Timberwolf Organics™

From Land's End to John O'Groats, Britain's landscape is dotted with sheep grazing pastures. Its heritage as a wool producing country would probably not have been possible without its legendary working dogs. Bred for their intelligence and ability to work they are a true working dog. In the course of a normal day's work they may cover a distance of up to 100 miles without rest. To be able to cover such distances these dogs needed a high protein/high fat diet consisting of poultry, fish, lamb, barley, oats and seaweed. We have tried to recreate this nutrient dense diet in our state of the art canid formulas. While the average pet may not run 100 miles a day, the benefits of feeding Timberwolf Organics Canid Formulas are numerous.

•  Formulated for extreme climates (excluding lite formulas)
•  Highly concentrated for less clean up (excluding lite formulas)
•  Up to 91% of protein is animal based versus 10% - 50% for most competitors
•  Carnivore Specific Diet
•  No gluten meals
•  No BHA, BHT, Ethoxyquin or dye
•  No added sugar
•  No white rice or simple carbohydrates
•  Will not contribute to pancreatic disease or diabetes
•  As little as 24% of calories are from carbohydrates (highly digestible)
•  High in essential fatty acids for healthy skin & a beautiful coat
•  Proper ratios of omega 3 and 6 EFAs

WHY TIMBERWOLF ORGANICS WAS CREATED:

