Meet Our New Chicken & Lamb Recipes

Meet Our New Chicken & Lamb Recipes: Because Variety Matters, Even for Dogs

At A Dog’s Hearth, we’ve always believed that good nutrition isn’t a single fixed formula. It’s a living, evolving commitment, one that grows alongside what we learn and what our community needs. Just as we enjoy variety in our own meals, dogs benefit from it too. That’s why we’re excited to introduce two new fresh dog food recipes: the new Fresh Chicken and Fresh Lamb recipes, joining our Original Chicken & Veggie and Original Lamb & Veggie recipes as part of a growing, thoughtfully built menu.

Why Variety Matters for Dogs Too

Rotating proteins, textures, and ingredients isn’t just about keeping mealtime interesting. It can offer dogs a broader range of nutrients, reduce the likelihood of developing a sensitivity to any single protein over time, and simply keep things exciting for food motivated pups. Our new recipes aren’t here to replace anything. They’re here to add another wholesome, all natural option to the table.

Our Original recipes remain exactly what they’ve always been: simple, gentle, and especially well loved by seniors and dogs with sensitive stomachs. Our new Fresh Chicken and Fresh Lamb recipes bring something different to the bowl, built with organ meats, alternative grains, and a few new functional ingredients we’re excited to share with you.

The new Fresh Chicken features chicken thighs, chicken hearts, chicken liver, spinach, peas and carrots, pearled barley, chia seeds, eggshell, and kelp. While the new Fresh Lamb features lamb, sweet potato, spinach, peas and carrots, red lentils, lamb liver, eggshell, and kelp.

One more distinction worth noting: the Fresh Lamb is entirely grain free, built on sweet potato and red lentils rather than a grain base, while the Fresh Chicken uses pearled barley. Neither approach is better than the other. It simply gives pet parents another way to match a recipe to their dog’s needs or preferences.

Both recipes reflect the same all natural philosophy that has defined A Dog’s Hearth from the beginning: no fillers, no artificial preservatives, and no synthetic additives or nutrient mixes. The difference is in the details, not the standard.

What Gets Tested, and Why It Matters

Every A Dog’s Hearth recipe is lab tested through Midwest Labs, an independent nutritional testing facility, rather than relying on generic calculated estimates. Lab testing tells us exactly what’s in the food, not just what we expect to be in it based on ingredient formulas. Here’s what those numbers actually mean.

Guaranteed Analysis is the standard nutrient breakdown you’ll find on any pet food label: protein, fat, fiber, and moisture, measured as they exist in the food as it’s packaged.

Metabolizable Energy (ME), measured in kilocalories per kilogram (kcal/kg), tells you how much usable energy your dog gets from the food. This number matters more than it might seem, because it’s the foundation for calculating how much to feed.

Dry Matter Basis (DMB) is where things get genuinely useful for comparison. Because fresh food contains far more moisture than kibble, comparing the numbers straight off the label can be misleading. Dry Matter Basis removes the water from the equation, recalculating protein and fat as if the moisture wasn’t there. This is the only fair way to compare a fresh recipe to a dry one, or even to compare two fresh recipes with slightly different moisture levels to each other.

The Numbers, Side by Side

	Fresh Chicken Recipe	Fresh Lamb Recipe
Protein (as fed)	13.7%	13.2%
Fat (as fed)	5.81%	7.2%
Fiber (as fed)	1.07%	0.53%
Moisture	72.1%	66.4%
Metabolizable Energy	1,184 kcal/kg	1,465 kcal/kg
Protein (Dry Matter Basis)	49.1%	39.3%
Fat (Dry Matter Basis)	20.8%	21.4%

A quick way to read this table: New Chicken carries a leaner, higher protein density once moisture is accounted for, while New Lamb runs richer in both fat and energy density. Neither is better. They’re simply different tools for different needs, whether that’s a leaner everyday option or a more calorie dense recipe for an active dog.

How to Choose Between Recipes

Think of your ADH menu less like a ladder and more like a table set with different, wholesome options. Some dogs will always do best on the simplicity of our Original recipes. Others might enjoy the variety of organ meats and new textures in our new recipes. In addition, households find that rotating between them, whether weekly or seasonally, works beautifully. If you’re transitioning your dog to a new recipe, a gradual introduction is always the gentlest approach, and if you’re making a significant dietary change, we recommend looping in your veterinarian.

Backed by the Same Commitment to Learning

These recipes are an expression of something we’ve been building for a while now, a genuine commitment to continuous learning. As we’ve deepened our nutrition education, including our recently completed Southern Illinois University Canine and Feline Nutrition Certificate Program, we’ve found new ways to bring variety and thoughtful formulation into our kitchen. Learning never stops here, and neither does our curiosity about how to nourish dogs well.

Approved by the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets

Every recipe A Dog’s Hearth brings to market goes through a formal review and licensing process with the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets. This isn’t just home cooking scaled up. It’s fresh dog food prepared under real regulatory oversight, with ingredients testing and labeling practices reviewed to meet state requirements. Our new recipes underwent this same rigorous submission process before reaching your dog’s bowl.

Looking Ahead

This is only one chapter in an ongoing story. We’re continuing to explore new ways to bring wholesome, all natural nutrition to more dogs and more families, including a recipe currently in development that we’re especially excited about. Stay tuned. From our hearth to yours, the kitchen never stops.