Food Friday: Wysong Archetype Rabbit Formula

Wysong Archetype is a freeze-dried raw food that has not been heated above 118F. It is a genuinely starch-free food, made from over 95% meat. Archetype comes in four different formulas based on chicken, rabbit, quail, and pollock fish.

Wysong makes a wide variety of foods for dogs, cats, and ferrets. While well-known among the internet communities I frequent, Wysong foods are not widely available in my area.

A couple of weeks ago, a reader suggested I take a closer look at the foods available from this company, so I visited the Wysong website. As soon as the site loaded, a banner popped up offering me a free sample pack. I filled out the form and included Brisbane's allergens, and a week later I received samples of three different Briz-safe Wysong foods.

I was expecting this to be a packet of kibble, but it turned out to be freeze-dried food. The only other freeze-dried food we've tried so far is Stella & Chewy's Absolutely Rabbit. Our Wysong Archetype sample is also rabbit-based. I really like that there is also a quail formula, as I haven't found another quail-based food and just used frozen raw quail for Brisbane's elimination diet.

I love that Wysong's website includes a tool that explains each individual ingredient. When I was building my Dog Food Wizard, I read the ingredient "meat protein isolate" and wasn't sure what to make of it. Thanks to the Wysong website ingredient tool, I was able to determine that this is a pork ingredient and therefore safe for dogs with allergies to other proteins.

As a pet food company, Wysong seems to have a lot of integrity. The company was founded in 1979 by a veterinarian and at least claims they use a lot of solid science and concrete evidence in developing their products. The only Wysong recall I can find any information about was a voluntary one in 2009 initiated by the company when they discovered that certain bags of food contained too much moisture and therefore had the potential to grow mold. Unlike most pet food recalls, this one was not mandated by the FDA, Wysong did the responsible thing and recalled their products themselves when they realized there was a problem.

This is a very high protein diet, and with its limited ingredients it would be a good place to start with an elimination diet. It is not, however, a food I would be comfortable feeding exclusively for the long term. I am also uncertain of how the cost compares to other freeze-dried foods since the recommended feeding amounts are measured by volume and the bags of food are measured by weight. I also have not found any mention of the caloric content on either the product packaging or the website, so it is difficult to compare Wysong Archetype to other dog foods.