| Country of origin | Australia |
| Available from | Pet Circle |
If you’re looking for a decent Australian Made & Owned dog food, then Vetalogica could be for you.
For the sake of the Vetalogica dog food review we’ll take a good look at the Hunter Valley Harvest formula which has a fantastic 38% protein (mostly from meat 🥩), and it’s grain free, biologically appropriate, with natural ingredients.
About Vetalogica
Vetalogica have been around for a while now as an independent dog food manufacturer. Consumer feedback has been really good and I’m not aware of any issues.
According to Vetalogica, they formulate their foods with one important consideration in mind – dogs are essentially carnivores. That’s great to hear as I view dogs more as carnivores than omnivores (take a look at your dog’s teeth and jaws, don’t they look like an omnivore to you!?).
Where to buy (for the best price)
Vetalogica review (Hunter Valley Harvest)
There’s a few formulas in the range including one for puppies, but I picked Hunter Valley Harvest as a benchmark. They’re all on par, so you could pick one or rotate between them.
38% protein which is fantastic, especially as most of it comes from meat. It’s almost double the protein of most supermarket brands, yet so much better as those cheaper brands are often protein from grains or corn which isn’t as good for our dogs.
Fat is on the low side at 10%. I would prefer to see a little more, although for dogs suffering pancreatitis it would make Vetalogica a good choice.
The upside to high protein is low carbs, and carbs turn to sugars. I estimate 34% carbohydrates which is good for a dry dog food, and also good for your dog.
Meat should always be the most significant ingredient in a dog food, and in Vetalogica Hunter Valley Harvest we find the first four ingredients are meat!
Great stuff!
It’s good to have a mix of meat proteins (the only reason you wouldn’t is if your dog has a sensitivity to a particular meat protein). In this food we find chicken, duck, tuna, and mackerel.
They’re all decent ingredients in their own right, and it’s good to see some fish in there too – rich in omegas for a glossy coat not to mention heart health.
Vetalogica claim on the packaging meat and fish ingredients amount to 65% of the product (inclusive of chicken fat further down the ingredients list) – that’s good, and it’s nice to see they’re open about it.
The next chunk of ingredients is a combination of sweet potato, chickpeas, green and red lentils.
These will amount to most of the remaining 35%. None are bad choices, and again it’s nice to see a mixture of ingredients instead of just meat and rice or meat and potatoes. It shows consideration, and provides a more rounded nutrient base.
Even the ingredients lower down the list show how well considered the food is. It’s nice to see the inclusion of eggs, flaxseed, quality fruits and vegetables, and coconut oil. It’s clear they haven’t skimped on any ingredients with cheaper substitutes.
The food has no grains, no nasty fillers, no chemical antioxidants or preservatives, and no pointless food colourings.
Vetalogica comes across as a really good, well-rounded, dry dog food.
Recommended.
Ingredients
Ingredients of Vetalogica dog food (Hunter Valley Harvest):
Chicken Meal, Duck Meal, Tuna Meal, Mackerel Meal, Sweet Potatoes, Chickpeas, Green Lentils, Red Lentils, Chicken Fat (Naturally preserved with Mixed Tocopherols), Ground Flaxseed, Eggs, Coconut Oil, Dried Blueberries, Kale, Dried Spinach, Tomato Pomace, Dried Pumpkin, Kelp, Chicory Root, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Sea Salt, Vitamins (Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin (Vitamin B3), Calcium Pantothenate (Vitamin B5), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Thiamine Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Folic Acid, Biotin, Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Minerals (Zinc Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, Magnesium Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Manganese Oxide, Iodine, Sodium Selenite, Zinc Propionate), Turmeric Root, Taurine, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Mixed Tocopherols (a Natural preservative), Rosemary Extract.
Is “Nature’s Recipe” the same mob as Vetalogica, only double the price? Have a look at the petvalu website and tell me they aren’t one and the same!
Hi Mac, yes I think you might be right!
Hi, so are you saying Vetalogica are the same company as Nature’s Recipe? I cannot find Nature’s Recipe available to buy in Australia. My Staffy’s have been on Vetalogica Fisherman’s Feast for over 2 years but suffer from very running poo. Which kibble dog food would you recommend?
