Sundays For Dogs Review: The Study Says Feed Less, Not Better

1. The credentials and the transparency are real

Two things distinguish this from most of the fresh pet food category. The company names its veterinarian founder — Dr Tory Waxman, alongside Michael Waxman — rather than gesturing at unnamed experts, and it describes itself as vet founded, vet operated and vet formulated. And it publishes the complete ingredient declaration for all four recipes on a public page: beef, chicken, fish and turkey, each listed in full down to the preservative. In a market where a great many brands publish a photograph of a salmon and a paragraph about freshness, both of those are meaningful.

The product concept is also coherent. Air-drying cooks at lower temperatures than the extrusion process used for kibble and produces a shelf-stable, jerky-like food that needs no refrigeration — which is a genuine practical advantage over frozen or fresh-delivered alternatives that occupy freezer space and fail if a delivery is late. If you want something other than kibble without rearranging your kitchen, this is a sensible format, and that is a real reason to prefer it.

What the format does not do is change the evidence picture. There are no published trials comparing health outcomes in dogs fed air-dried food against dogs fed a complete conventional diet, and in the absence of those the honest claim is about palatability, convenience and ingredient transparency rather than about health or longevity. To their credit, the site's own framing leans on taste, ingredients and process rather than promising specific medical benefits — which is more restraint than several human supplement brands we have reviewed managed.

2. The missing line, and the missing prices

Every pet food sold as a complete diet in the United States carries a nutritional adequacy statement referencing AAFCO nutrient profiles, naming the life stage it is formulated for — growth, maintenance, or all life stages. That single sentence is the difference between food a dog can live on and something that is nutritionally incomplete, and it is the first thing any veterinary nutritionist would look for. We searched the homepage, the full ingredients page and the FAQ index for AAFCO, for complete and balanced, and for life stage. None of them appears on any of those pages, and neither does calorie content per cup or per kilogram.

We want to be fair about what that means. A brand founded and formulated by a veterinarian is very unlikely not to meet AAFCO profiles, and the statement is probably in one of the sixteen articles in the help centre's Recipes and Nutrition section, which we did not open. So this is a presentation criticism rather than an allegation. But it is a real one: the pages a prospective buyer actually reads lead with human grade, superfoods and 0% synthetics, and omit the only claim that establishes nutritional completeness. Ask for it explicitly, and ask which life stage it covers, before you switch a dog onto anything.

The same applies to money. There is no price on the homepage, the ingredients page or the FAQ index — no dollar figure at all. Pricing lives behind a Find Your Recipe questionnaire about your dog, which the fresh food category has standardised and which has the effect, whatever the intent, of making comparison shopping impossible until you have invested time and handed over details. The advertised 30% off your first box then tells you the commercial shape: a recurring subscription with a discounted first delivery. Establish the ongoing monthly cost, and how to cancel, before the discount persuades you.

3. Two claims that need their working shown

0% synthetics, 100% meat and superfoods. Set that against the published ingredient lists, which include mixed tocopherols identified as a preservative and selenium yeast, and which show no vitamin and mineral premix of the kind that most complete diets require to hit AAFCO profiles reliably. Mixed tocopherols are a form of vitamin E and a perfectly reasonable natural preservative — nobody should object to their presence — but describing a formula containing an added preservative and a selenium supplement as 0% synthetics is a stretch, and the absence of a visible premix makes the missing adequacy statement matter more rather than less.

Then the taste test: dogs chose Sundays chicken recipe 39-0 over premium kibble, described as proven by a third-party independent taste test. Palatability testing in dogs is a real discipline, usually done as a two-bowl preference protocol, and a result of 39 to nil is extraordinary — preference tests on food that dogs generally like rarely produce unanimity. That does not mean it did not happen. It means a company citing a precise, remarkable number ought to name the tester and describe the protocol, and none of that is published. Treat it as a claim rather than a finding.

For completeness, the other badges on the homepage are 2000+ 5 Star Reviews, Veterinarian Founded, Human-Grade Ingredients, Risk-Free Trial and Nutrient Rich. Veterinarian founded is verifiable and true. Human grade has an AAFCO definition requiring every ingredient to be edible and handled to human food standards, so it is a real manufacturing claim — though it says nothing about nutritional superiority for a dog. The review count is self-hosted. And we did not establish what the risk-free trial actually guarantees, because we could not reach a returns or refund policy page; the URL linked from the homepage returned a 404 when we followed it.

