Dog Food Blog

A contact person from a hunters association in the USA had filled out the contact form on Best Dog Food Guide and asked me the following question on June, 23th 2007. For privacy reasons I have removed his name in this blog post.

I have read in one report that Purina Hi Pro dog food was not good for my hunting/show dogs. A fellow hunter recommended Purina One and said that the final cost would be about the same since I would feed less of the better food and also have less mess to clean up. Any ideas? Also is there any other independent research that I might read? Thanks.

Continue reading to view my response.

Thank you for contacting me at Best-Dog-Food-Guide.com. Your question is very specific and I find it difficult to give you specific individual advice as I’m not licensed to do that (at the moment). But I’ll try to help you going forward.

You can monitor your dog; see how he (or she) is doing, so you are in the best position of taking decisions. I can give you general guidelines that help you in the process of selecting the best dog food for your dog, because there is no one size fits all. Different dogs do better or worse of different dog foods and choosing the best dog food is a matter of trial and error (without trying every type and every brand of course).

Are you feeding Purina HiPro to your dogs at the moment? Can you tell me where you found the report saying it wasn’t any good (was this a specific advice for hunting/show dogs?)? What are your reasons of wanting to switch (or at least exploring other dog foods)?

I do know about Purina Pro Plan which is a premium dog food, complete and balanced, and in my opinion it has a nice smell. I have experience with their salmon variety and my dog thinks it is very palatable (and he’s one picky dog). Also Purina hasn’t been implicated in the pet food recall so I have no arguments against it. I’ve noticed some people argue against the fillers in this brand, though every dog food has fillers. Fillers aren’t all bad. Compare them to the fiber in your own food. You need these to stimulate movement of the intestinal tract and fiber normalizes passage time through the bowel so your body has the time to absorb the nutrients from it. Same goes for your dog. Fillers are probably the cheapest ingredient and cheaper dog foods may contain more of them than is optimal for your dog. When your dog has loose stools, flatulence or just very large stool volume than the fiber in his current dog food may be too high for him. You can tell a lot about your dog’s health from his stool. Other signs are his coat etc (see the health check list on my site).

So your arguments about the smaller size of stool and the smaller portion sizes are valid for premium dog food in general though I can’t tell what you’re comparing against. Total costs may not be completely equal and still be somewhat higher when looking at costs a day. When you see improvements in your dog’s health after the feeding trial the extra money might be just triple worth it! You can be the judge of that; I’m not saying you should buy the more expensive dog food.

Do you know any problems your dog might have, like allergies or food intolerances to particular ingredients? If so, check the label on the bag of the dog food you are considering to see whether any of these are present. When it’s all fine you can buy a small bag or ask for a free dog food sample to test whether your dog likes the product. When he’s picky (like mine) he might not even consider taking a bite. So when you dog doesn’t approve then don’t bother going forward with that particular food.

When still ok, you can do a feeding trial. Buy a small bag of Purina Pro Plan (if you hadn’t already done so). Fill in the dog health check list, change dog food gradually so as to not upset your dog’s digestive tract, feed it for a couple of weeks and meanwhile keep doing the routine health check to see whether you can notice any differences in your dog’s appearance or behavior. Do you see a change for the better you can than decide to stick with the Purina Pro Plan when you think the observed change is worth the extra money.

Hope this helps! For specific individual advice I recommend that you visit a veterinarian or veterinary nutritionist.

Wishing you the best of luck and success to you and your dogs,

Barbara