Well, I think I've found it. The most expensive dog food on the market. It's Wysong Archetype™and it's a freeze-dried raw food that's good for dogs and cats.

It's a really great food, but somewhere along the line, cost must enter the equation. And about $6 a day to feed a 25 lb. dog is pretty darn steep.

The food is great stuff, though. It starts off as raw from beef, chicken and lamb meat, plus liver and organ meat from each of the three protein sources. Bone is ground up and mixed in, along with vitamins and chelated minerals.

The Archetype raw food is mixed without heating or cooking. It's then quick-frozen as a roll, like a big salami, then sliced into thick patties. Next, it's sent to the freeze-drying plant, where almost all of the moisture is removed, again without any heating.

Some special Wysong additions are then added: Condensed whey (a dairy product that's a source of calcium, and is also a sweetener), fish oil for additional Omega-3 fatty acids, and calcite, a source of calcium from coral.

In addition, Archetype contains some "green foods," barley grass powder and wheat grass powder. Dried seaweed meal adds over 74 major and trace minerals from fresh and ancient "geologically composted" sea vegetation.

Prebiotic FOS and MOS are supplied by artichoke. And a whole host of different probiotics are added, along with enzymes and natural antioxidants (rosemary, sage, ascorbic acid/Vitamin C).

Once all this is added, the patties are broken up into chunks and small pieces (each chunk of meat is a different color), and the food is packaged in a shiny silver oxygen barrier bag. This bag keeps the oxygen out, to preserve the food for a long time. Before the food is put in, the oxygen is flushed out of the bag with nitrogen, in a process commonly used by potato chip makers. This keeps oxygen from spoiling the food. The bag has a zip-seal you can reclose after opening.

You can see that every step of the way, Wysong is going the extra mile to make Archetype a wonderful food. But each extra step adds cost.

The Good Dog! Test Dogs absolutely love this food. It's tasty, and they do really well on raw food. Chops scrambles her tired, old body to line up in front of the food bowl when Archetype is on the menu. And when Katie finishes her own portion, she tries to push Choppy out of the way to steal seconds. I've used Archetype as a treat, also, with terrific success. Katie even dances for it -- something we haven't seen from her in years.

Aside from price, I have a couple of minor issues to discuss about Archetype. First, the name. No one is able to pronounce it. (Hint: Ark-A-Type). Wysong says the word means "The original model, the way things are meant to be."

The bag is great, but it has a quirk: One corner is sealed off, with a big slit for stores to hang it on a peg. But the effect is that the part of the bag you can open is limited, and that makes it a little bit more difficult to pour the food out.

And because the food is in various-sized chunks with some powder, too, it's difficult to get an accurate measurement of how much food to feed. A cup of Archetype weighs between 1.5 oz. and 1.7 oz., depending on how many big chunks fit in the measuring cup, and how much dog food powder is added.

Now for a bigger issue: How much to feed. Wysong recommends feeding 1/3 cup for a 10 lb. dog, 3/4 cup for a 20 lb. dog, 1-1/2 cups for a 40 lb. dog, and 2-1/2 cups for a 60 lb. dog. An 80 lb. dog would get 3-1/4 cups. All of these are daily portions, if you're feeding Archetype alone.

The raw food experts I've talked with over the years (including two who each have over 25 years experience producing raw pet foods) suggest something a little bit different. Their rule of thumb is to feed 2% of the dog's body weight in rehydrated (water added) raw food. That translates to 0.128 oz. of dry freeze-dried food per pound of dog weight. The 20 lb. dog would get 2.56 oz. of dry Archetype a day, or twice the 1.3 oz. Wysong recommends (based on 1.7 oz. Archetype in a cup.)

As a Wysong Technical Services person suggested, you could take the feeding instructions on the bag and just do it twice a day. She checked with the woman who did the original calculations for the feeding instructions. She stands by her feeding instructions.

Looking at the metabolizable energy (198 kcal per cup, as provided by Wysong, which seems low to me) -- even accounting for variations in the way the body might process a raw food diet compared to a cooked diet -- a 20 lb. low-activity house dog would need to eat 2 cups a day, or more than twice what Wysong recommends. (There are about 4.5 cups in a bag, by the way.)

I still maintain that 0.128 ounces-per-pound-of-dog is more appropriate. It worked very well for Chops and Katie. They were pretty well sated (although they love the taste so much they could always eat more). They were hungry on anything less. As for other results, stool volume was just right. Skin and coat did well, and Chops had fewer sebaceous cysts to itch her. That's typical of her response on raw foods.

Wysong recommends rehydrating the food. To me, that's optional. It makes a great tasting food taste even better, and unlike some other brands of raw diets, this one doesn't smell too bad when rehydrated. I prefer to feed it dry (out of sheer laziness), and because my dogs go crazy waiting for the food to soak up the water. They always end their meals with a good long drink of water anyway.

Wysong also suggests decreasing the amount of food if you add fresh, whole foods into your dog's diet, or if you mix Archetype with a Wysong canned or dry food. I have no problem

Wysong Archetype is a superior food, combining many of the strong points of all Wysong products (top quality, superior packaging, great supplements) with the many benefits of raw food diets. It's convenient in its silvery pouches, especially if you regularly feed raw foods and travel to dog shows. The only drawback is the price for each of the 7.5 oz. bags.

Wysong Archetype is available from your local Wysong dealer. Our sister company, Good Communications, Inc., will ship Archetype anywhere at one of the best prices around.

-- Ross Becker

Ingredients:

Beef, Beef Liver, Chicken, Chicken Liver, Lamb, Lamb Liver, Ground Bone, Condensed Whey, Fish Oil, Calcite, Barley Grass Powder, Wheat Grass Powder, Dried Seaweed Meal, Artichoke, Dried Enterococcus faecium Fermentation Product, Dried Bacillus subtilis Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus plantarum Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus acidophilus Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus casei Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus lactis Fermentation Product, Dried Saccharomyces cerevusiae Fermentation Product, Dried Aspergillus oryzae Fermentation Product, Dried Aspergillus niger Fermentation Product, Phytase, Natural Extractives of Rosemary and Sage, Choline Chloride, Ascorbic Acid, Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin Supplement, Manganese Proteinate, Calcium Pantothenate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Copper Proteinate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin Supplement, Vitamin A Acetate, Folic Acid, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement

Guaranteed Analysis:

• Crude Protein (min.) 50.0%
• Crude Fat (min.) 28.0%
• Crude Fiber (max.) 2.8%
• Moisture (max.) 3.0%
• Dry Matter Protein 48.6%

Metabolizable Energy: 198 kcal/cup

AAFCO Guarantee: All life stages.

Date Code: First two digits are day of manufacture, next digit is year, letter is month, next three digits are batch number. Example: 180A021 means 18th day of 2000, January, 021 batch

Manufacturer: Wysong Corporation, 1880 North Eastman, Midland, MI 48642 (517) 631-0009

Web: http://www.wysong.net