What is Sundays For Dogs?

An air-dried dog food sold by subscription, founded by a veterinarian, Dr Tory Waxman, and her husband Michael Waxman. There are four recipes — beef, chicken, fish and turkey — cooked at low temperatures to a jerky-like texture rather than extruded into kibble, shelf-stable so no refrigeration is needed, and marketed as human-grade with no artificial flavours or preservatives. The site publishes the full ingredient list for every recipe, which is more transparency than much of the category offers.

Why is dog food on a GLP-1 site?

Because the lesson transfers, and not in the direction the marketing implies. Roughly six in ten American dogs are overweight or obese, and the person most likely to notice is someone who has just spent a year learning what their own calorie intake actually was. If losing weight has changed how you feel, it is worth asking the same question about your dog — and the honest answer involves portions rather than a premium brand.

What is the strongest evidence in canine nutrition?

A study about quantity. In the Purina lifespan study, published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association in 2002, 48 Labrador retrievers were paired and one of each pair was fed 25% less than the other for life. The restricted dogs lived a median of about 13.0 years against 11.2 — roughly 1.8 years longer — and developed osteoarthritis later. That is the most impressive result in the field, and it is about how much food went in the bowl, not what brand it was. No premium food has anything comparable behind it.

So is upgrading the food worth it?

It may be worth it to you, and you should be clear about why. There is no good evidence that fresh, air-dried or human-grade food produces better health outcomes than a complete, balanced conventional diet — the comparative trials simply have not been done. What these products reliably deliver is palatability, ingredient transparency and an owner who feels better about mealtimes, all of which are legitimate things to buy. What they do not deliver is the lifespan effect in the paragraph above, which you can get for free by measuring portions.

What is the one thing to check before buying any dog food?

The AAFCO nutritional adequacy statement — the line that says the food is complete and balanced, and for which life stage. That single sentence is what distinguishes a food your dog can live on from a topper or a treat, and it is the most important thing on any pet food label. We searched Sundays' homepage, ingredients page and FAQ index and found no mention of AAFCO, complete and balanced, or life stage on any of them. A vet-founded company almost certainly has this and it is probably in a help-centre article, but it is not on the pages a shopper reads.

What does it cost?

We could not find out. There is no price anywhere on the homepage, the ingredients page or the FAQ index — not one dollar figure. Pricing is behind a Find Your Recipe quiz that asks about your dog before it will quote you, which is standard for the fresh-food category and is still a design that prevents comparison shopping. There is a 30% off your first box offer, which tells you the model is a subscription with a discounted entry point. Get the ongoing monthly cost, not the first-box cost, before you commit.

How do I tell if my dog is overweight?

Learn body condition scoring, which takes about five minutes and is what your vet uses. Run your hands along the ribs: you should feel them easily under a thin layer, like the back of your knuckles rather than your palm. Look down from above: there should be a visible waist behind the ribs. Look from the side: the belly should tuck up towards the hind legs rather than running straight. If you cannot feel ribs and there is no waist, your dog is carrying excess weight — and most owners of overweight dogs do not think their dog is overweight, which is the real obstacle.

How should I actually get weight off a dog?

With your vet, gradually, and by counting what goes in. Ask for a target weight and a daily calorie figure rather than guessing, because pack feeding guides are generous and are given as ranges. Weigh the food rather than scooping it. Account for treats, chews and table scraps, which are where most of the surplus hides and which are invisible to people who only think about meals. And do not crash-diet a dog — rapid restriction is its own risk, and a vet-supervised plan over months is the correct pace.

Are the marketing claims sound?

Mostly reasonable, with two that need a second look. 0% synthetics, 100% meat and superfoods sits awkwardly beside published ingredient lists containing mixed tocopherols as a preservative and selenium yeast, and those lists show no vitamin and mineral premix — which is unusual for a food intended to be complete, and is another reason to want the AAFCO statement. And the claim that dogs chose the chicken recipe 39-0 over premium kibble in a third-party independent taste test is a striking result with no methodology, no named tester and no protocol published; a unanimous 39-0 in a preference test is remarkable enough to warrant the detail.