The Rise Of Quality Wet Dog Food

Today the dog foods market is more saturated than ever with wet dog food offerings. For a number of years now, kibble (dry food) has been the most popular amongst dog owners, as the quality of it has been getting ever higher. However wet food in all varieties (canned, trays) has been catching up and now you’ll find brands such as Lily’s Kitchen amongst the top ranking ones. If you have read about our views on dog nutrition you know that as of August 2021, we started feeding Mikki a biologically appropriate raw diet. After reading so much about the subject for years and understanding that the pet food industry only exists to serve itself-not our dogs-we realised that not switching Mikki to the best diet he could receive was doing him a huge disservice, health-wise.

However this review isn’t about raw food. No! Well, actually, maybe it’s related… If you’re a raw feeder or considering switching, you may have wondered or be wondering that raw food meals will not be compatible with certain situations, such as when you go for a weekend away with your dog or you need to board him into kennels. As we know raw meat requires constant cold storage to be in a healthy condition. Although some kennels may cater to feeding your dog his own food (that you bring along), this is usually kibble or wet food because it’s too much of a stretch for them to have to store it in their freezers-if they even have any on site. So what do you do in these circumstances if your Min Pin is raw fed? The answer is you find amongst the highest quality wet food you can.

All wet food typically contains more meat and less carbs than kibble with high quality/top tier brands containing nutritionally beneficial carbs such as leafy green vegetables. This means wet food is a better offering than kibble even at the lowest levels. Wet food contains a lot of moisture compared to kibble which means that your dog won’t suffer from constant dehydration or any hydration-related health issues, as is often the case with kibble-fed dogs. This makes it a suitable replacement for raw food for the times when you cannot feed your Min Pin a regular raw diet. It is however a lot more expensive to feed than a high quality kibble and many times more expensive than premade raw food, which is why we have never fed it as a regular food-see monthly dog food costs on our feeding page. However for the purposes of a raw replacement for a short time period, the cost won’t be an issue. So we have been meaning to try out some quality offerings for when we need an alternative and Lily’s Kitchen is a brand we’ve always wanted to try Mikki on.

What Makes A High Quality Wet Food?

Check our feeding page for more detail about this but the obvious hallmarks of a quality wet food is meat which is minimally processed. Of course with kibble the meat will never be fresh when it gets to your dog’s bowl because of the heavy processing used to create kibble. Another important hallmark is the quality of the meat e.g. is it human grade? This term only means that it’s suitable for us to eat which is what you’ll feed if you prepared your dog’s food at home. The meat used to manufacture the lowest wet and dry offerings is not suitable for human consumption and can contain dangerous pathogens and chemicals. Next is carbs. It goes without saying that low quality ingredients such as corn or wheat often found in most poor quality kibble do not belong in a high quality wet food so we can skip those.

Although vegetables are best and nutritionally beneficial for dogs and what you should find in a top tier wet food like they are found in premade raw brands, what you’ll often find instead are carbs such as sweet potato and lentils. These are used as fillers more than for their nutritional benefits. Now because these carbs are not the best for dogs for different reasons they should be fed in moderation ideally. Neither of them have any real bioavailability for dogs compared to vegetables which we go into on our feeding page. Providing these ingredients do not form the basis of a wet food, they are fine. Remember moderate amounts😎. See this dog food ingredient glossary for more. Lastly a high quality wet food may have a range of botanicals and supplements such as slippery elm and salmon oil added to their recipes which tend to provide a benefits to a dog’s digestive health and skin/coat.

Who Are Lily’s Kitchen

We’ve known about Lily’s Kitchen for years since they came onto the dog food scene. The brand was started as a one woman campaign in response to her Border Terrier-Lily-falling ill. After preparing fresh food meals at home, Lily’s health improved. This story echoes many other dog food brands that began as much-needed alternatives to large and unhealthy commercial brands; dog is ill+dog is given proper food=dog recovers🤷🏾‍♀️. It’s a simple equation dog owners en masse are beginning to understand. Proper nutrition equates to wellness in both humans and animals. Lily’s Kitchen has now transformed into a multimillion pound business and is now part of Nestlé. Which means their portfolio of dog food has broadened as well and they create many varieties of wet and dry foods as well as treats and dental chews.