With all of the hundreds of dog foods on the market some of you must be wondering "Why make another dog food?"That is a fair question, at least before examining it in further detail. Most breeders, trainers, kennel operators and lo even the average pet owner would admit to going from one dog food to another, trying this diet and then that diet, never completely happy with any of them. One food may give good results for a while but then the condition of the dogs fade to mediocrity or worse after only several months. Also, pets fed most "natural" foods produce large stool volume, do not maintain weight, have poor coat quality, yet have a shiny coat and usually display less allergy symptoms. Dogs fed well known commercial super premium foods seem to produce good coat growth, maintain weight, produce little stool volume etc., yet have a little less shine to their coats, seem to display more dermatologic distress and the foods have less expensive ingredients and are not naturally preserved. Below, we shall try to examine why this may be. If one were to talk to one hundred people and ask them what is the best way to make a dog food they will probably get one hundred different answers. My own experience with selling and using dog food showed me that certain combinations seemed to work better than others. For example when I first started in this business I started off selling a well known natural dog food that uses millet as it's staple grain. I liked the idea of using multiple grains versus one or two and the use of flax and fish for the omega 3s. However, many complaints were lodged of dogs losing weight on this food. Many quickly realized that by putting their dogs on this companies' puppy food they looked much better I also noticed that years ago more breeders used the original formula of a dog food with a hard to pronounce name (at least until they were bought out by a large multinational company) for their puppies than anything else. There were some rumors of it causing a red tinge to the coat, but a lot of breeders swore by it. It was one of the first companies to market a super premium pet food and included high levels of chicken by-product meal and fish meal in its formula. The breeders then switched back to whatever food they liked because they thought it was too high in protein, but they swore by it for their puppies. I was then interested in a company and it's theories that made carnivore specific pet foods in a granular form made with a high amount of animal based protein that receives a lot of praise from a loyal customer base, but again they used corn (not that there is anything wrong with corn but a lot of consumers do not like it) and their prices were about two dollars per pound, out of range for most consumers. I also fed raw and had my butcher mix beef, heart, thymus, pancreas, tripe, bone dust and liver. I would mix this with oatmeal, kelp, wheat germ, herbs, romaine and red leaf lettuce, blackberries and such. I had very good results with this but wanted to create a formula as close to this ideal as possible but without the problems (parasites, salmonella, missing vitamins or minerals etc). The common denominator was that foods that contained a lot of animal based protein, or a performance or puppy versions of some dog foods seemed to get better results than maintenance or "lite" versions, or most commercial grain based foods. Lets investigate this further. Most commercial dog foods, because of cost considerations are made predominately from wheat flour, corn meal or white rice. Another reason for this is that refined flours are high in starch. In the extrusion process, the starches are gelatinized so that they may be digested. The greater the gelatinization the greater the digestibility. All things being equal the more starch the greater the overall digestibility of the kibble. As with most things in this world, that depends. This only applies to the grains or flours in a formula. We have made our food a little differently. We use high levels of a high quality low ash chicken meal that is already very digestible as are the fats and oils. A high level of starch in a formula does bind the kibble together nicely, but contributes little in the way of nutrition. With that said, what refined flours contribute to a formula nutritionally are mostly just carbohydrates. They are lacking in vitamins and minerals, amino acids and essential fatty acids. Whole grains have many times the vitamins and minerals but are still not as concentrated as animal based foods. An herbivore, with it's multiple compartment stomach specially designed to extract nutrients from plant matter, eats grasses, grains and seeds and the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients are then concentrated in it's flesh and organs. Chicken meal, fish meal, lamb meal etc., are high in amino acids, essential fatty acids, calcium, potassium, magnesium, manganese and vitamins. In fact we add no extra calcium to our formulas as our ingredients supply enough necessary. Fats and oils supply essential fatty acids and some vitamins but refined flours only supply carbohydrates. We use only a small amount of grains and we use only whole grains which include the germ and bran where the vitamins/minerals are most concentrated and are run twice through a high speed hammer mill right before going into the extruder for freshness. Some other "natural" foods use whole grains as well and spend a lot to advertise that fact. The problem is that their formulas are comprised of a high percentage of grains just as most commercial foods have a high percentage of flours. The WHOLE grains however contain a high level of fiber and other components that are hard to digest, thereby causing large stool volume, dogs that have a hard time keeping weight, mediocre coat growth and other problems. We still feel that by using whole grains we are providing salubrious benefits to your pet, yet because they comprise a small percentage of the total formula, you avoid the above mentioned problems as well. Another problem is that not only must there be enough vitamins and minerals, but as many vitamins and minerals interact, the balance of nutrients must be correct. For example, the higher the level of omega 6 essential fatty acids, the higher the level of vitamin E. The higher the fat, the higher the protein. Copper and manganese, copper and zinc, zinc and magnesium, zinc and vitamin E, as well as other nutrients, must all be present in the correct ratios The other part of the equation is the packaging, the use of quality expensive ingredients and/or probiotics and digestive enzymes, and the use herbs, seeds and unrefined oils. There are a number of unique foods on the market which use high levels of animal based protein or use foil barrier packaging, or have innovative ingredients such as fruits, vegetables, probiotics or seeds, but which also seem to be lacking in some manner. No one has brought everything together. Why not combine all of the best properties and eliminate the weaknesses? Why not make a formula that was carnivore specific with high levels of animal based amino acids but also include multiple grains, fruits, vegetables, seeds and herbs? Why not have probiotics and barrier bags but eliminate corn, soy and refined flours? Why not make a food with expensive high quality ingredients but that goes against the grain (no pun intended) of the industry in the way it is made? Finally, why not make a formula with all of these traits included but make it concentrated and nutrient dense so that you feed less? We feel that with the Timberwolf Organics formulas that that has been accomplished. Think of the Timberwolf Organics foods as a carnivore specific ultra concentrated performance (more expensive) formulas but with herbs, seaweeds, seeds, multiple grains and gourmet unrefined oils and packaged in barrier bags. Sincerely, Mark Heyward
Founder/Owner Timberwolf Organics

Myths and misconceptions of dog food:

Some of you have probably heard numerous claims about pet foods using "human grade", "antibiotic and hormone free" "meat based" etc. and do not know what to believe anymore. Below I will try to address some of the claims that are really half truths and that could be construed as being misleading.

