A Chicken-Free Diet for Dogs: Puppy Food Our Cavapoochon Eats

Here at Content Bash headquarters, the real boss is our cavapoochon Georgie Tortellini, who is a mix of Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Bichon Frise, and Poodle. The day doesn’t begin until he’s taken his morning walk, and the night doesn’t end without him thoroughly licking our faces goodnight. In the meantime, he eats his fair share of food — and sometimes more! — in between his bouts of playtime, exercise, and nap time. All the while, we’re trying to figure out what he is communicating to us. Why does Georgie keep licking our faces? And what does it mean when he paws at us?

And our Georgie loves to eat! But unfortunately he cannot have chicken because it gives him the shits and makes his poop all runny. This is especially a drag when you live in a city where you are required to pick up after your dog. Have you ever tried to use poo bags to clean up runny shits off a sidewalk while people grumble maledictions as they try to awkwardly navigate around your crouched ass? It is not easy.

Anyway, say hi to Georgie! He is happy to meet you as well.

What Kind of Meals Does Our Puppy Like?

Though we certainly have a rotation of products that are typically on hand, we try our best to switch up his meals and mix dishes up a little so he doesn’t get too bored or finicky or picky. The lack of chicken is a bit limiting, especially since we stay on the safe side and avoid other poultry like turkey, as well as fowl like duck.

We sometimes use people food like cooked white rice, scrambled eggs (with absolutely zero salt and seasoning), shredded cheese (but only a sprinkle of high-quality mozzarella atop his meal to encourage him), peanut butter, sweet potatoes, and even pumpkin that we incorporate into his dog food for meals. To be sure, this yields mix results but he is less than one year old and we are all still learning. If you have any suggestions what chicken-free products to feed a 15-pound cavapoochon, we’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

In the meantime, here are the foodstuffs in our rotation for our Georgie.

Stella & Chewy’s Freeze-Dried Raw Dinner Patties

These salmon-flavored patties from Stella & Chewy’s are a big favorite of Georgie’s. He’s like a pescatarian, except one that also eat beef. It also comes in other, much fancier and usually more expensive flavors like lamb, duck, rabbit, and venison. We can’t vouch for those flavors yet but the Stella & Chewy’s Beef & Salmon for Puppies has gotten rave reviews from our little cavapoochon.

These patties are dry, but they also crumble up easily and we mix it in with a base of kibble and sometimes rice. It’s packed with healthy stuff that’s good for dogs like pumpkin seed, chia seed, sunflower oil, and even New Zealand green mussel, whatever that is. It’s also got cranberries, spinach, carrots, beets, broccoli, blueberries, and squash — all organic.

The Stella & Chewy’s packaging boasts that this product will help support stamina and vitality; vibrant skin and coat; strong teeth and gums; and healthy digestion. It’s recommended that you mix it with water, which we sometimes do, but we use the bone broth that’s next on our list.

Brutus Bone Broth for Dogs

Georgie loves this shit. We heat up Brutus Bone Broth for like 20 seconds in the microwave and pour it all over his food. We mix it up with his kibble and beef salmon cakes and there are meals when he’ll just slurp up the broth and not touch anything else. Georgie obviously loves the taste, and we love that it has all natural ingredients and low sodium. We also love that it’s made in the USA with eco-friendly cardboard packaging for a family-owned company that donates to charity. We feel pretty good about using our hard-earned dollars to support such a great product, and there are also tons of other benefits that help Georgie:

• very hydrating and super nutritious
• moistens up dry food so Georgie can chew it a little easier
• adds flavor to otherwise bland-ass kibble
• fortified with glucosamine and chondroitin, good for healthy hips and joints for a growing puppy
• claims to help with digestion and maybe even improve it
• claims to also promote healthy teeth, hair, nails, and skin, as well as detoxification
• No gluten, no soy, no wheat, and no dairy!

Purina Pro Plan for Sensitive Skin & Stomach

This is the stuff we use for Georgie’s base of kibble, and almost no meal is served to him without it. That doesn’t mean he almost always immediately eats it when he is served but that’s a piece of content for another day. We used this because the Purina Pro Plan brand was specifically recommended by our vet, with the Sensitive Skin & Stomach formula also specifically recommended to help with Georgie’s mild digestive issues.

This basically kinda counts as Georgie’s vegetables, and his attitude towards the kibble isn’t unlike most children when it comes to eating their vegetables, as he’ll eat a lot of his meal but his base. Sometimes we use the canned wet version of this make and model. Nonetheless, we’re satisfied with this product, as it comes from an established brand we trust and it promises a lot of good stuff:

• natural prebiotic fiber
• Omega-6-rich sunflower oil
• antioxidants to help support a healthy immune system
• over a dozen nutritious vitamins and minerals
• fortified with guaranteed live probiotics
• easily-digestible oat meal
• salmon, barley, preserved beef fat, rice, fish oil, and canola meal

What Kind of Treats Does Our Dog Like?

