Eukanuba is all right for my puppies
Written: Jul 04 '06 (Updated Jan 26 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: less poo, shiny coat
Cons: Spendy
The Bottom Line: This stuff is definitely better than the cheap stuff. Is it that much better? Don't know.
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| platypus55's Full Review: Eukanuba Puppy Medium Breed formula |
In April after much negotiation my daughter convinced us to get a puppy. I hadn't had a dog since my daschund puppy when I was ten. A lot has changed for dogs since, probably for the better. We wanted a mutt because of the hybrid vigor, but we wanted the parents to be of known lines so we'd kind of know what we were getting. Last my daughter's classmate's father's pure wirehaired pointing griffon unexpectedly went into heat on a hunting trip and had a quickie with a dashing handsome pure chocolate lab. 63 days later ten of the most gorgeous puppies you can imagine were born.
I ended up taking two of the little girls home shortly after they weaned. Since they're b*tches, it is expected that they might weigh 50 pounds at maturity. At five months, they're halfway there. They started solid food on Diamond, which is not bad stuff. We ended up getting them Eukanuba for medium dogs because there was some special on it, and we've been using it since.
I tend not to repeat all the propaganda you can read on the label or get off Eukanuba's website
http://www.eukanuba.com/en_US/jhtmls/product/sw_HighLevelProduct_page.jhtml?li=en_US&bc=E&sc=D&pti=PH&bsc=&lsc=
According to their propaganda they have the ideal formula for all the minerals, protein, fiber, and vitamins for six areas of your pet's body bla bla bla. I do look at the ingredient list, and it makes sense to me that meat is listed high in the order of ingredients. Check the el cheapo dogfood in the supermarket, which my vet states in no uncertain terms is junk. Corn? What's up with that? Did you ever hear of a wolf raiding a corn field? And soy? It's healthy but it's a bean and we all know what beans do. Dogs are not that different from wolves. Wolves are carnivores. So it makes sense that the diet of such animals should be based on meat.
The stuff doesn't smell too bad, and I believe the propaganda that they eat less overall and poop less overall, just by comparing their doodles to our neighbor's dog's.
My puppies were housebroken pretty completely at four months. I think this was due to me structuring their lives and the fact that this food makes them go less. However these are rapidly growing high energy puppies and there are two of them. Believe me they still eat and poop plenty. Feeding them Eukanuba is not cheap.
Labs are water dogs with oily coats and Griffons are also excellent swimmers. This type of dog has a smell. On this chow, my girls seem to smell better than others of their breed and they also seem to have less doggie flatulence. My girls both favor their father in having a hard flat coat with only a hint of their mother's nappiness. When I watch them playing in the sun it's clear their coats are very shiny. Perhaps this is from all the special omega oils in their rations, or perhaps they're just natural beauties anyway. As an aside, my cat was also switched to Eukanuba from "whatever was on special" and it definitely made a difference in her coat.
My puppies are not too thrilled with the taste of this chow. It's obvious at feeding time that they would prefer something else, such as that salami kind of dog food that comes in a roll, or cat food, or old cantaloupe rinds, or the greatest delicacy of all, recycled cat food. However, Labs tend to not be picky eaters, so they go ahead and eat it after giving me that hangdog look for a few seconds. It's obvious that my kids would prefer big Macs to broccoli as well but I know the broccoli is better for them and I figure if they're hungry enough they'll eat. The same applies to puppies.
As long as they are puppies and they continue to clean their plates I will continue to get it for them. Once they become adults I will move them to Eukanuba for adult dogs.
I need to go to Petco or the feed store to get this chow. The grocery store only has Iams.
[UPDATE] At just under 12 months one of my puppies went lame in the left front paw. The vet found no foreign objects in her pads and no muscular problems. He did note that when applying pressure to the non jointed part of her fore-arm that she winced with pain. He diagnosed the canine equivalent of "growing pains' that some young humans experience, and said it was relatively rare. He told us to take her off the puppy chow and put her on adult chow because he felt the puppy chow could be overstimulating her bone growth. I had a vague idea of having the girls on puppy chow until 18 months. The bag says up to 24 months for large breed puppies but they're just barely "large dogs" so I thought I'd split the difference. We also gave her low dose aspirin. After a week on the big girl food and the aspirin, she is not limping any more so I guess the vet was correct.
Recommended:
Yes
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platypus55
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Member: Colleen
Location: Pacific Northwest
Reviews written: 117
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