Purina Veterinary diets
 

Hi,
I feed my puppy Jet Purina veterinary Diets Pediatric Formula for dogs. Before i had her on welness puppy but it was too expensive and could not get it in my town so i started feeding her this stuff. it is only avalable through your vet and is the best kind i can feed her in my small town. Does anybody else feed their dog this stuff? and what do you think of it?

[url]http://www.purina.ca/products/veterinarydiets/dog/default.asp[/url]

I couldn't see a list of ingredients. . .
. . . .can you post the ingredients. . ..

Look at the ingredients.If the first 5 ingredients contain "corn" then it's no good.I have never used any dog foods from my vet.Why?Cause all of them contain corn,and have to may fillers.If you can,type in at least the first 10 ingredients,in order.... :)

[COLOR=Magenta]I agree with Mona. Unless there is a very specific reason you have to feed a prescription diet.. ie kindney failure, etc.. there's no reason to feed prescription otherwise.

Wellness isn't the only foos on the market that is good and high end.. just one of the more expensive ones.

I don't think I've seen an ingredients list off a prescription diet that didn't make me cringe.. but as long as it works when the dog has a serious issue, it's alright.[/COLOR]

How much of this Purina do you feed per day, as opposed to Wellness?

I would have to feed my dog 5 cups a day of it, instead I feed 2 cups of Wellness.

The poorer quality a food, the more you must feed for the dog to get nutrition. Dogs cannot digest corn, so it just passes out of the body and is wasted. If you look at it this way, Purina is no cheaper than Wellness.

[COLOR=Magenta]That's also a good point. I was feeding 4 cups of iams.. I feed 2 cups of Wellness. A 20 dollar bag of Wellness lasts me a month.. For my dog's health it's worth it.[/COLOR]

A Hollistic Specialist
 

Told me that the food sold in Vet office's is the WORST food of all! I was kind of surprised because she was very adamant about how bad it was. I feed Go Natural to my pup and never considered the Vet brand, but I have wondered why Vets sell one brand of food in their office - because it looks unethichal to me that they sell a particular food brand in a clinic for profit. The hollistic specialist suggested that the Vets/Association and the Food companies were in business together, and that the quality of ingredients in the foods sold were terrible.

Unless there are allergies to meat proteins or other special diet requirements, I would look into different brands of food. I think that people often trust that their Vet would only recommend the best for their pets, and the brand sold in the clinic must be best choice.... when unfortunately that might not always be the case.

Just wondering where all the info on bad foods vrs good foods have come from?
I mean, what type of doctor has stated Wellness is a great food? Science Diet is a bad food?
Just wondering if anyone has links to studies done by professionals, and where ppl get thier info from, if not their vet.

All the Purina vet stuff I did find had Brewer's rice and #1... Can you post the ingredients of yours?

The ones I found online were also $41 US, which is really not much more than I pay for the Wolf king, if it's not the same amount... Wellness is not much more than Solid Gold either... I'm lost as to why you switched.

[COLOR=Magenta]I pay 20 Can for the small bag of wellness. It lasts a month for my cocker spaniel. I think it was maybe 2 bucks cheaper for solid gold when I tried it... but it was a negligable amount in my books, and depending upon the store the prices were slightly different.. almost the same.[/COLOR]

I feed my Eskimo top quality, human grade dry food - no corn as he has corn sensitivity and wheat free biscuits. This food is definitely not cheap. But just to play devil's advocate for a moment, our Beagle who died in 1986 at the age of 19 1/2 ate Purina, went for a yearly check-up and rabies shot. Never a health problem. Next came the Dachshunds. Of course their food was our food - but they ate everything from President's Choice to Iams or food from the vet as their antipasto. Never had a stomach problem with any of them - 7 Dachshunds all told. Serious back and neck problems with my 2 darlings of course, but not stomach related and somehow I kept their weight at 10 lbs. maximum. The Eskimo is the first dog with the sensitivity to corn. Since I am in my mid 50s I remember how this was the norm. Now it seems dogs are suffering from more ailments than ever - certainly I blame over-breeding, weird breeding etc. for much of this, but still, dogs seemed healthier and better adjusted than now. People would have laughed at the thought of a Behaviour Therapist.

