Mighty Dog is a brand of wet canned food from the company Nestle Purina. The food comes in a variety of flavors and styles with each food geared towards small dogs.
The Mighty Dog line is packed with protein and 100% complete nutrition for small dogs of all stages of life. They recommend feeding your pup this food alongside a standard dry kibble to give them extra nutrients and a nice treat.
In this article, we’re taking a look at everything you need to know about Mighty Dog so you can decide if this is a worthwhile food to feed to your canine. Continue reading for our comprehensive Mighty Dog dog food review.
Brand Quick Look
- Parent Company: Nestle Purina
- Founded in: Approx. 1926
- Made in: USA
- Available at: Chewy, Amazon, and PetSmart
- Types of Food: Canned
- Real Meat in First 5 Ingredients? : Yes
- Recalled in Past? : Yes
Behind the Brand
The specific line Mighty Dog is a product from the Purina Pet Food Company. Purina has worked for over 90 years to develop the highest quality pet food because of their genuine love for pets and pet parents.
The company states that their love and passion for what they do goes far beyond making the best food and their ultimate goal is to build the best relationships with people in the industry so they can develop new products that help your dogs live the best possible life.
In 1926 Purina established its first pet nutrition center in Missouri where they began testing the palatability of their foods on dogs. Over time they have grown to sell a wide variety of different foods catering to the needs of each pup who eats it.
Today the company even offers a personalized dog food that gets made specific to the unique needs of your pup and delivered right to your door.
Mighty Dog Dog Food Reviews
In this section, we’re going to take a more in-depth look into some of the specific foods from Mighty Dog. We’ll take a look at the ingredients, reputation, and nutrition of the product to see if we would give it to our own pups.
After reading these reviews, you should have an accurate representation of whether you want to give Mighty Dog to your dog.
1. Pulled-Style Chicken Dinner
- Overall: 3 out of 5
- Flavor: 4 out of 5
- Ingredients: 2 out of 5
- Packaging: 4 out of 5
- Price: 4 out of 5
This food caters to small dogs and contains slow-cooked savory chicken in a mouthwatering gravy. According to Purina, this food gives your pup the energy they need to keep going throughout the entire day.
Benefits:
- Finely ground texture that is easy to eat and digest
- Formulated with extra protein for small dogs
- Features amino acids, vitamins, and minerals
- Meets the nutritional levels established by AAFCO
- Contains no artificial preservatives
First 5 Ingredients:
- Water
- Chicken
- Liver
- Wheat Gluten
- Meat By-Products
Let’s dive into some of these ingredients. Water gets added to most wet foods for moisture requirements, so that is standard.
We define chicken as muscle flesh, and we always like to see real meat in the first five ingredients.
The liver is organ meat that is always considered a “good” ingredient in dog food, but in this case, they don’t specify what kind of liver it is so it could be anything. If your dog has sensitivities to a certain protein, you wouldn’t know what they were eating here.
Wheat gluten is an inferior ingredient because it's the starchy residue left behind when wheat gets processed into carbohydrates.
Meat By-Products contain a high level of protein, but they are the waste left behind in slaughterhouses. By-products can consist of anything like eyeballs, beaks, tongue, etc.
Plus, they don’t specify what kind of by-product here, so it could be anything like cattle, sheep, or pig.
Lastly, the food contains artificial flavors, added coloring, and added salt which is all known to activity allergies in dogs.
The food has a rating of 4.5 out of 5 on Chewy with most reviewers saying their dog loves the flavor and they have no problem feeding it to them.
2. Hearty Beef Dinner
- Overall: 4 out of 5
- Flavor: 4 out of 5
- Ingredients: 3 out of 5
- Packaging: 4 out of 5
- Price: 4 out of 5
Next, let’s take a look at a hearty, delicious meal that consists of a finely ground beef texture that tastes of real beef. This food also contains the nutrition small pups need to get through the entire day.
