u/foundthehound

I work for The Farmer’s Dog, but I was rereading the story of how the company got started and thought the origin was interesting because it started with a problem one of the founders was personally dealing with.

One of the founders, Brett, had a dog named Jada who had severe digestive issues for the first two years of her life. He tried pretty much every food he could find, but nothing seemed to help. Eventually, a vet suggested he try cooking for her at home. According to the story, Jada started doing much better.

That experience eventually led Brett to team up with his friend Jonathan and start The Farmer’s Dog.

What I find interesting is that he wasn't trying to come up with a startup idea. He was trying to solve a problem he was personally dealing with.

I think that's worth remembering if you're trying to start a business. Sometimes the best ideas aren't found by brainstorming random business ideas or trying to predict the next big trend. They come from problems you already understand firsthand.

If you've ever thought, “Why doesn't a better solution exist for this?” it might be worth paying attention to that question.

Not every problem is a business opportunity, obviously. But I do think personal experience can be a pretty good place to start.

Most people focus on walk timing and shade when it comes to keeping dogs cool. Both matter. But hydration is doing more work than people realize and it starts before your dog ever touches their water bowl.

Dogs on fresh food consume significantly more total water per day than dogs on kibble — even when kibble-fed dogs drink more from the bowl. The food itself is making up the difference. Fresh food has roughly 70 to 80% moisture content compared to around 10% in dry food.

I work at The Farmer's Dog and this is actually something we've studied and published research on. On hot days that baseline hydration advantage adds up, especially for breeds prone to overheating or dogs that aren't big drinkers.

The bowl still matters. But what's in the bowl before they even get there matters too.

Does anyone factor in hydration when thinking about summer safety for their dog?

Aussies are one of those breeds where physical exercise alone might not cut it. You can run them for two hours and they'll still find something to destroy. The mental piece is what actually settles them.

Lick mats and puzzle feeders do something a walk doesn't — the focus required to work through them produces a different kind of tired. Fresh food works especially well for this since it spreads easily and the smell and texture keeps them engaged longer than kibble would.

I work at The Farmer's Dog and enrichment tools come up a lot with high drive breeds specifically. What's actually worked for your Aussie?

Rottweilers can unfortunately be prone to hip dysplasia, which got me thinking about the factors we may actually have some control over, like weight and nutrition.

A vet once said: if dogs consistently ate appropriate portions for their lifestyle, age, and size, it could be a huge win for orthopedic health. Extra weight puts more stress on joints that may already be compromised.

And it’s not just about calories. Omega-3 fatty acids, specifically from fish oil, are one of the nutritional supports commonly recommended for joint health and helping slow cartilage breakdown.

I work at The Farmer’s Dog, so nutrition and weight management come up a lot in my day-to-day work. One thing I’ve found interesting is how much portion control can matter for large breeds, where even a relatively small amount of extra weight can put additional stress on the joints.

Has anyone managed a Rottweiler’s hip dysplasia through diet or weight changes and noticed a difference? What helped, and what didn’t?

One thing I see pretty often on here is people saying that The Farmer's Dog doesn't employ veterinarians. I work at the company and can say that's not true. We have veterinarians on staff, including board-certified veterinary nutritionists, who formulate our recipes.

I honestly didn't know much about veterinary nutrition before working here, but it's a very specialized field. There's only around 100 practicing veterinary nutritionists in North America.

I'm curious... what other misconceptions have you come across about pet food or pet food companies?

A lot of pet food descriptors aren't defined by AAFCO — terms like "premium" or "natural" don't have a regulated meaning, so they don't tell you much about what's actually in the food or how it was made.

Human grade is different. It's actually defined by AAFCO and to use it on a label, every ingredient and the final product has to be stored, handled, processed, and transported in line with FDA human food production rules. Not just some ingredients. All of them. And the facility itself has to be licensed to produce human food.

That last part is where it gets interesting. Some brands advertise human grade ingredients but if the food isn't made in a human food facility it doesn't actually qualify. The term applies to the whole product and process, not just what goes into it. I work at The Farmer's Dog and our food is 100% human grade — every facility we use is licensed to produce human food, which very few pet food brands can actually say.

Has anyone actually looked into what's behind the claims on their dog's food label?

Changes in appetite are one of the earliest signs of illness in dogs. If food is always available, you lose that signal entirely — you won't notice when they start eating less until it's more obvious.

I work at The Farmer's Dog and scheduled meals come up a lot. Pre-portioned plans naturally build that routine — you know exactly how much they should eat and when, which makes any change easy to spot.

Does anyone free feed or has switching to scheduled meals actually made a difference?

Cocker Spaniels are prone to skin issues and ear infections that often get chalked up to environment but food can be a factor too, and the triggers might not be what you'd expect.

I always assumed dog food allergies were like, weird exotic proteins. Venison, bison, that kind of thing. Turns out a 2016 study found the most common triggers are beef, chicken, dairy, and wheat. Stuff that's in almost everything.

Which is why unlisted ingredients are worth knowing about. I work at The Farmer's Dog and this comes up a lot. There was a study on commercial over-the-counter dog food where unlisted ingredients showed up in 13 out of 14 brands. If your dog is reacting to chicken and you switch proteins but the new food has chicken in it anyway without listing it, you're just stuck with no obvious reason why.

An allergy flare up that won't respond to diet changes is really easy to write off as environmental. Itching in spring, must be pollen, that kind of logic.

Has anyone actually gone through an elimination process and figured out whether food or environment was the culprit?

Maltipoos are prone to skin and ear issues that can look a lot like food allergies but often aren't — which makes this stat worth knowing for this breed specifically.

I work at The Farmer's Dog and came across a stat recently that reframed how I think about this. A 2018 Banfield paper put true food allergies in dogs at around 0.2% of the population. Which is a surprisingly small number given how much it dominates pet nutrition conversations.

