Scratch offer a home delivery service tailored to your dog. The first thing I noticed was how cool their website is. It’s really cool.
You can create a profile for your dog by giving them some information (name, sex, life stage, breed, weight, activity level), and they recommend an appropriate delivery schedule. Shipping is free to Melbourne and Sydney, and I believe they’re looking at options for wider distribution as the company grows.
Their business philosophy is to offer transparency which is something very welcome in a rather nubilous industry. You’ll see from the ingredients they list percentages – this is something all manufacturers should be required to do as it really shows the truth. Not many do.
The bulk of the food is made up of three ingredients – Kangaroo, Broad Beans, and Chick Peas. These are all in fairly equal proportions. To put this into perspective, many of the big supermarket brands have less meat, and instead of legumes use excessive (filler) grains. There are also more expensive brands which have a greater meat percentage, so this food sits somewhere in the middle. It’s comparable, and slightly cheaper than Black Hawk Grain Free.
There’s a concern with feeding broad beans in excess, but some clever pet food industry boffins tested they could be fed in moderation and they hold up relatively well when cooked into a kibble. The main reason they’re used in kibble is because they’re a cheaper alternative to meat, and they bulk up protein percentages. It’s nothing to do with whether the ingredient is good for your dog. Given almost a third of this food is broad beans (and almost two thirds legumes) the real issue may stem from constant feeding. This is one of the reasons we recommend a mixed diet.
Further down the ingredients list we find some nice inclusions. There are four types of oil (sunflower, salmon, flaxseed, and coconut), which will all boost well being, skin, and coat health. DHA is included to support brain and body. There’s a few other well chosen ingredients as well, and the wonderful turmeric which has no end of health benefits. It’s also really nice to see no use of chemical/sulphite preservatives or nasty additives.
The only real downside of this food is the amount of legumes, but otherwise Scratch could be worthy of adding to a rotation of foods.
Ingredients
Kangaroo (Roo Meal 28%, Meat & Liver Digest 5%), Broad Beans 27%, Chick Peas 27%, Beet Pulp, Chicory, Alfalfa, Yucca Extract, Carrots, Chia, Spinach, Pumpkin, Kelp, Turmeric, Beef Fat 7%, Sunflower Oil 2.7%, Salmon Oil, Flaxseed Oil, Coconut Oil, DHA from Algae, Monosodium Phosphate, Salt, Zinc Sulphate Monohydrate, Essential Vitamins & Minerals, Mixed Tocopherols and Rosemary Extract.
Never had any issues with scratch my 3yo lab is on the high protein Turkey mix. Of course not all pups have same needs. If anyone wants to try discount code is REFNDC3BQVKE2
So our Bull Arab has two humans that provide food for him among other duties like throwing ball and pulling rope. In the beginning we had tried many brands of kibble but he wasn’t happy with the “deposits”. As care, home and transport providers we thought we might have to move to a raw diet as this seems to work for many with this breed, until we tried Scratch. Within a couple of days the “deposits” solidified, to the extent that after a “deposit” he would come bounding back into the sitting room with a look of sheer joy on his face. This also makes clean up on the back lawn and doggy parks much easier for the care takers thankfully. Then there is the obsession with the dried beef treats which when chopped up make for excellent training treats. Now, don’t get me wrong, his royal highness does have a discerning taste and can from time to time not fancy the same bowl of kibble day after day, and so we as care givers have to mix it up a little, mixing in some chicken works wonders for this. Thank you to Scratch for keeping the royal one happy, we must go now and pay the cheese tax.
My Staffy did great on the kangaroo one… until she didn’t. By the time I finished the third bag she started throwing up and having loose stools randomly until one day she woke up with a distended stomach (I was terrified thinking she had bloat). I fed her a bland diet and she was back to her normal happy self in no time.
Upon reading your review, I strongly suspect it is the peas. Ordering Petzyo now, fingers crossed it will work for my girl.
