Dog’s Choice Update: Supporting You and Your Dog Through the Change
October 1, 2025 – Amanda Monsma
Grand Dog Essentials Is No Longer Distributing Dog’s Choice Products
Effective October 1, 2025, Grand Dog Essentials will no longer distribute Dog's Choice raw pet food products.
Why did we make this decision?
Since Grand Dog was founded in 2018, we've gained a deep understanding of what our customers prioritize when choosing food for their dogs and cats. These key priorities include:
-
Ingredient and process transparency
-
Quality control and food safety
-
Clear communication
-
Product consistency
-
Balanced foundational nutrition
These values are the cornerstone of our operations and guide our selection of partners and products. Our customers are always our top priority, and we've built our community by advocating for those who trust us with their pets' nutrition. This means upholding high standards for ourselves and our partners to ensure our values remain aligned.
Occasionally, this commitment requires us to make difficult decisions to maintain our unwavering standards. Ending our distribution of Dog’s Choice pet food products is one such decision.
Dog's Choice played a significant role in Grand Dog's beginnings, and we are grateful for that partnership. However, over the past few years, it’s become clear that our values and future directions are no longer aligned.
How are we supporting you through this transition?
We know many of you have relied on Dog's Choice food, and changing your dog's diet is a significant task. This decision was not made lightly, and we have worked diligently over the past year to ensure you have suitable alternative options for this transition.
We have a limited supply of Dog's Choice products currently in stock for those who need a little extra time with the change. We will continue to sell this stock until it is depleted.
To ensure fairness to all customers over the next couple of weeks, we are limiting all Dog’s Choice orders to a maximum of two boxes per customer; no bulk orders will be accepted.
If you have a subscription for Dog's Choice products, please anticipate an email from us detailing the next steps to assist with this changeover.
At the end of this statement is a transition guide to help you navigate what products are similar to what you are feeding now along with tips on how to introduce new foods to your dogs with confidence.
While switching foods is scary, it can also be a great way to offer mental and nutritional enrichment by offering new scents, smells, and textures.
Thank you for your understanding
This marks a new chapter for Grand Dog—one that involves collaborations with partners who share our vision and passion for providing high-quality pet food.
We are open to all questions. Please feel free to reach out to us at info@granddog.ca or 877-494-0682.
Thank you for your understanding,
Amanda, Matt, Greg, and Joy Monsma
The Grand Dog Family
__________________________________________________________________________
Transition Guide
Here is a list of Dog's Choice items and their closest recipe alternative:
DC Beef/Bison replaced with Four Roots Simple Beef or CK9 Ultimate Beef
DC Beef/Bison Veggie replaced with Four Roots Bow Beef
DC Beef/Chicken replaced with CK9 Ultimate Chicken/Beef
DC Turkey replaced with CK9 Ultimate Turkey (no fruit/veg) or Four Roots Timber Turkey (with fruit/veg)
DC Chicken Veggie replaced with Four Roots Creekside Chicken (with fruit/veg) or CK9 Complete Chicken (no fruit/veg) or CK9 Ultimate Chicken (no fruit/veg)
DC Advanced replaced with Surf & Turf Variety Box
Transition Tips
Most dogs will gobble up new food without any issue, but we know some pups are hesitant to eat something different.
If dogs have been fed the same thing for long periods of time, it's possible they will hesitate when there is something new offered. Most of the time they are responding to the new smells and textures and need some patience, guidance, and reassurance from their human.
Here are some tips to make the transition successful and address food refusal if it comes up!
1. Feed with confidence! If you are feeling overwhelmed with the change, they can pick up on the energy and may hesitate to eat. If you are at all unsure about what option is best for your pets, email or call us. We are happy to offer guidance to build up your confidence!
2. Order a new box of food while you still have old food available. At meal time, mix in some old food with the new food. Start small (¼ new and ¾ old food) and build up the amount of new food, decreasing the amount of old food as the days progress.
3. Be consistent with offering the new food, even if there is some resistance. Dogs can pick up on habits, so if you offer something else after they refused the food you gave them, they will learn they can train you instead of the other way around! Set down their food and walk away. Give them 10-20 minutes and if they don't eat it, pick up, put in the fridge and try again later. It may mean that they don't eat their dinner - and that's ok for adult dogs.
4. Consider how you're serving the food. Food that is partially frozen will not have as strong a smell as fully thawed food. If you have a dog that you believe is responding to new smells, play around with how you offer the food to them. Try offering it partially frozen or fully thawed (or close to room temperature) if they are drawn to stronger smells.
Change where you feed them. If you feed inside, maybe they might be more interested in the food outside or in another area of the house.
Adjust mealtimes to once a day.
5. Stimulate their appetite! Take your dog out for a long walk or fetch session before meal time to build up their appetite.
FAQ's
If you have a questions, please email us at info@granddog.ca or call 877-494-0682.
Here are a couple if questions we've received from our #granddograwpack and their answers.
Q:
“Hi I'm actually just doing my first order and I got an email stating that you no longer sell dogs choice. Could you explain how your values don’t align and why you ended the relationship.”
A:
As a distributor of raw pet food items, we feel it’s important to have relationships with partners who value: transparency, quality control, communication, and consistency.
When working with a product such as raw pet food where there is stigma and a need for safety and quality control, we need partners who are willing to answer our questions and respond to quality concerns to ensure we are operating at the highest standards for our customers.
Q:
“Was this just a decision to focus on your own brand?”
A:
Our partner company, Four Roots Pet Products, was created partly in response to the issues we were experiencing with Dog’s Choice.
It was always in the back of our minds as a possibility to be part of the manufacturing process. The experiences we had over the last couple of years solidified that it was a necessary move for us. We needed new options to fill the gap that was being created by the lack of quality and support.
We needed to raise the status quo for distributors and customers in Alberta.
Q:
“My dogs love to alternate salmon in their diet. You don’t seem to have any other salmon choices.”
A:
We have a number of salmon choices! We know the value of offering fish sources to your pups for the amazing benefits of Omega 3. Here are some salmon, fish, and Omega 3 oil options you can find in our shop:
Q:
"Shoot 😢 Do you have any suggestions for pork?? Due to allergies that’s what our gal eats."
A:
Lot of different options for pork too!
*Coming Soon* Four Roots Pine Pork
Over the past year, we have added more products to our shop than ever before! Offering more novel protein choices for those dealing with intolerances/allergies.
Q:
“It would have been nice to have some notice that we would have to change his food.”
We would have loved to have given everyone more notice.
We know that there are some people who struggle with finding options for their dogs and this message is disruptive when there is already so much going on in Alberta.
The truth is that we needed to keep this close until it was the right time as we did not know how people would respond. Our goal was to be as fair as possible by implementing a 2 box minimum. Unfortunately, we have limited storage available and could only carry a limited amount of stock.
0 comments