Totoniks
Totoniks for Dogs & Cats
Find Totoniks on WildWellnessPet.com
Why I recommend them
Most toppers are a vitamin in a gravy costume. Totoniks is the first one in a long time that made me stop and say, wait, who does that?
Geoff Bowers, the founder, is a former soldier and police dog handler who started the raw food company K9 Natural in 2008. After years of training dogs, he got talked back into the industry, and Totoniks is what he built: New Zealand venison blood, bone broth, and green-lipped mussel, dried into a sachet you mix with water at home. Pet Age featured it in its 2026 Vanguard Awards.
I'm not recommending this from a distance. The Gut Health formula is what my dog and my cats eat every day. When I started my senior dog Kim on it, she was 12 and hadn't asked for playtime in months. Within a couple of weeks she was asking again. I changed more than one thing around then, so I won't hand you a tidy cause-and-effect story. I did keep it in her bowl.
What makes them different
Most gut products come as a probiotic capsule or a fiber powder. Totoniks comes through the bowl instead. It's a savory broth you mix with water, so hydration and nutrition arrive together. The Gut Health label is short: venison blood, beef bone broth, green-lipped mussel, calcium bentonite (a mineral clay), and a small amount of maltodextrin, which I get to in the cautions.
Whole blood is rare in a topper. A few pet foods use plasma, the liquid part of blood. Totoniks says it's the first product to use venison blood this way.
The hydration is built in. Geoff's point is that dogs on dry food often don't drink enough, and a broth gets more fluid into them without a standoff at the water bowl. Fresh water still sits alongside it, as the product page says.
Geoff also told me on the show that every batch is tested for Salmonella and E. coli before it ships, and that New Zealand requires a human-food-grade facility for export. And the blood itself is a leftover from the meat industry that usually gets thrown away. He built a company around not doing that.
Here's the research I'd point to, with its limits. A 2025 Journal of Animal Science study from the University of Illinois (Mioto et al.) fed twelve adult beagles kibble made with spray-dried pork plasma at different levels. Fecal IgA, a gut immune marker, was higher in dogs eating the 8% plasma diet than in the control group. It's a small study, a plasma manufacturer collaborated on it, and plasma isn't whole venison blood. I read it as a good sign from a related ingredient, not a guarantee. Read the study.
How they fit into the ReWilding model
Prey comes with blood. Kibble doesn't, and most raw feeding doesn't either, because the red in muscle meat is a different pigment (myoglobin), not whole blood. Wild canines don't go looking for a water bowl, either. Geoff told me about a frozen Alaskan winter, north of Mount McKinley, with no lakes anywhere, where the dogs got their moisture from the kill. Cats are the extreme case. They evolved to get most of their water from prey, so a cat on dry food is working against its own design.
I mix mine with warm water, partly because the directions call for it and partly because the TCM side of me doesn't want every meal served cold. A warm broth over dinner looks a lot more like a fresh kill than room-temperature pellets do.
One honest note: powdered blood is processed blood, and Geoff says so himself. It's the closest practical version, and I'll take it over the version where blood never reaches the bowl at all.
If your pet's whole bowl needs rethinking, that's the work I do in ReWild Your Pet's Diet and in one-on-one consults.
Products I personally recommend
Gut Health + Hydration is my daily. I mix a sachet with warm water in the reusable glass bottle and pour it over meals. For my cats, I empty a sachet over their freeze-dried food, add bone broth, and let it soak. That last part is how I use it in my own house, not label guidance, and there's more on that below.
It comes in two sizes: small dogs under 33 lb and big dogs over 33 lb. Start with the starter pack, which includes the glass bottle, then switch to refills.
Not sure the gut is the problem? I'd test before I'd guess. Wild Wellness Pet carries at-home test kits, including gut health tests.
The rest of the line, if your dog needs something different:
- Fussy Eater + Hydration: small dogs, big dogs
- Hip, Joint + Hydration: small dogs, big dogs
- Blood Buds: cold-pressed training rewards, launching at the end of October. I wrote about them here.
Hear more from Geoff
- Is Your Dog Missing THIS Ingredient for Optimal Health? (Jan. 2026): where Geoff explains why he built Totoniks and what blood brings to a bowl.
- Blood for Dogs & Cats? Geoff Bowers Explains Totoniks (Oct. 2026): Blood Buds, a cat formula on the way, and his answer on maltodextrin.
- Blood for Dogs & Cats: The Original Superfood: the full write-up of the new episode.
Cautions and who it's not right for
- If your pet reacts to shellfish, skip it. Gut Health contains green-lipped mussel.
- Totoniks makes and labels these formulas for dogs. Geoff says a cat product is coming. What I do with my own cats is my practice, and I'd rather talk through your cat's situation with you than have you copy mine. A consult is the place for that.
- If your pet has active gut trouble (vomiting, blood in the stool, refusing food, or just not right), call your vet first. This is daily food-based support, not a diagnosis.
- Maltodextrin is on the label. Totoniks says it's cassava-derived, it's there so the sticky blood powder flows, and it makes up 0.32 to 0.56 percent of a daily serving. They also say newer packaging will drop the word. I'd still rather not need it. At that amount, with a real mechanical reason behind it, I can live with it. If you can't, that's a fair call. I go deeper in the blog post.
FAQ
Is this a probiotic? No. There are no live cultures on the label. It's food-based support from broth, blood, and mussel. If you want a probiotic too, bring it up in a consult and we'll sort out what fits.
Do I have to feed raw? No. It goes over any base diet. Geoff aimed it first at dry-fed dogs, since they get the least moisture, and my own dog is fresh fed and still showed changes.
How much do I feed? Follow the feeding guide for your dog's size, on the pack and on each product page. If your dog is on medication or has a health condition, check with your vet before you add it.
Can my cat have it? See the cautions above. The formulas are made for dogs, and I'd want to talk through your cat's situation first. If you're moving a cat toward fresher food, my episode with Sabrina Simmons of RAWR is a good place to start: Raw Cat Food 101.
Why does the label say maltodextrin? It's a flow agent that keeps the powder from clumping. Totoniks says it comes from cassava root, not corn. The details are in the cautions above.