Enquiry re cost + delivery for ur range. Could I have paper display, not tech savvy!
Hi, you would need to contact Scratch direct, sorry!
Hello, our blue heeler/border collie x is approx. 16+years old, has a beautiful double coat however now has signs of early renal failure. He is 25kgs in weight and also has some arthritis in his back legs.
Does your dog kibble have food for this type of issue, ie low protein food?
Stop feeding your dog kibble altogether with those two ailments. Make him some brown rice & veggie stew, add raw meat to it and maybe an egg occasionally & get him supplements for arthritis such as Green lipped mussel, glucosamine etc. I give mine all of that plus 4Cyte gel. Your vet can also give him a shot of glucosamine if needed. If you aren’t comfortable making fresh food for him yourself you can buy air-dried or freeze-dried food that you add water to or fresh food from Pet stores. I realise your comment is old and this reply may be too late but other people reading this might get something from it.
As pet owners all we can do is apply are due diligence when researching dog food in the hope that we find and feed our dogs good quality food. For me finally the researching has come to an end, from feeding raw food, freeze dried food, my dog is doing really well on Scratch, he’s gone through 2 x Bags of Lamb, Beef and Turkey he’s now on the Kangaroo which he love’s. Everything from ordering to the team answering my emails has been excellent. I really like the transparency on the ingredients log, so if you have a dog with food intolerances and the recipe is changed due to supply issues you can see whats been substituted, I know of no other company that does this. Of course, you need to do your own research and at the end of the day our dogs have the final say. I remember during our journey feeding my dog a highly recommended weel known company food, bang he hated it and shat everywhere, so at least grab some samples and check out scratch well done team.
Tried this dog food for my 11 yo Scottish Terrier, after our favourite Ivory Coat Dog Food Co sold out their Australian operation to overseas interests and the quality deteriorated.
Yes Scratch’s website and marketing is really cool, but the lack of flexibility isn’t. My dog was first put into the Lamb and Ancient Grains Kibble (no samples or one offs you had to sign to a plan) and really didn’t like it from the get-go after always being a good eater.
I contacted the company and they offered to replace with another variety (not the variety I wanted) that I had to pay for in addition to the initial purchase. When I asked about returning the one initial unopened bag I had in exchange I was told to not send it back but donate it to a dog shelter. I haven’t as yet been able to find one that wants the kibble.
To me this is gross waste, as now my dog also dislikes the replacement and after a few months of trying I’ve changed to another food brand and I’m left with two bags of half used kibble and one unopened.
Companies like Scratch need to think through some of their processss a bit better to call themselves sustainable, including greater flexibility to trialling and purchasing the product
You cant really get away from the ads for Scratch so finally caved and ordered some. Great online buying experience.Didnt work out for my dog, tried for 3 weeks but even small amounts triggered unhappy movements. Glad I tried but wont re-order.
Ads are abound for literally every brand ever, I look past them, not really into the flashy parts, I just need the ingredients and if they look good and the protein fat etc looks good. I may try it, depending on the meat, mine didn’t like this or any other kangaroo kibble.
You should try Orijen from Very Pet, cause you can get a sample like bag for $15. My dogs love it and do very well on it.
I have a list of foods I think are good based on reviews, my own experiences etc that might be of use to you.
Wellness Core
Holistic Select
Instinctive Bite (not the salmon) budget
Orijen and Acana when available
Vetalogica bioglogically appropriate
Taste of the Wild
Meals for Mutts
Balanced Life/non kibble options as well
Xp3020
Nutra gold budget version of ToTW
Phoenix
Cherish
Aldi Natural Elements is not bad for budget/GF version is high fat 18%
Stockman and Paddock GF version (high fat) budget
Pure life kibble and freeze dried mixture
Man’s Best
PurePro if you need super high calorie (716 kcals a cup)
Non kibble range
Ziwi peak
Woof
K9 Natural
Absolute Holistic
Providore with 2 for $88 specials, can be considered a budget air dried (for now) price keeps increasing.