[QUOTE]Now it seems dogs are suffering from more ailments than ever - certainly I blame over-breeding, weird breeding etc. for much of this, but still, dogs seemed healthier and better adjusted than now. People would have laughed at the thought of a Behaviour Therapist.[/QUOTE] The difference is, now dogs are living with ailments. How many dogs were put to sleep because the disease or allergy wasn't treatable because vet medicine was so far behind? Also the number of people who have pets instead of kids is much more now, and as a result, there are more treatments available to those who are willing to spend the money.

How many dogs with hip dysplasia survived 20 years ago? How many dogs with diabetes?

I remember when I was little, my first SCPA Dobie- she was 7 and started throwing up all the time. Because she was a dobie, the vet just said, "It's probably cancer. What do you want to do?" Since then, I've never heard of a dog going in to the vet for a problem and getting put to sleep in the same day, for cancer. There are no tests that quick. But they looked at the usual suspects for the breed and decided with that.

I also remember nothing being wrong with our other doggies, but I know now that I notice more. I know what to look for. My old doggies were on the ultimate of crap foods, I think $7 for 30lbs... They lived to be 13 (dobie) and 14 (lab), which are pretty good ages for bigger doggies. But are my dogs healthier? Yes. Are they happier? Yes. Are they more active? Yes. Are they sicker? No. They have more allergies, maybe, but we know most of them and treat them and they're fine.

When it comes to nutrition, your vet is probably the LAST person you should be consulting, unless they have an animal nutrition background...which by the way, vets rarely have..in vet school, they take the basics, which doesn't explain what we're after...."what is best for my dog?"....The number of vets that will recommend IAMS is just sickening...they don't have a clue when it comes to nutrition, and aren't your best bet for a realistic answer...do your own research, ask people in forums that have the experience and the knowledge....

Purina is a very low quality food, along with IAMS and Eukaneuba right there on the list...there are others which really suck (to be as blunt as possible) and that I would highly recommend STAYING AWAY from...

If you want what's best for your dog, feed them something that they'll actually get some nutrients out of ....corn isn't a nutrient for a dog...its something they DON'T need...I would stick with Wellness..although its more expensive, in the long run you feed less than your average grocery store brand, so therefore you end up paying roughly the same price for a better food...

Some other good brands:
Urban Wolf
Timberwolf Organics
Wysong
Solid Gold

If you google Canine Nutrition, you can read all sorts of articles about what a dog needs as well as sites that tell you how to read the dog food label and sites that will tell you what is in almost every brand of dog food (including purina). My coyote lived to be 16 and she ate "Atta boy" (which is even cheaper than the Walmart brand Old Roy) all her life with no health problems - ever. The corgi x got really fat on atta boy, so we had to change her food and she had all sorts of health problems but no food allergies. I didn't even think about the quality of dog foods until I started coming to this site. After I researched dog foods, I found that there is a huge difference in the quality - and I decided on Solid Gold. The only decent brand I could find locally was Nature's Choice and then the feed store didn't keep it in stock so I gave up and started ordering my food online. Since I had to order it anyway, I went with the Solid Gold. I found a company in New Jersey (I think) that only charged me $16 (US) shipping on 99 lbs of dog food, and that was for expedited shipping.

[COLOR=Magenta]I find this site useful for a quick rundown on food for people that haven't really known that dog food labelling can be a little tricky, or that there are serious differences in foods.

[url]http://www.allaboutdogsinc.com/foodlist.htm[/url][/COLOR]

remember guys that the OP is only 16 I beleive (from her profile) and probably doesn't have much say in what the dog gets fed. Also she said in another post there aren't any pet stores where she lives (a few hours north of winnipeg), only feed stores. I beleive they tried ordering wellness off the internet, that's why it was so expensive.

Sadly "vet diets" are usually not very good quality. Our cat is on Science Diet for a kidney problem, and were he not so stable on it, I'd quickly shift him off to something much better.

What really concerns me is that I'm having a hard time finding their forumation of this product online. I can't find an ingredient list, and without it, it's difficult for me to give you a good opinion.

I know! That's weird. Purina's Canadian site is bad for ingredients, but they usually have them on the American site, but not these. Weird.

Try this site for the ingredients in almost every dog food you can think of. It also tells you how to read the label.

[url]http://doberdogs.com/menu.html[/url]

I found it very useful in deciding what dog food to feed Hazel. It doesn't promote any kind of dog food over another - it just gives you the ingredients from each one and since it has a section on reading the label, it also tells you what that ingredient means so that you can decide what you want your dog to have or not.

Hope it helps.