Benefits:
- Small texture
- Formulated for small dogs
- Contains amino acids, vitamins, and minerals
- Meets the requirements set by the AAFCO
First 5 Ingredients:
- Beef
- Water Sufficient for Processing
- Meat By-Products
- Liver
- Chicken
We already covered some of these ingredients so we won’t go as in-depth here.
We understand the need for beef and water in moist foods.
This one also contains unknown by-products that could be any source of protein and its difficult to gauge the nutritional value when you have no idea what the product is.
The food also contains an unknown liver from any animal.
When foods have a comprehensive blend of proteins in them, they tend to trigger allergies in dogs because it's impossible to tell where the reaction is coming from.
The beef dinner has a rating of 4.6 out of 5 on Chewy with 93% of reviewers recommending the product. Many users say the food is natural for their pup to eat, and they go crazy for the food every time.
What Types of Dog Food Do They Offer?
Mighty Dog offers five different styles of dog food consisting of:
- Finely Ground
- Hearty Chopped
- Thick-Sliced
- Hearty Pulled-Style
- Seared With Cheese
Amongst these styles, there are eight distinct flavors of canned food.
- Pulled-Style Chicken
- Hearty Beef
- Lamb and Rice
- Porterhouse Steak in Gravy
- Rotisserie Chicken
- Chicken, Egg, and Bacon
- Chicken and Smoked Bacon
- Thick-Sliced Chicken Dinner in Gravy
The company says these foods get packed with meaty flavor and tender bites that will appeal to even the pickiest pups. They use a slow-cooking method to lock in all the taste and nutrition, so your dog gets a well-balanced diet even from a can.
The Mighty Dog canned foods contain no artificial preservatives.
Recall History
During our research, we found one recall of Mighty Dog from March of 2017. Here it is:
- Purina recalls 5.3oz Mighty Dog Pouch Products manufactured between December 3, 2006, and March 14, 2007, for possible Melamine contamination.
Customer Reviews
Purina and Mighty Dog are popular brands available everywhere, and most consumers are typically familiar with these. If you have never tried Mighty Dog before you may feel unsure about whether or not you should feed this food to your pup.
The best way to learn more about dog food is to read reviews from actual customers who already tried it. This way you can see what they had to say and if they had a good experience with the food, you could feel more comfortable about trying it with your canine.
Here are some real reviews from customers who purchased Mighty Dog canned food:
Positive
My dog loves this dog food – I learned about this dog food when my Pomeranian had to have his teeth worked on, and the vet uses this to take a tsp of this dog food and insert a pill. Zeus loves it and eats it without knowing there is a pill inside. Plus it smells good. I highly recommend it. – Chewy Customer
The only dog food that is good enough – We have had two Jack Russell's that ABSOLUTELY LOVE this. They go nuts over it and turn away from the expensive science diet food. Look at the ingredients and the first ingredient is beef. No surprise.
Our dog gobbles down the food and then savors the can for 20 minutes making sure every last drop is licked up. She would be the perfect spokesdog for Mighty Dog, no joke. Hold up the can, and she starts doing tricks and makes pleading sounds… loves this stuff. – Chewy Customer
Negative
Mighty Dog Pulled Chicken – My mom's dog loves the pulled chicken but it has changed, and he won't eat it much anymore. I am going to stop my automatic shipment for the pulled chicken. It even smells different and is cut into squares.
The regular pulled chicken looked like it was pulled and Sam my mom's pup will not eat it as he uses to, and he has eaten this food for years, now we are going to find another food. – Chewy Customer
Formula change has ruined Mighty Dog. – The formula change has ruined Mighty Dog! My dogs have eaten both pulled chicken and beef as well as porterhouse steak and tenderloin tips for years– won't touch it now. Purina, admit you made a mistake and return to the original formula. – Chewy Customer
Overall Thoughts
It’s hard to argue with positive reviews from customers who have tried the food with their pups. The reputation is incredibly positive, and most pet owners have no problem giving this food to their dog.
There is a lot of room for improvement with the ingredients, but some of these lower quality ingredients appeal more to families who are on a strict budget.
We say, if your pup enjoys the food and doesn’t have a bad response to it, continue feeding it to them!