Pennywise,

I think your dog has rashes might not due to the high protein level, i would say it is fairer to say that Orijen is not suitable for your dog.

I have 12 dogs at home feeding Orijen, and non of them have rashes on them despite 11 of them (maltese) are not brought out for a walk, they just roam free at home.

While for Maya (which is Malaysian Mongrel), i used to fed him with Rotal Canine that i won from doggy day and she started to has rashes on her. I switched it to Blackwood as i left a lot when switch to Orijen for my maltese, and she starts to show sign of itchiness and start chewing on her body. Then i thought perhaps i switch to Acana yet the itchiness doesnt reduce and her fur starts to drop!

I seek vet's advice and according to him, it is allergic instead of skin problem. I brought Maya out for walk & run daily so i really don't think that high Protein level will cause rashes if we do not exercise the dog.

At last, although for Maya's size feeding Orijen will burns bigger hole at my pocket, I decided to feed her. I dare not comment previously cause I need prove, and now, my Maya has no rashes and the fur grown back already.

No hard feelings, but for discussion sake, i wish to pour in my side of view too, hope you wont mind. So far non of my customer complains that Orijen causes rashes (I sold worth thousands of Orijen) so I would say Orijen just not suitable to your dog or perhaps maybe it might due to other problem since your vet did treated Casper while you switch from Orijen to other brand?

Alright, regarding protein level. From my side of understanding is, meat protein can be easily absorbed by dogs while if from plants it is harder and burdens the digest system more.

Last time, when you consult a vet, they will tell you that Alpo0O, PedigreEes etc are not a good brand, switch to Science Diet or Eukanuba instead because at that time, these are the best source. Then, dog owners tend to concern more on the well-beings on dogs, so they looking for dog food which main ingredients are not corn, because if you eat corn, you will know most are not absorbed & how can these corn protein absorbs in your dog body?!

Disregard "Premium" or "Super Premium" as these are just names/titles for commercial purposes. It doesnt require a dog food to meet any criteria to put on these titles.

Then, there goes Holistic meals. Some ingredients are really good, but some, really so-so. We gotta do our own research on the ingredients to identify good ones.

And now, like most forumers here, we love our dog like our own kid! We buy supplements for them, we wish them can eat food that quality is equal to ours! Hence, there goes "Human Grade Quality" dog food, such as Orijen & Innova Evo.

Generally feeding these food, you don't really need to give extra supplements, and the quality control is much stricter, ingredients inside are considered cautiously since the nature of their target is to provide the best. They replace pure meat as the source of protein to replace protein from plant.

To me, the right source of protein should be from meat, not plant. No point to see the analysis of the protein level if it doesnt reflects the true percentage of the dog able to digest. I felt that the right level of protein for dogs should be 40% since this is what it should be if the protein is from pure meat! Corns or any other sort of plant protein is used previously since it cost much lesser.

I'm not trying to conclude that Orijen is the best for ALL dogs. No diet is perfect so what we can do is to look for products with best ingredients, if it is not suitable, switch to the next best alternative. And also to clarify the confusion of protein level, I would say i will be more worry about whether my dog will absorbed sufficient amount of protein from plant source rather than over protein from meat which should be what they get the protein from.

Hopefully, i didnt offend anybody as i had double checked, this article is just for the sake of discussion.