Excellent Ingredients

The ingredients in Lily’s Kitchen wet food are of good quality. They use fresh muscle meat, offal, fresh fruit and vegetables, herbs and botanicals. Some recipes such as the one we’re reviewing contain starchy fillers like potato and brown rice but they are in very small amounts (see photo above). These ingredients are gently steam-cooked so as to not corrupt the integrity of the food-loss of nutrients has forever been an issue with large commercial pet foods. From the photographs you can see real vegetables and meat mixed into the food.

Our Experience With Lily’s Kitchen

We bought a single can of Lily’s Kitchen for Mikki to try and see how he responds to it. The one we selected was cottage pie for no particular reason because Mikki loves all kinds of proteins or anything meat-based. For the longest time we’ve heard reports of owners claiming Lily’s Kitchen doesn’t ‘smell’ like regular canned dog food rather it’s like real home cooking. Upon opening the can however we found it to smell like a can of Pedigree, although that’s not to say that it smells unpleasant at all. It does have that characteristic of canned food where it’s smell spreads all over the room though. What was a surprise was the amount of food that ended up in Mikki’s bowl. As he is raw fed, the density of raw meat is high but as there are no fillers at all, it appears as if there is very little food in the bowl compared with wet or dry foods, even when feeding 3% of his body weight. Given Lily’s Kitchen’s ingredients we expected to see less of it but on appearance, there was a lot of ‘jelly’ which is a main composite of regular wet food. We went according to the feeding guidelines for Mikki’s weight which ended up being almost the entire can save a tiny amount left (so we fed the entire can anyway). Mikki gobbled up his bowl of Lily’s Kitchen without a second thought which is what we expected.

After Mikki ate he immediately looked bloated which never happens after his raw meals. This is due to the comparative volume of food. The next day he also had a fuller look and needed to take a number 2 a lot more quickly than he usually does. This is likely due to the volume of carbs/fillers which raw food has none of. His poo was shockingly smelly! But although there was a lot more poo than usual, it was decently firm. His bowel movements were very much like they were on poor quality kibble in terms of volume. Seriously, there’s nothing like a raw fed poo!

We found the feeding guidelines on the back of the can to be unhelpful (and confusing, refer to photo above) and instead we used the feeding calculator on their website, which can be found when you select a product. We were given 358g per day which is as we said practically a whole can.

Lily’s Kitchen Pricing

Lily’s Kitchen is a top tier, high quality dog food and thus it comes with a price tag to match. Mikki’s can of Lily’s Kitchen came from a vet down the road which cost £2.70 if memory serves. Off Lily’s Kitchen’s website the price per 400g can is £2.85 and a quick Google search show some major supermarkets sell them from £2.20. The 150g trays are cheaper at around £1.50. maybe less in some places. For a 5kg Min Pin (the weight we use to work out dog food costs on our feeding page) with average body type and activity levels, Lily’s Kitchen recommend 294g per day. This equates to be about £60 in canned food per month based on purchasing their 6 pack of cans off their website and a little less if you shop around. Delivery costs £4.95 if you buy off their site and free on orders over £29. 

Our Thoughts

We only tried Lily’s Kitchen on Mikki once to try it out but he hadn’t any issues with it at all. He loved every bit and cleaned his bowl. As a wet food, although it won’t be as good for your dog as raw food, it’s an excellent fill in for when you cannot feed it and we will definitely purchase Lily’s Kitchen when we need to. However for owners who really want to transform their Min Pin’s health and get them off poor commercial foods but don’t want to feed a raw diet for whatever reason, Lily’s Kitchen is also a very good alternative🥩.