Orijen Small Breed: our recipe review

Orijen · Small Breed · Dry food · All life stages

On the facts printed on its own label, Orijen Small Breed scores 98 out of 100 on our rubric: top of the range we have scored. The panel opens with Turkey, and the first ingredient signal earns 20 of its 20 points. At 38% crude protein it ranks 13 of the 44 Orijen recipes we scored for protein. Crude fat reads 18%.

At 473 kcal a cup it is calorie dense: small measuring errors become extra meals over a month, so this is a food to weigh rather than eyeball. Legumes appear on 6 separate lines of the panel (whole red lentils, whole pinto beans, whole navy beans, whole green lentils and more). Read together they would sit higher in the order than any one of them does alone, and they carry part of the protein figure with them. Its adequacy claim rests on formulation: balanced on paper against the AAFCO nutrient profiles rather than fed to dogs in a trial. Our November 2026 check of FDA records found no posted dog food recall events for Orijen.

The panel runs to 52 ingredient lines. 15 of them are animal source lines and 15 are plant lines. The first added fat appears at line 14, so 13 lines sit ahead of it in the recipe by weight. Salt appears at line 35 of 52: ingredients listed after salt are present in small amounts, a standard reading aid for long panels. The vitamin and mineral pack begins around line 25; the 28 lines from there on are mostly supplements, preservatives and functional extras rather than staple foods.

Panel for panel, this is the same recipe as Original, sold as Dry food: the ingredient lines match. What actually differs is almost nothing on the label itself. Between the two, choose on format and on the size of dog in front of you, not on the ingredient list, because the lists are the same list.

The label facts

How the score breaks down

Ingredient notes: the first ten, one by one

Definitions below are written from AAFCO's ingredient definitions in our own words. They describe what an ingredient is, never what a brand claims about it. Names that appear in our ingredient dictionary link to it; the dictionary counts how many scored recipes carry each ingredient.

• Turkey. Turkey is the named meat in fresh form. Panel order is set by weight before cooking, and fresh meat is mostly water, so its share of the finished food is smaller than its place at the top suggests.
• chicken. chicken is the named meat in fresh form. Panel order is set by weight before cooking, and fresh meat is mostly water, so its share of the finished food is smaller than its place at the top suggests.
• turkey giblets (liver, heart, gizzard). turkey giblets (liver, heart, gizzard) is organ tissue from a named animal. Organs are dense in vitamins, minerals and amino acids, and they are a normal part of what a dog is built to eat.
• whole herring. whole herring is a named fish, bringing animal protein and, in oily species, omega 3 fats. Fish first panels suit dogs that react to land meats.
• salmon. salmon is a named fish, bringing animal protein and, in oily species, omega 3 fats. Fish first panels suit dogs that react to land meats.
• dehydrated turkey. dehydrated turkey has already had its water taken out before it is weighed in, so a kilo of it stands for several kilos of the fresh meat. It is one of the most protein dense forms an ingredient can take.
• dehydrated chicken. dehydrated chicken has already had its water taken out before it is weighed in, so a kilo of it stands for several kilos of the fresh meat. It is one of the most protein dense forms an ingredient can take.
• dehydrated sardine. dehydrated sardine has already had its water taken out before it is weighed in, so a kilo of it stands for several kilos of the fresh meat. It is one of the most protein dense forms an ingredient can take.
• dehydrated chicken liver. dehydrated chicken liver has already had its water taken out before it is weighed in, so a kilo of it stands for several kilos of the fresh meat. It is one of the most protein dense forms an ingredient can take.
• dehydrated egg. dehydrated egg has already had its water taken out before it is weighed in, so a kilo of it stands for several kilos of the fresh meat. It is one of the most protein dense forms an ingredient can take.

One pattern to see whole: legumes appear on 6 lines of this panel. Makers split one plant family across several named forms (whole, protein, starch, fibre), and each form is legal on its own line. Read as a family, they would rank higher in the order than any one line does.

The brand's recall record

No FDA posted dog food recall events for this brand were found in our November 2026 check of FDA recall records. That is a statement about what we could verify, not proof of a perfect history.

See the full dog food recall tracker for recent events across all brands.

Other Orijen recipes we scored

Those are the twelve highest scoring of the 43 other Orijen recipes we scored. The full comparison, flagship review included, is on the Orijen brand review.

Feeding it

Switch foods gradually over about a week, mixing more of the new food into the old each day. Portion by calories, not by the look of the bowl: our feeding calculator works out a daily amount from your dog's weight, and this recipe's calorie line above is the number it needs.

What that means at the bowl, for a typical neutered adult (resting energy 70 times body weight to the power 0.75, times 1.6; treats come out of the same budget):

Puppies, pregnant dogs and very active dogs need more; older and weight watching dogs need less. The calculator linked above adjusts for those cases.