I have always heard from animal nutritionists that it is best to feed a food where a meat is the first ingredient. I feed Pro Plan for that reason. However, I have heard where a lot of people don't like it. Why is that? I raised Labs, and have always had good luck with it, but I am doing my twice yearly questioning of whether I am feeding the right food, so any input would be great. :confused: I have heard people talk about feeding raw veggies...mine look at me as if I am crazy if I toss them some carrots. Is it an aquired taste?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it!!!

Seriously, if the Pro Plan is working for your dog, why mess with something thats working so well?

Now, I don't like Pro Plan and I will tell you why not, being you asked. I've got the Pro Plan website up and looking at the ingredients. Most of the formulas do have meat as the first ingredient, but its wet state meat. I want to see Chicken Meal vs. just Chicken. With chichen meal, you know your getting more meat protein than with just chicken. The reason behind this is the ingredients are listed in order of weight, the ingredient that weighs the most is first, plus all these ingredients are listed before processing. Example: If you have 10 pounds of chicken before processing, after process you'd have maybe 3 pounds of chicken as all the moisture is removed during processing. If you have 10 pounds of chicken meal before processing, you'll still have 10 pounds after processing as the moisture is taken out before processing.

Next, all of their foods contain A LOT of grains, especially A LOT of wheat and corn. Now I don't have a problem with corn in a good food and when its not right at the top of the ingredients list. Wheat on the other hand seems to cause a lot of problems with a number of dogs. Most of Pro Plan foods are very grain heavy and are MORE than likely grain based rather than meat based. Also, most of their formulas contain tallow, tallow is rock solid fat that is basically undigestible. I also noticed a vast number of their formulas have corn listed multiple times - the foods gotta be grain based.

There's my reasons for not liking Pro Plan products, but if its working - why mess with it?

Thanks so much for your reply. I always was told that it was best to have chicken, lamb, beef and not just meal. I guess I am thinking that it would be like me cutting up a chicken and giving it to them. What do you feed?

Pretty hot topic when getting into the food discussion. Most agree with YellowDog, that if it works then it is fine. Some dogs will have adverse reaction etc to ingriedents like the corn.

I switched my lab to Canidae, which is alot more expensive but I must say that his coat has never looked better and he really enjoys it.


About the veges, Cooper loves them. He gets lots of carrots, a bannana a day and sometimes apples. The baby carrots that are already peeled are a great substitute for a treat because you know how fast a lab can get overweight. There are some veges and fruits that are no no's like onions, potatoes, grapes. There was a topic on one of the forums back awhile ago.


Burtman

I have heard of Canidae, but where is it sold?

Laurie

If you go to their website, www.canidae.com (http://www.canidae.com/) there is a store locator on the left frame. :)

Thank you very much. I will check into that!

Laurie

Many of the top show and field kennels feed ProPlan. Obviously it must be working for some people so if its working for you, continue feeding it.

Remember, what works for some might not work for others so we can all tell you what we're feeding, but that might not be the best food for your dogs. If you're happy with what you see on ProPlan, then for heaven's sake don't mess with it.

For what its worth, I've been feeding Levi ProPlan and he loves and looks great.

Just curious....which formula do you ProPlanners like?

Suzie

Suzie, the people I know who are feeding ProPlan are mostly using the Chicken. I know some who are doing the Turkey/Barley and another who loves the Sensitive Skin & Stomach which has salmon in it.