Kiwi Kitchens
FrontierPets
I joined scratch with the hope of improving my dogs skin allergies and ear infections. He ate the food no problem however about a week after starting him on it he refused to eat his breakfast which was VERY unusual for him. We took him to the vet and found that the food had caused serious stomach issues for him and he was throwing up and also had diarrhea for the next week. According to our vet grain free biscuits are actually very dangerous especially in large breeds.
So it’s likely based on the DCM thing, where honestly the number of cases was only a few hundred over 5 years didn’t even reach 1000. We have 900 million dogs in the world, at least 300 million I’d say would be eating grain free. So less than a thousand cases in 300 million dogs is incredibly fishy.
It just doesn’t make any sense to why they would blow it up that much, I think it was because the Big 4 were loosing money and they made up some shit. Now the problem with making stuff up, is you have to back it up eventually.
They still can’t back it up, it was debunked plenty of times. However one thing they did find, was beet pulp and lamb foods cause issues with taurine in the body.
They also found that increasing taurine in dogs fed this diet helped tremendously. Taurine can actually be bought from GreenPet is it’s ever a worry. The doses are tiny and it’s cheap.
There was also mentions of, most kibble nowadays are loaded with legumes, they have more legumes than meat. This is the reason why some dogs are having issues.
There is no sure fire way to tell how much meat a kibble has, meat first doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. Lots of foods are meat first and only contain 9% actual meat.
If you have a large breed or any breed who is predisposed to heart problems, add meat to their food, add air dried/freeze dried toppers. Meat is high in natural taurine, which is lacking in pet food.
Orijen is a good “kibble” because it has 85% raw meat, this amount obviously lowers once the food has been cooked. But this food is rich in natural taurine, it’s got it all. Meat/fish/organs/bone. But it’s unfortunately expensive. It’s low carb, it may appear to have a lot of legumes but it doesn’t.
Any kibble with 4+ meats in the first line, will usually have more meat, but without percentages we don’t really know how much, unless they say how much.
Vetalogica biologically appropriate says 65% meat and Instinctive Bite writes how much meat they use as well from 49% to 70% for the salmon. Does it actually contain that much salmon? No idea, all I know is it’s their worst offender for bad reviews.
The other flavours are good, just never buy the salmon, unless you want a sick dog. I reckon they’ve used too much salmon frames and oil and it’s so incredibly rich that only a select few pups can actually eat it without issue.
There’s a few brands with a few meats in the first few lines, but yeah I can’t really remember them all at the moment.
As one of the founders of Scratch I wanted to thank you for the review.
We believe that all pet foods should transparently list all their ingredients and percentages of all the main ingredients as pet parents deserve that level of information so thank you for recognising that. Leading the way with this, we do expect some shock reactions as people are not used to seeing the truth about pet food.
Very few single animal protein kibbles will have more meat content than we have in “Scratch” when considered equally on a dry basis. The reason there is not more kangaroo was to make sure key nutritional ratios were not breached. So, while Broad Beans are cheaper than Kangaroo, they are similar to the cost of chicken and more expensive than a generic “meat meal”. They are also a much more expensive ingredient than grains or the typical grain free ingredients of potato starch or tapioca starch. We also believe it is much better to have a whole ingredient-based diet instead of the refined proteins and starches.
Broad beans are a good source of protein and fibre as well as vitamins & minerals. Tapioca or potato starches as alternatives are basically pure carbohydrates making Broad Beans a much better choice. Raw Broad Beans should not be fed to dogs, but the time and temperature of the extrusion process de-activates the enzymes that cause protein absorption problems when raw. Feeding trial research(published in Journal of Animal Science) has measured total tract digestibility of Broad Beans consisting up to 30% of the diet, and showed almost no difference than the control diet.
On our website ingredient page, we explain the reasons why we have included each ingredient.
If anyone has any further questions, feel free to reach out to me at doug@scratchpetfood.com.au For a small fee we now also ship to Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra.