Vet says feed Euk not Canidae!

Just to make a comment, my vet here in Indy asked me what food I feed my pups. When I told her SG, she was soooo happy, she also feeds her holistic food.  I think it was great that my vet is very well versed in nutrition.  Back in Chicago, I had never had a vet ask me what food the pups were on.

My  puppy's breeder sent home some all stages Canidae with her, she was 4 months (28 pounds).  The pup spit the kibbles out all over the floor, making a big mess.  I switched her over to Innova puppy which had thinner kibbles and she was able to eat it ok.  So it was her baby teeth that hurt her to eat the Canidae.
 
Just one month later after the permanent teeth  started to grow in, I gave her the rest of the Canidae with no prob.
 
I ususally add warm water to soften the kibble and for dinner I add 1 tablespon canned Canidae.  We are back to Innova Puppy for the duration now.  Candidae and Innova seemed to have most the same stuff.
 
Science Diet - gives free food to our shelter and so SD is better than no food.
 

The calcium level of this food is fine. Some others aren't, you do want something lower than 1.5%, maybe even lower for a gaint breed. The caloric density shouldn't matter unless you are overfeeding. You only feed a certain number of calories per day whether it's a 500/cup food or a 300/cup food

 
That is not necessarily true, if you look at the recommended feeding for a 6 mos. 70 lbs puppy and use the recommended feeding schedule of Eukanuba LB and Canidae, you would feed 5 cups of Canidae with a total calorie intake of 2340 and a minimum of 6% calcium, if you feed Euk LB you would feed 5.75 cups with a total calorie intake of 2081 and a minimum of 4.6% calcium, remember calcium is a minimum so potentially it could be much higher, that is the whole idea behind a Large Breed Puppy food, over nutrition of large breed puppies is the problem.

I'm assuming that someone is feeding a certain number of calories per day, since feeding volume recommendations on bags are known to be innaccurate.

Calcium levels that don't sacrifice growth potential yet inhibit developmental problems. (Eagle Natural Pack = 1.5% Eukanuba Large and Giant Breed Puppy = 0.8%) Dr Rebecca Remillard PhD, DVM, DACVN of Angell Memorial Animal Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts states in an article titled "Practical Nutritional and Dietary Recommendations: Minimizing Clinical Aspects of Orthopedic Diseases" that "The AAFCO recommendations for calcium (1% to 2.5%) is well within a range that should not contribute to skeletal diseases as demonstrated in their Great Dane studies." She refers to; Richardson, DC: The role of nutrition in canine hip dysplasia. Vet Clin North Am Small Anim Prat 22 (3): 529-540, 1992 and Hazewinkel HAW: Influences of different calcium intakes on calcium metabolism and skeletal development in young Great Danes. (Thesis) Utrecht, The Netherlands, Utrecht State University, 1985. AAFCO standards are also an important consideration. Minimum levels of calcium for growth and reproduction have been established as 1% (not 0.8%) and maximum levels are 2.5% (not 2.7 or 3.3%). (Eagle Natural Pack is within the AAFCO limits, Eukanuba Large and Giant Breed Puppy is below the AAFCO standards)

http://www.greatdanelady.com/articles/large_and_giant_breed_nutritional_research.htm

Back to the OP though, unless Pocket is a giant breed, which I don't *think* she is, this food is fine. Actually, even if she were a giant breed, it seems like this food would be fine.

I used to work at a pet supplies store.  When our little pet supplies store first opened, vets in our area said the same thing about many of the holistic foods.  "I've never heard of Canidae/Innova/Eagle Pack/Natural Balance.  You should feed Eukanuba or Science Diet."  But then after many many clients either brought ingredient lists in or showed how well their dogs did on the food, the vets started recommending these foods.  It took a good year. 

One of the more popular vets in the area came in to check out Canidae.  I didn't know who he was but as he stood over a bag of Canidae I asked him if he had any questions.  He asked me how it compared to Science Diet.  I went through the ingredients on both bags with him.  He then told me who he was.  I was shocked a afraid he was going to argue with me, but he didn't.  Instead he bought a small bag of Canidae for his dog and Felidae for his cats.

Just as mentioned before, alot of vets aren't that well versed with nutrition and if they are, they aren't familiar with alot of the foods out there because it wasn't introduced to them in vet school.  I think sometimes vets recommend what they know is easy to find that way their client doesn't just buy Ol'Roy.

ORIGINAL: abbysdad

You want to feed a large breed puppy food, an all life stages food will typically be higher in calories and calcium, both have been shown to cause problems in the development of large or giant breed dogs.

Q.  Can I feed an all life stage formula to my giant breed puppy? If not, please explain.

A. No, please do not. An "all life stage” claim is given to foods that satisfy the nutritional requirements of ALL growing puppy breeds, pregnant and lactating bitches. The calcium and caloric density will most likely too high for a large breed growing puppy.

Rebecca Remillard, Ph.D., D.V.M., DACVN

 
Abbysdad, are you R. Remillard or are you just quoting her??

Ron:
Back in the 50's, the internet was just a network of govt. computers (sorry, Al Gore). Now, it is something everyone can use to better their own education and I don't think today's vet students are totally unaware of the other foods out there.

 
Most vets that I've met think they know EVERYTHING, and are not at all interested in "furthering" their education. That piece of paper says they're sufficiently 'educated' and that's good enough for them!
 

Abby's Dad:
total calorie intake of 2340 and a minimum of 6% calcium, if you feed Euk LB you would feed 5.75 cups with a total calorie intake of 2081 and a minimum of 4.6% calcium

 
Am I totally wacko and math illiterate, or is this REALLY fuzzy math?? 1 cup of food or 5 cups of food, it's still ~1% calcium! If you want to convert it to grams or milligrams, THEN it would be 5 times, but not when you're doing percent.

.

ORIGINAL: ron2
I don't think today's vet students are totally unaware of the other foods out there.

I do. I think the majority of ALL people are unaware of the foods that we talk about. I had never heard of Canidae, Innova, Eagle Pack, Nature's Variety or Natural Balance before coming here. I found this site on a fluke because I googled the word "Beneful", and that's more than most people do as far as researching what they are feeding. These brands are common knowledge to us, so it's hard to comprehend that they aren't well-known, but remember, these companies don't really advertise.

I've never been in vet school so I can't say what they are taught, but in the [linkhttp://www.cvm.okstate.edu/FutureStudents/dvm/curriculum.asp]Oklahoma State University DVM curriculum[/link] I don't see anything nutrition-related.

ORIGINAL: abbysdad

That is not necessarily true, if you look at the recommended feeding for a 6 mos. 70 lbs puppy and use the recommended feeding schedule of Eukanuba LB and Canidae, you would feed 5 cups of Canidae with a total calorie intake of 2340 and a minimum of 6% calcium, if you feed Euk LB you would feed 5.75 cups with a total calorie intake of 2081 and a minimum of 4.6% calcium, remember calcium is a minimum so potentially it could be much higher, that is the whole idea behind a Large Breed Puppy food, over nutrition of large breed puppies is the problem.

From a mathmatical standpoint, that isn't quite right.  As Candidae is a minimum of 1.2% per volume, if you feed 5 cups, it is still 1.2% over that volume of food.  While it is more calcium, the percentage over the greater volume does not change. 

This issue I would have with Euk LB is that it is a minimum of 26% protein by volume, which as I understand recommendations for large and giant breeds is on the high side.  Linda Arndt (aka "the Great Dane Lady") recommends 22-24% (and 12-15% fat).

Still looking for more sorces, there are many not online but Hills gives plenty to the vet community and in return vets strogly recomend their products to their clients.

 
This site is quite telling, IMO. [linkhttp://education.vetmed.vt.edu/Schedules/yeeowza/hills.asp]http://education.vetmed.vt.edu/Schedules/yeeowza/hills.asp[/link] 
 
Look at the prices for vet students! I might feed SD (not really of course!) too if I could get 40 pounds for 10 bucks!

Oh wow- the things I miss while I'm sleeping!
 
Sooner- Pocket's a greyhound/ridgeback/lab/staffy cross (or so I was told). In terms of build she appears to be mostly greyhound.
 
I think the vet was a little concerned about my switch to this "unknown" food because
a) she's come down with a cold
b) she's lost a little bit of weight so is a bit on the skinny side (again)
However, this is all after I've been away for 5-6 days and she was staying at my friends house- so she's been under a lot of stress- so iIm not entirely sure it's food related.
 
In terms of the calcium content, I would imagine that the percentages/proportion of calcium or whatever else in the food wouldn't change regardless of the amount you're feeding.
 
mtncat- just to clarify- so Euk LB has almost too much protein for large/giant breeds anyway?
 

Most vets that I've met think they know EVERYTHING, and are not at all interested in "furthering" their education. That piece of paper says they're sufficiently 'educated' and that's good enough for them!

 
Actually, that could be said about a number people I have met, in person or online, some without any credentials. In fact, the less credentials they have, the more they know. A visitor at a friend's house thought that helping her dad put wire in an added room was equivalent to my 20-something years in the trade and big, fat license.
 
Granted, some vets may not be up on all the different foods, and personally, I would rather not feed Science Diet or Purina, or any food that doesn't start with a meat. But my vet has been being a vet for about as long as I have been alive. He's learned a thing or two just from observation. So, I would hate to class even the majority of vets as knowing nothing, though, from some people's vantage point, their nutrition education is lacking.

Abbysdad, are you R. Remillard or are you just quoting her??

 
They are two different people from different parts of the country with no connection to each other.
 
He just appreciates the info she provides and wants to provide people with all information. This will come as a shock, but there are some people that know something about dog nutrition that don't happen to be fans of Ian Billinghurst.
 

Remind me not to hire a vet from OSU.[]
 
There's a course in there that includes food safety. Interesting. There has to be some nutrition taught somewhere. How else can you determine if a horse is being fed right, if you don't know what to feed them? And not every vet student grew up on a ranch.
 So, with Hills helping out TAMU, Aggies are getting more nutrition education than the Sooners? I really do find it odd that there's no specifically named course for how to feed any of the animals one might treat.