First let us say that federal labeling law precludes pet food manufacturers from including "misleading" statements on their bag. For example: Some say that they use only antibiotic and hormone free chicken, lamb etc. That is not exactly true. It is against federal law for chicken to be labeled as hormone free. That's because growers may not use hormones on chickens. To label your chicken as hormone free would imply that your chickens are the only ones that are hormone free when in fact they all are! What happens with other animals used for human consumption is that they must test free of hormones, antibiotics or pesticides before slaughter. It usually takes three to five days to clear their systems of any chemicals. Those animals that are earmarked for slaughter are kept free of chemicals for several days and then butchered. When I think of "antibiotic and hormone free" I think of an animal that has been raised chemical free, not just for a few days. A play on words perhaps but borderlines on fraud. Ask if it is Certified Organic, "pasture grazed only" or imported from a country that restricts the use of chemicals if that is what you want. Of course you will pay a lot more.

Another one is: "Our meat comes from USDA inspected plants".
All slaughter houses that process for human consumption must be USDA inspected.

One natural dog food company claims: "Digest is the full guts including the manure".
Not true. It is made from whatever it is named for (chicken digest, liver digest etc.) and is digested by enzymatic activity and then dried. We do not use digest in our formulas but there is nothing wrong with it.

A natural food supplement maker that lists molasses as the second ingredient claims: "We use molasses because it is a nutrient not a sugar.
Molasses contains many nutrients and is technically not a sugar but it contains 60% sugars by weight and 20% water. Maybe it is not thought of as a sugar in Fufu Land but most of the world uses it as a sweetener. Dogs love sugar and it is added mostly for palatability. If sugar must be used to help preserve a product, then Molasses would of course be better than sucrose or dextrose, but only if it is necessary.

The same supplement maker also claims: "Our product contains natural enzymes and probiotics that are naturally present in food". Even if that were true, because you are only adding 1 teaspoon of supplement, it would only contain enough enzymes to assist in digesting that one teaspoon. If you ask them what the enzyme levels are they will not tell you. That is because they are so low they cannot be measured. If you want to replace the enzymes in a food lost due to processing you must add enough to assist in digesting the full amount of food you are feeding or the amount that was present in that full amount of food when it was in it's raw state. This is expensive to do however.
 
My favorite is "Made with only 100% human grade ingredients."
One quick way to determine if this is not true (other than cost) is if the food contains any "meals". Guess what? There is no such thing as human grade chicken meal or lamb meal. I know of no restaurant where you can say "Waiter, may I have some beef meal to go with my baked potato?". Or "May I have my chicken meal on a bun please?". The meat starts out as human grade because remember it is from an inspected plant, but does not receive an inspection sticker because it is not intended for human consumption so cannot be labeled as human grade. There are different grades (classifications) of meals however and are graded (classified) by protein content, ash content and price. Some are of very high quality. For example, our lamb meal is imported from New Zealand and is a special low ash high protein (8% ash, 70% protein) lamb meal that we have classified and most of the bone is filtered out (all lamb, chicken, beef meals contain a lot of bone because it is made from what is left over from cutting away steaks or boneless chicken breast for example). It is the most expensive and probably the best lamb meal in the country as it is made from the organs and contains a lot of blood which gives it a very complete amino acid profile. Is it human grade? Come on class, I'm listening? Most lamb meals are high in ash and are low (50%) in protein. We searched six different suppliers before finding my current suppliers for chicken meal and for lamb meal.

So you say "Fine. What about dog foods that list meat?"
Good question! Oh what clever readers you are! First, only a handful of mills have the equipment to add meat. Some companies may list meat but actually use meal. Of those that actually can add meat it is not quite what you would expect. It is usually mechanically de boned and mixed with water to make a slurry that is pumped into the extruder. The most you can use in a formula is limited to about 30% but can be as little as 3%. What starts out as chicken with 78% moisture is now perhaps 90% moisture cooked down to 10%. That 30% you started out with is now about 3.3% or less dry matter. To get the protein up you must now add corn gluten meal or another protein source. Corn gluten meal is a good protein source, it is high in the sulfur containing amino acids, but a lot of people (myself included) prefer animal based proteins which means you must add animal meals which means it is not 100% human grade.

