foods you just wouldn't feed

It's ungodly expensive - but sooooooo worth it, especially since you'll likely only ever need to buy one bag of it before you can transition to normal sized kibbles. I think Petsmart sells it, which is also nice.

True, but raw isn't fed dehydrated, and Orijen isn't fed hydrated. Orijen is fed in its (comparatively) super concentrated form. As fed, a meal of raw is lower protein than a meal of Orijen, isn't it? Or am I missing something? I'm really not being argumentative, I swear, I'm just not understanding.

If your dog eats say 10 grams of dry matter and drinks an extra 20 grams of water needed to process that food its the same as something that is already 10 grams dry and 20 grams water as a food. Its the same when you take the water out, and the water doesn't matter.

Or another way. If your dog needs 5 grams of protein a day its the same if they get it in 10 grams of kibble or 30 grams of raw - however the % of protein is much higher in this imaginary kibble. 50% vs 30% in our imaginary raw. Now if you were to dehydrate this raw the percentage goes up.

OHHH okay. I get it now. I just wasn't wrapping my head around it, lol. Thank you for explaining.

As an aside hay as fed to horses and cows is about 16-24% protein. I am always surprised that we are feeding carnivores at similar levels.