# Purina Pro Plan or Science Diet????



## Avalanche 4 (Oct 19, 2017)

Good lookin pup ... 1 vote for PPP here ...


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## CAROLINA MOM (May 12, 2009)

Toby is adorable, Congratulations. 

I would go with Purina Pro Plan large breed puppy food over the Hill's Science. 
Vets in my area if they recommend the HSD, it's a veterinarian prescription formula to treat a specific health issue. Otherwise I would not feed it myself.....

I've been feeding a Purina Pro Plan formula to my dogs for more than 7.5 years, very happy with PPP.


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## Cpc1972 (Feb 23, 2015)

PPP. I think SD is over priced for what it is. PPP has much better ingredients.


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## Sweese (Sep 25, 2013)

Purina Pro Plan Sport (chicken, 30/20) is what I feed the big dog and my puppy from weaning (all working dogs)....so no switching from puppy to adult. They also have a new grain free pro plan sport but I have not tried.

Science Diet makes some good special diets but I just do not see them running in the performance circles.


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## Swampcollie (Sep 6, 2007)

Pro Plan Performance to all dogs here. Big or small, old or young. Just keep an eye on them and adjust the amount so they don't grow too fast or get too fat.


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## Maggie'sVoice (Apr 4, 2018)

Don't feed a grain free to a large breed puppy as they are usually all life stage foods. It will say as much in the AAFCO statement on the back of the bag and by definition that means it's a small breed puppy food. You need a specifically a large breed puppy food to get the correct Calcium to Phosphorus ratios for the dog not to grow to fast for it's joints (potentially leading to Hip Dysplasia). The food should have roughly a 1.1-1.4 parts calcium to 1 part phosphorus. Regular and small breed puppy foods can have a 2/1 ratio which is way to much calcium.


You guys that feed the performance to the puppies are feeding a ton of excess protein and fat. If it's worked for you then that's good but I couldn't recommend that. Seen issues in the past with that much Protein and Fat unless it's after 6 months of age, not 8-10 weeks when they are growing at roughly 300% rate


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## eeerrrmmm1 (Apr 15, 2018)

Honestly, I don't think you can really go wrong with either brand since they are both large manufacturers that can fund good studies and have effective quality control measures. The really important thing is that it's a large breed puppy food and not grain free. 

We went with Hills because it's what my vet recommends and feeds her GRs. My puppy's coat is beautiful and soft and she's nice and lean and healthy looking.


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## megthechamp (Jun 14, 2018)

We tried Purina One Large Breed Puppy (NOT the Pro Plan) for a long while, and Apollo did mostly okay on it until he started having really soft stools and intermittent diarrhea. We switched to Science Diet Large Breed puppy only because I had a heck of a time trying to find a large breed puppy food that was not chicken based (we wanted to try an alternative protein to see if that was part of issue...Science Diet has a lamb-based large breed puppy food).


Knock on wood (BIG knock on wood lol), no issues since switching to Science Diet. His stools look the best they have since we got him in April. Not sure if it was the change in brand, protein, or just the diarrhea was from something completely different. All I know is he was struggling for 1.5 months and now isn't.


Moral of the story: pick the one that your dog does the best on. Neither are bad starting places at all! We may try Purina Pro Plan since it's higher quality than the Purina One once we switch Apollo to adult food, haven't decided yet though.


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## photoweborama (Dec 6, 2007)

Our dogs are on Purina. Strange enough for allergy reasons.

One of our dogs was chewing her legs to bits.

Changed to Purina and everything healed up.


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## yrojas11 (Jul 10, 2018)

Thank you everyone for your opinion on these brand of food. Can any one tell me when is it ideal to switch his food? He is a little over 9 weeks now. Can I switch him now or should I wait?


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## rabernet (Feb 24, 2015)

yrojas11 said:


> Thank you everyone for your opinion on these brand of food. Can any one tell me when is it ideal to switch his food? He is a little over 9 weeks now. Can I switch him now or should I wait?


Our puppy came home at 9 weeks old on Life's Abundance - when I got down to 1/4 of a bag, I started to mix in the Purina ProPlan Large Breed Puppy into his food by replacing 1/4th of the LA with the LBP at each meal for a few days, then a little more and a little more until we had completely transitioned. That was several months ago (he's now 5 months old).


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## daisy1234 (Jun 17, 2018)

https://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/best-dog-foods/best-large-breed-puppy-food/

Here you go. Have you checked here? I feed mine Fromm. She is doing great on it.


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## Maggie'sVoice (Apr 4, 2018)

daisy1234 said:


> https://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/best-dog-foods/best-large-breed-puppy-food/
> 
> Here you go. Have you checked here? I feed mine Fromm. She is doing great on it.



For what it's worth, that article has 90% good info and 10% questionable (after all it is Dog Food Advisor). The really questionable part is them recommending All Life Stage listed in the AAFCO statement. That by definition is a small breed puppy food since it's the puppy that has the highest energy/nutritional requirement and the least specialized food for controlled growth and usually has close to 2/1 cal to phos ratio. The overall most important thing to watch for is the Calcium/Phosphorus ratios. The ratio you need to make sure it says in the range of is 1.1-1.4 part calcium to 1 part Phosphorus so that would be something like 1.4/1 cal/phos. The percentages it lists 1.2-1.8 calcium and 1.0-1.6 phosphorus is fine but they are not understanding that you have to have the right ratio as if you have a food that is 1.8/1 cal/phos that is going to likely be harmful to the large breed puppy. 