It’s annoying that ‘biologically appropriate’ doesn’t really have any specific standards or stipulations in order to be able use this term on packaging. This food claims to be biologically appropriate yet there is no inclusion of organs and quite a few legumes. I feel like this term is thrown around a lot as a marketing ploy.
Most of these terms are little more than marketing. Pet food companies have been using such terms for decades, but when you dig a little deeper you find it doesn’t mean all that much or is simply a trademarked term.
I feed Vetalogica in rotation with Stay Loyal to my four shelties. I also feed vegetables and beef and chicken. Sardines and eggs for breakfast. I believe in a varied diet.
I have been feeding my dog this dry food since she was a puppy. We started on the puppy dry food and then moved to the adult food with no issues. I was rotating the flavours, again had no issues. I have recently bought 3 bags of different flavours and noticed the dry food has drastically changed in size. I emailed them to ask if they had changed anything in the recipe or formula and they have assured me they haven’t. However this new size of dry food is not agreeing with my dog. I have bought 3 different bags from 3 different suppliers just in case one was a bad batch. I have tried reintroducing the dry food slowly but each time I feed my dog this dry food she has a severe upset stomach. As soon as I stop feeding this dry food she is totally fine. Is it normal for dry food to change so drastically in size or do you think they have changed something and are not telling me. As it is I won’t be able to continue feeding my dog this food as it is playing havoc with my dog.
Yes I agree. My dog has a sensitive stomach but was ok at first on Vetalogica chicken, now she has runny poos from it.
Mine is also having an upset stomach from this. It started on the 3rd bag that arrive around September.
This was around the same time my dog started having issues. I have had to stop feeding her this brand as she can no longer tolerate it.
Hi Sarah, I’ve found in the past with other brands there is a clear change in kibble ingredients, size, and possibly manufacturer, yet the company will say nothing has changed. From what you’ve said, it’s possible Vetalogica has made a change for the worse, but your comment is the first I’ve heard about this so really can’t clarify.
I am a little confused about the high score of this food when all the meats are “meat meal”. I thought as soon as meat and by products were cooked to turn into a meal that most of the beneficial vitamins, minerals etc are cooked out due to the extremely high temperatures they are cooked at? Perhaps labelling has changed? Or I am unclear on Australian standards. Can you please clarify. Thanks.
Great post. It was hard to find a dry food my dog wasn’t allergic to and she was happy to eat. She can really tell her food. Vetalogica is one of the only dry food she likes to eat.
Hi Kari, cooking reduces nutrients, and with meat meal there’s a two phase cooking process. All kibble is cooked at a high temperature so that’s a factor worth considering in general, and a very good reason why kibble shouldn’t be the whole diet of any dog (or cat). So hopefully that answers that part of the question? There are two products of creating meat meal – the dried meal used as a dense protein ingredient (as well as calcium etc from bone content), and the liquid broth usually listed as broth, natural flavour, fat, or something creative. Historically this was labelled digest until that got a bad name, so you don’t see that very often these days.
There are lots of other factors as well which are often an unknown but play a very significant part. Whether meat meal or “real” meat is used (real meat being the term used for fresh meat rather than meal), neither has any relation to the quality of the ingredients used in the first place. So “real chicken” isn’t necessarily the better inclusion, and in most kibble formulas results in a much more carbohydrate-dense product still marketed as “meat as first ingredient”.
There’s a great deal of ambiguity with by-products as well. Organs are rich in nutrients, but without any clarification a meat and meat by-products ingredients can be meat/organs/bone or perhaps nothing more than chicken carcass with breast meat and organs already removed (and sold as human grade products in the supermarkets).
If a dog food favours meat protein (from meal), fat, and other nutritious ingredients, compared to a “real” meat kibble which actually doesn’t have much meat in it being largely grain/carbohydrates/starches then the former is probably the better of the two for a dog.
As for Australian standards – they provide little clarity whatsoever, and in my opinion are written more for the benefit of a manufacturer hiding the truth than providing transparency to us as consumers.
Dr Shahidi was recently advertising a new range of dog food by subscription – a high meat range, a single protein range etc but his ads disappeared a couple of months after they were popping up – just as I was preparing to subscribe because the formulae even for the cheaper single protein object seemed great … and about $87 on subscription. Do you know anything about the range and what happened?
Cheers.
Hi Gary, I believe they have a subscription service on their website for discounted repeat deliveries, but I don’t know about the single protein formulas.