Most reactions people attribute to food allergies are probably something else entirely — environmental allergies, food sensitivities, intolerances that look similar but aren't the same thing.

Did anyone else assume it was a food allergy before finding out it was something else entirely?

Italian Greyhounds are one of those breeds that get comments about looking too thin constantly — that lean delicate build is completely normal for the breed but most people are used to seeing overweight dogs so the baseline for "normal" is skewed. Worth knowing that 59% of US dogs are overweight.

Vets use a body condition score to assess this on a 1 to 9 scale. A 4 or 5 is ideal. At that score you should be able to feel your dog's ribs easily but not see them prominently. If ribs are clearly visible they're too thin. If you can't feel them at all there's too much fat covering them.

I work at The Farmer's Dog and body condition is one of the things we factor into how we think about portioning, not just a number on a scale.

Has anyone been told their dog looks too thin when they were actually at a healthy weight?

Working at The Farmer's Dog I think about aging and nutrition a lot. When did you first start thinking differently about what your older dog was eating, and if you switched to fresh, homemade, or something else, did you notice a difference?

Something I came across working at The Farmer's Dog that I hadn't thought about before — a dog that used to spend 10 minutes sniffing everything on a walk and now just stands there isn't necessarily being lazy or tired. That kind of change in behavior is something vets actively watch for as a sign of cognitive decline.

There's actually an acronym vets use to evaluate it called DISHAA — disorientation, impaired social interactions, sleep disturbances, house soiling and memory changes, activity changes, and anxiety. Most people don't know this framework exists and end up attributing early signs to personality or age without realizing it might be worth flagging to a vet.

The earlier you catch it the more options you have. Specialized diets are one of the things vets recommend for managing it — which is part of why the connection between what dogs eat and how they age is something we think about a lot at TFD. We actually published research on how fresh food supports healthier aging at a metabolic level.

Did anyone know about DISHAA before or is this the first time coming across it?

Boxers are prone to digestive sensitivity and stomach issues, which makes digestibility worth paying attention to when it comes to what you feed them.

Smaller poops after switching food is actually a digestibility signal-more of what goes in is being absorbed rather than passing straight through. Research shows fresh high-quality proteins in lightly cooked food are more digestible than those in heavily processed dry food.

I work at The Farmer's Dog and it's one of the things we think about a lot. The poop change is one of the first things people notice after switching and it's more meaningful than most realize.

Anyone else with a Boxer notice this after switching foods?

I work at The Farmer's Dog and think a lot about what goes in the bowl but the same logic applies to what goes alongside it. Studies show antioxidant-rich foods like blueberries and strawberries can support brain health in aging dogs, and they're packed with phytochemicals and vitamins that processed treats just don't have. High water content helps with hydration in the heat too.

do you think about treats differently in summer or is it pretty much the same year round?

Something that flipped my assumption recently: for large breed puppies, it's not just about getting enough calcium. Too much can cause just as many problems as too little. Phosphorus and vitamin D work the same way.

Which makes the "just add a supplement" logic seem pretty shaky. A complete and balanced diet already accounts for these ratios and adding on top throws the whole thing off.

I work at The Farmer's Dog and this comes up a lot. With a complete and balanced diet the ratios are already worked out. You're not guessing or stacking supplements on top of something that was already calibrated.

The timeline makes it even more important. Giant breeds like Great Danes can still be growing at two years old. That's a long window to get wrong.

Most of what I see in puppy communities skews toward small breeds or generic advice that doesn't apply when your dog is going to weigh 120 pounds. Anyone with a giant breed puppy find the nutrition guidance actually useful, or is it mostly one-size-fits-all?

There's a study from Texas A&M's College of Veterinary Medicine showing that DHA, the omega-3 you get from fish like salmon, can improve memory and learning in young dogs. Not in a vague "supports brain health" way — specific memory and learning outcomes.

I work at The Farmer's Dog which is how I ended up reading about this at all. What surprised me is how little it comes up compared to everything else in the large breed puppy conversation. DHA gets skipped over even though it seems like it matters most during that early window when so much neurological development is still happening. It's one of the reasons our recipes include human-grade salmon oil.

Maybe everyone already knew this and I'm late.

Does the ingredient list on puppy food factor into how you picked it, or was it more about format, price, convenience?

Research backs up fresh, lightly cooked food being more digestible than typical kibble. So when a dog gets loose stools switching to it, the food usually isn't the problem. It's the pace of the switch.

A dog who's been eating the same processed food for years is used to it in a specific way. Any change takes adjustment time, even a change that's ultimately easier on their system. Working at The Farmer's Dog I've heard from a lot of people who bailed on the switch early thinking it failed, when they probably just needed more time.

What did the transition actually look like for your dog?

One study found that almost 40% of pet food products contained meat not listed on the label.

If your dog has ongoing stomach issues and you're doing everything right like slow transitions, isolating proteins, reading labels carefully, you might not even know what's actually in the food. The list isn't always the full list.

It's part of why sourcing and production standards matter to me working at The Farmer's Dog. Human-grade ingredients, FDA-regulated facilities. At least gives you a real foundation.

Does anyone factor this in when switching foods or is it mostly trial and error?

Poodles are known for being prone to digestive issues and it comes up a lot when we research breeds at The Farmer's Dog. Sensitive stomachs, loose stools, general GI unpredictability.

One thing that's worth knowing: fresh, lightly cooked food has been shown to be more digestible than processed kibble. The ingredients are more bioavailable, which means less work for the gut and generally better, smaller poops. For a breed already predisposed to digestive sensitivity that difference can actually matter.

Has anyone with a poodle found that food type made a noticeable difference for their dog's digestion?