I just wanted to clarify for people that don't know and are looking at things like this which shouldn't be published if they can't give ALL the correct info to truly help people.


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## daisy1234 (Jun 17, 2018)

Here is an interesting link about pet food and the AAFCO. I saw an interesting documentary on Nextflex about them. It's actually very sad.https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/what-is-aafco/


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## Maggie'sVoice (Apr 4, 2018)

daisy1234 said:


> Here is an interesting link about pet food and the AAFCO. I saw an interesting documentary on Nextflex about them. It's actually very sad.https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/what-is-aafco/



This will be a bit of info most don't know. AAFCO doesn't police these dog food companies. They are a guideline only kind of thing. The dog food companies are who police them. What I mean is this example. I can tell you some of these main national companies, this I'll use Hills. They will take random formulas of other companies bag and do testing to make sure the food is adhering to the stated guaranteed analysis . Back around 2011ish Hills would do this with about 180 formulas from various manufactures. If they find something wrong with a formula not coming back matching the guaranteed analysis or with there were excesses/deficiencies based on AAFCO's requirements they will then informing them of it and usually the company will be thankful and look into it to correct things. If not, the company that made the discovery can/will then send their findings to the FTC (Fair Trade Commission). They are the ones that can force compliance with up to a $1 million a day fine until compliance. This is the scary part of all of this. If companies like Hills, Purina, Nurto, Iams don't do this there really would be no way of companies being forced to keep things up to snuff so to speak.


There was a company (not going to name them) that Hills found issues with and notified them and they basically gave the middle finger to Hills and reported to the FTC and it did take the FTC with threatening fines before they made the changes. The issue where there was a significant excess of vitamin D3 that was impacting dogs liver function.


Virtually NO ONE KNOWS that the FTC is the body that can force compliance with these companies. It's probably the worst regulated industry we have in this country. The FDA only will investigate something IF it's brought to their attention that it's Contaminated and can posse a health risk like if a food has Salmonella, E.Coli and other such things and they force a company to preform a recall. Yeah, even though it always says *voluntary* recall, they are always forced to, but give the company the option to say voluntary to kinda save face.It's all pretty scary when it comes right down to it.


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## Claudia M (Aug 8, 2012)

Cooking your dog's food is the best possible way. It takes time and it is hard to find good organ meat. Even with cooking you need to study what and how much you are giving. Yes dogs lived longer and healthier when not fed kibble. Now they pay for our convenience. I prefer cooked versus raw including the vegetables (which they do not need much of) because of their digestive system. They cannot digest raw vegetables as humans do. I steam the veggies and cook the beef and the salmon (which has to be fully cooked for dogs - research canine salmon poisoning disease). I also rotate and mix the vegetables. And add vitamins and minerals to their food. Grains and legumes are also very limited to their diet. I also cook the beef liver to avoid Vitamin A toxicity. Freeze dried liver has the most amount of vitamin A and can be very harmful to your dog. Dogs do not get vitamin D from the sun, you have to supplement that. They do get it from the food they eat. So if they eat caged chicken mainly they will have very little vitamin D. Once again, vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin that too little is bad but too much causes toxicity.


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## Prism Goldens (May 27, 2011)

I feed Lifes Abundance- NOT the grainfree, but I have never gotten on that bandwagon. Even when I was a raw feeder, I used grains. https://www.lifesabundance.com/Home.aspx?realname=20184387&cat=0&hdr=&Ath=False The All Life Stages version has zero peas or pea product in it, and has added taurine.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

My little guy came home 2 weeks ago eating a grain free food. 

I am not completely focused on the taurine study stuff w/r to food, but respectfully not going into that. 

Although maybe one thing is that if your dog dies suddenly. Instead of assuming a dx, do a necropsy. That's for everything when the dog did not have a prior dx and obvious COD. 

Anyway.

I'm not against feeding grain free foods if they are good brands and the dogs do well on them. I don't believe that "grains" specifically cause problems with the dogs. 

But I am in the process of switching my pup over to Pro Plan Focus (regular puppy, not the large breed stuff). This was the same food I fed my Bertie and he did very well on. 

My concerns with a growing puppy are avoiding digestive issues, growing healthy bones, coats, everything.... avoiding pano. 

He's currently eating 1/2 cup Natural Balance and 1/2 cup PP Focus Puppy per meal. This is week #2. First week he was only getting 1/4 cup PP in every meal. By next week, we should be almost completely switched over. 

He will eat that food until about or almost 5 months and then I will switch him to a mixture of PP Performance and Nutro Ultra. Though tempted to just switch to Nutro Ultra.

But with young puppies - you go by what worked before - with closely related dogs especially. <= That's the reason why talking to your breeder about what the adult dogs eat (if they are healthy inside and out) is helpful.


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## daisy1234 (Jun 17, 2018)

You are right it is pretty scary and most people don't realize what is in dog food.


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