All kinds! Pretty much anything that he can’t have is a treat as far as Georgie is concerned, as he is forever curious about what his humans are having at their dinner table. However, Georgie gets a shitload of treats all day long. We have a few favorites that are in rotation at the Content Bash house, including:

Natural Balance Limited Ingredient Diets — Salmon

These Natural Balance brand salmon-flavored treats are perfect for quick snacks and rewards when Georgie is good enough to sit for us on command (not always a given). In addition to salmon, it’s got peas, potatoes, and sweet potatoes — more of his favorite things. They’re meaty and chewy, and also big enough for us to break in half when we’re trying to portion out his treats. There are less than four calories per treat, and this 5.3-ounce canister is travel-friendly and lasts us a long time.

As dog-owners who pride ourselves in not filling our cavapoochon with crap and shitty processed ingredients, we’re assured by the fact that it has no artificial flavors or preservatives. They’re also relatively cheap, especially for its quality. Natural Balance L.I.D. treats also come in turkey and chicken, but of course, we’re trying to keep the Georgie away from poultry.

Stella & Chewy’s Wild Red Jerky

We at Content Bash are not paid enough to be brand-loyal — though we are open to be! (hint hint) — but we do have a certain fondness for Stella & Chewy’s for dog meals and puppy treats. Georgie is a big fan of Stella & Chewy’s Wild Red Jerky treats, which offers over 150 bite-size treats per bag that are big enough (but not exactly easy enough) to break off for portion control. It claims to be rich in protein with no fillers, and this particular flavor is 90% beef and lamb, with only four calories each per piece.

Georgie has been known to go bonkers over these treats, and he can get pretty animated at the mere sound of the crinkling of Stella & Chewy’s packaging.

Wellness Soft Puppy Bites — Lamb & Salmon Recipe

First of all, note that if you click this product link, the Amazon page for this item includes “chicken” in its product headline or whatever you call it. THIS IS NOT THE CASE. Even if you select the Lamb & Salmon recipe, it still reads as Chicken & Carrots even though the Lamb & Salmon recipe does not contain any poultry. Keep this in mind if you buy this on Amazon!

Second of all, this has cane molasses. We are trying to reduce Georgie’s total sugar intake so while this was a big favorite of his when he was younger, he only gets these a couple times a week, if that. That said, this is a decent, cheap, high-quality treat for dog and puppy owners who are okay with cane molasses in food. It’s got tons of other good stuff, though, including sweet potatoes, chickpeas, blueberries, carrots, and apple. There’s no also corn, soy, meat by-products, or artificial flavors or colors. All that adds up to a treat that Wellness says can support brain development, immune health, and healthy skin and coat.

Georgie loves/loved these, but we’ve been phasing this treat out and may not re-up when our current bag is empty. We don’t discourage you from this if you think it’s right for your doggo.

Barkworthies Bully Sticks

One thing that surprised us as new puppy parents are how expensive bully sticks are, especially for a growing dog who loves to savor a good long chewing of things. There are some pretty good bully stick brands out there, but we’re pretty happy with Barkworthies, who have 12″ bully sticks available. It’s not much smaller in length than Georgie is himself, but the little tail-wagger does not mind at all. Speaking of tail-wagging, it’s something that we see a lot from Georgie as he wraps his tiny paws around a Barkworthies foot-long and happily gnaws at it for many many minutes at a time until the next shiny object comes along to distract him.

Expect to pay between $6 and $7 per Barkworthies foot-long bully stick — which can be a bit of a sticker shock for some — but how can you truly put a price on your puppy’s happiness? Whoever said money can’t buy happiness was never a consumer in a 21st-century post-capitalist American economy.

GREENIES Original Teenie Natural Dental Dog Treats

We feel like we’re cheating by including his GREENIES Dental Dog Treat in here because it’s so good for his oral health and hygiene, but Georgie loves it so much that he considers it a bona fide treat. Georgie can personally vouch for its deliciousness, and we admire how these treats have a unique texture that merely bends — not break like other dental dog treats are wont to do — that is supposed to help with a deeper clean down to the gumline to help fight plaque and tartar and freshen up his breath (which we are particularly thankful for when he is licking our faces). We also feel confident that it’s recommended and accepted by the Veterinary Oral Health Council (VOHC), which gives us a sense of assurance we didn’t even know we needed.

Closing Thoughts and Conclusion

This may be a living list. As Georgie Tortellini grows and gets older, his wants, tastes, and needs are totally subject to change. As such, this page could be updated if our cavapoochon acquires new tastes as we incorporate new foods into his diet. Like any other responsible pet owner, we want to feed our dog only the best and most nutritious food we can find, and our search for perfect nutritional therapy will probably never end. We will continue to look for ways to improve and streamline his diet and would love to hear what chicken-free pet food you feed your small dog.

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