equally impressed with the simplicity of ingredients. Since Wyatt only gets treats for training purposes, the Pure Essentials Venison and Pumpkin Soft Chews, and bite-sized Trail Mix with chicken and sweet potato are perfect.
Guilt-Free, Affordable Goodness
Regularly changing up Wyatt’s diet is important to me so even when money’s tight, I reach down a little deeper into my pockets to chose a quality food that will keep him thriving in good health. Pure Essentials is definitely that line of high quality food that will always make me feel good and guilt-free at every mealtime.
*This post is sponsored by Nature’s Recipe Pure Essentials.We are being compensated for helping spread the word about Pure Essentials dog food. Tripawds only shares information we feel is relevant and beneficial to our readers. Nature’s Recipe is not responsible for the content of this article.
Is Wyatt still available for adoption? Is his age under a year? I live in Northern California.
Jerry, can you give me some info?
Jean–ladygolf1348
I am glad Michelle linked this to me. Sarge actually loves this food and devours it! I am trying several including innova, nutro and hills grain free. He was eating Victor, but refused to eat it in the last week without eggs or other goodies on it. Hoping he continues to enjoy NR! It is neat to see all the real food items right there in the window too, like you noted.
Dogfoodadvisor.com is a terrific website that evaluates and rates most of the dog foods on the market today. Definitely worth looking at.
Thanks for the tip Cathryn!
Look at that boy go! He’s dedinitey a “shop til’ you drop’ kinda’ guy!!
Thanks for making shopping fun for us all today AND informative!
Hugs!
Sally and Happy Hannah
Houndstooth, so very sorry to hear your precious pup has become an Angel. I kow he “crossed over” kmowing what love felt like because you showed him!
Yes Sally, he really does love sniffing all of the foods, especially attacking the treat aisle. You think they put all that stuff at sniffer-height on purpose?
Yes, right at nose level Sneaky devils. Like putting the candy and toys at the checkout where kids throw a fit to get it!!!
I always struggle with this! I always want my babies to get the best quality without emptying my wallet completely. Being a vet tech we see the negative side effects of a poor diet every day at the clinic. You really are what you eat! The Pure Essentials looks great. We’re always looking for new foods to try out and change things up a bit. Thanks so much!
We do too Cassie. I can’t tell you many times I’ve beaten myself up when I think about the junk food we fed Jerry in his early days.
Thank Dog the pet food marketplace has really evolved so that now we can get great, healthy foods like this, real food, at an affordable price. With enlightened folks like you working at clinics, hopefully more pet parents will start seeing that it IS possible to feed healthy and not go broke.
If you decide to check it out let us know what you think. Thanks for reading.
I can understand the guilt. We lost one of our Greyhounds to osteo last year before we ever had a chance to fight it. In the beginning, we didn’t know much about good nutrition for dogs and we bought what we saw advertised as good without really understanding what they were talking about. Now that I’m a more educated consumer, I’m a lot pickier about what we feed our dogs, even more than I am for us humans. Everything I’ve seen about Pure Essentials has really impressed me!
I’m so sorry to hear about your Grey! Yeah, you totally get it then. Cancer is the learning experience nopawdy wants but we ultimately benefit from that knowledge. Haha, I’m also somewhat more conscientious about what we feed our Wyatt. Glad you like the Pure Essentials, we do too!
Hey Wyatt, I have to say that you would make me want to buy whatever you are interested in. This is a valuable review I plan to bookmark for future use. Thanks for the great insights!
Wyatt says “Anytime!” I’m ready to shop when you are! 😉