Any experience with the fresh dog diets advertised on radio and TV?

[Mike 03]

My dog is approximately 12 years old and has some chronic health issues. I believe I'm about to be told that he no longer should be on the prescription Hill's kidney disease food and we may have to find a substitute. (He'll still be eating the prescription no fat GI tract food, but that will be roughly half of his diet. He also receives small amounts of salmon and broiled chicken breast).

The condition my veterinarian is most worried about is a heart murmur (a 4 out of 5 in terms of badness). So he should not eat a lot of fat. But the kidney disease diagnosis may have been an error, and my veterinarian is no longer worried about that.

I'm wondering if anyone here has tried "The Farmer's Dog" or "Dr. Marty's" or another one of these new dog food diets that are shipped fresh. As a lot of you will know, both Stephanie Miller and Thom Hartmann advertise for one of these diets There may be others I'm not aware of. It would make me feel a lot better trying one of these if I knew people at DU used them and thought they were a good idea. Likewise, if you have had negative experience or think they are over-rated or not so healthy, I want to hear that too.

(Some day I will do a rant about how for seven years my dog was treated for kidney disease he didn't have, when my goal all along with him was to feed him differently than I fed my previous three dogs who all died of cancer. I know so many of you have been through that nightmare and would do anything you reasonably could to avoid another dog cancer diagnosis. That's one reason I'm so intrigued by these alternative diets.

But I digress...

Please, any advice, thoughts (pro or con!):

Can anyone recommend a program they like and use for their dogs? Do you feel it is healthier than store-bought, and does your dog like it?

How expensive is it approximately?

How often do you receive the food deliveries? How many meals do you usually get?

Is the preparation difficult? Do these foods need to be refrigerated from the time they are delivered?

Any thoughts or advice you have would be deeply appreciated.

I probably have to get offline shortly, but I promise to check this thread first thing tomorrow to see if there are any replies.

THANK YOU! And thank you fellow pet lovers for your patience reading that overlong thread.