"What about the other ingredients?" you ask.
The brown rice I get in looks just like the brown rice on your supermarket shelf, It is clean and looks indistinguishable. The only difference is that it does not have an FDA tag on it. Our oats are of exceptional quality. Higher in linoleic and alpha linoleic acid than locally grown oats because of the cold (probably grown organically as well) and are the same oats that are supplied to food processors. Growers do not have certain fields for dogs and others for people. The point I am trying to make is that I have trouble believing that a company would pay five times as much for the same ingredient just to get that FDA sticker. Let me give you an example: I buy a chicken fat from a company that supplies soup manufacturers etc. If I buy a tanker of fat it does not have to have an FDA tag and my price is $.11 per pound. If I buy less it must have an FDA tag and the price goes to $.58 per pound. Same product. That chicken fat is apparently human grade but I cannot call it that. A lot of my ingredients are human grade, some even certified organic but at the end of the day I can not make the claim 100% human grade because it is not, but neither can any other company (unless maybe they are charging $2 - $5 per pound).

Another example is that if a truck load (40,000 lbs) of frozen whole broilers were purchased for $.50 per pound, and if a custom chicken meal were produced, it would be exorbitant in cost. Chicken meal is made from chicken meat (usually mechanically de boned) that is put into a vat and is brought to the proper temperature and pH and then enzymes are added. The meat is broken down into a liquid and either spray dried or roller dried into a fine powder. Now go back to the truck load of chickens at $.50 per pound. It takes several pounds of chickens to make one pound of chicken meal. So let us say 7 pounds times .50 equals $3.50 plus the rendering charge. Let us assume $4.00 per pound okay? I am using about 50% chicken meal so $4.00/2 is $2.00+ per pound of dog food my cost. Just for ingredients. Not including herbs, oils, probiotics etc. Does any of this make sense to some of you?

One natural dog food company uses poultry meal but lists on their ingredient label Chicken meal, Turkey meal. AAFCO allows listing animal meals by particular animal if you know what animal was used in making it. If the meal is made from more than one animal or a composite you may list all the animals used in making it. What they mean however is "Chicken/Turkey" meal for poultry or if you know the exact percentages than you may list them where they should appear in order of weight on the label but not Chicken meal, Turkey meal as the first two ingredients. Chicken meal, Turkey meal gives the impression that the food is meat based when in fact it is not.

One question you can ask a dog food company to determine if it is meat based or grain based is "What percentage of your formula is animal meals?" or "What is the percentage of protein that is animal based?" or "How many pounds of animal meals are used per ton of your formula?" They probably will not tell you or say "That is proprietary." We use 48 to 52% chicken, lamb or fish meals by weight or 900 to 1100 pounds per ton! Put another way 91% of our protein is animal based. That is meal not meat. If someone tells you they use 1000 pounds of meat per ton that is equal to only 200 pounds of chicken meal or ten percent. Another way is to look at the calcium content. Chicken, lamb and meat meals are usually 4 - 5% calcium ( Special "classified" low ash meals with lower levels of calcium can be used but are up to 3 times as expensive), so if a company claims to be using 50% animal meals by weight and their calcium is only 1.2% then you know something somewhere does not add up. Or maybe they are using "new" math. The only reason we disclose this is that it is VERY expensive and not many other companies will do this and those that do will have to raise their prices. Of course someone may tell you they use a high amount but if so the kibble should be very dark. Our Lamb, Barley and Apples is almost black.

Now that you have read this page, at least you'll know what is in the food. If I decide to put in goat's eyes, tongue of wren and pickled fish pan fried in roasted sesame oil you'll know it. None of my formulas contain 4D animals, simple (read white) carbohydrates, dextrose or other sugars for palatability enhancement, soy, BHT, BHA or Ethoxyquin. We personally have sold and used a lot of specialty and super premium foods and have seen more positive results and heard more positive feed back with this food than any other. I invite you to go to testimonials page and read some of the testimonials. I hope I have answered some of your questions, but don't take my word. Call the FDA or AAFCO or some feed ingredient suppliers and see what they say.

Sincerely, ~ Mark Heyward