Friday, February 24, 2012

Mr. Chewy review

I was recently offered a chance to try out Mr. Chewy. Many of you probably know that this is an online store which sells premium cat and dog foods, flea meds, and litter. I have to say, I was super jealous reading the other blogs doing reviews, and was really excited when an email appeared offering me a chance to review their website.



I received a code for $50 credit on their online store. Since orders over $49 qualify for free shipping, I didn't have to pay a dime to try them out. I have been compensated in no additional ways for this review, and this review contains nothing except my honest opinions about the products and service offered. Check out the bottom of this post for a discount code of your own to try out mrchewy.com.

First off, I want to share some of the great things about Mr. Chewy. The selection on the website has to be the number one. I have a pretty decent pet supply store in town, but their prices can be pretty high sometimes, and though they recently expanded, there is only so much room in a physical store. Mr. Chewy has a much larger selection than I could find without driving 2+ hours or going to multiple stores (or likely both), and carries those products my local store offers for similar prices, and in some cases, for cheaper. Even when my local store has the same brand of, say, a grain free dog food, chances are that they only carry a few flavors and a few bag sizes. Mr. Chewy would carry all of the offered flavors in a larger variety of sizes.

I do, however, feed raw. And, I prefer feeding fresh, whole raw to any sort of processed, dehydrated foods (though those can be great for traveling or backpacking or emergency food supplies). So, instead of ordering any of the extensive foods offered, I took the $50 credit and ordered treats. Lots of treats.



I used this as an opportunity to get a few of the treats I know my dogs love, plus try out some new brands that I have either been wanting to try or have never heard of but liked the looks of. The Natural Balance Tillman's treats (in two flavors) were just as big of a hit with my dogs this time around as they were last time I picked up these treats, as was the food roll that I cut up to make small soft treats. The PureBites we had not tried before, but were a major hit. PureBites are single ingredient treats, dehydrated. My only complaint with them is that the cheddar cheese ones were a bit hard to break up into pieces. I also picked up some duck jerky (one of Koira's favorites), and decided to try out two different baked treats: Three Dog Bakery and Sojos. It seriously took me almost three hours to make my selections, as the options were so varied that I spent forever adding things to my cart, then changing my mind and switching them out with something else.


With all the good things about Mr. Chewy, there were a few bad, or that I thought could use work, as well.

The first issue I had was trying to select treats. My dogs don't have food allergies, but I generally try to stay away from treats with wheat, corn, or soy as major ingredients (the Three Dog Bakery cookies are an exception to this, simply because the name is famous enough that I had to try them out- and they smell so good I almost tried one). In addition, I generally use treats for training only, not as a snack or bedtime-treat-giving-out item. For me, that means I need treats to be soft and easy to break or tear into pieces. Unfortunately, there was no way to sort the treats out as soft or hard. I had to instead go by experience with the treats (such as with the Natural Balance treats) and guessing.

Along the same lines, I think the descriptions could be made much more, well, descriptive. For most products, the description seemed to be nothing other than a short statement from the manufacturing company. I would have liked to be able to see a description and list of ingredients for every product. Additionally, with the issues due to chicken treats out of China, it would have been nice if the descriptions included information such as Made in China, Made in the US, etc.

My only other issue was with the shipping. I had high hopes, after reading other people's reviews, that the package would arrive quickly and with no issues. Alas, I was not so lucky. Though many people were reporting recieving their products within 2-3 days, mine did not arrive for 10 days. That alone wouldn't be too big of a deal, but the shipping company required a signature and could not find my house. They shipped the package back to their holding facility once, then tried again the next day, taping a notice to my neighbor's door stating that a signature was needed (I was pretty sure I had specifically said I did NOT want to have to sign for the package, since I knew I would likely not be home at the time of delivery). Thanks to my neighbors being on good terms with me, I was able to sign the piece of paper stuck to their door, which allowed for the package to be dropped off (again, at the wrong door). All in all, it was two weeks after ordering that I finally got the package.

Now, I know that most of the delivery issues were due to my address being difficult to find. However, this is something others may encounter when ordering products online, and should be noted for anyone thinking of ordering from Mr. Chewy. Just keep in mind, that no matter how awesome the company is that you purchase the product from, the shipping company may not be up to standards.  And, for something like your dog's food, it would be really bad to expect your product in three days and have to wait 16, potentially leaving you with the difficulty of switching your dog to a different, locally available, brand of food.


I do have to say, overall I did like the company. The website was decent to navigate, and while the shipping was obnoxious, that tends to be the case with anything I order to my home address. I would certainly think about ordering from Mr. Chewy again, just knowing that it might take two weeks to receive the shipment. Certainly their selection of treats is excellent, and the Pure Bites, especially, were a great product that I can not find locally.

If you want to try out Mr. Chewy, here is a discount code. Just type in FLYB8120 at checkout to receive 10% off of your order. Plus, Mr. Chewy will donate $10 to charity (in this case, split between three charities, Best Friends Animal Society, Bideawee, and North Shore Animal League of America). 

3 comments:

  1. Mr. Chewy sure does get around. Great honest review!

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  2. We love MrChewy! I wonder if it might be too general to list if treats are made in US or China - wouldn't want to be misled if China-sourced ingredients were still used in US-made ones. I always go to the product's website to verify ingredients. And if they don't specify, I don't trust!

    We once had a shipping experience like you describe (not from MrChewy) - in our case, it was the driver, though; the company itself is usually great. Thankfully we're on great terms with the neighbor who got the note, too! It must be a nightmare for you to deal with that regularly.

    Thanks for the thorough review! You chose some fantastic treats :)

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  3. I have not ordered anything from Mr. Chewy, but it would bother me, as well not knowing the treats' ingredients. "Healthy", or not, many dog biscuits contain dye, onion extract, or both!! I could be wrong.... But those two ingredients do not sound okay for canines to ingest!! :-(

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