Vet says feed Euk not Canidae!

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

This person has canine nutrition credentials so it would be nice to hear her comments on Innova Large Breed Puppy Food.  Folks who want to feed that can go to their website to find a store (www.naturapet.com) and there are online retailers who will ship whatever food you want.  The cost is higher, but you could be adding years to your precious dog's life.  Think about how you would try to feed your child - white bread or organic wheat?

I am not convinced that vets know a lot about nutrition either, but that's why there is a separate credential for canine nutritionists.  Similarly, vets are often the worst people to get training advice from.  They often have no training credentials, and no hands on experience except with their own dogs.  That's why there's a separate professional credential for veterinary or PhD behaviorists, and for trainers.  My advice is to find the expert in the field you want information in, and not rely solely on advice you hear from a person who is not a specialist.  Even your general practitioner will refer you to a cardiologist if you have heart problems...and there's no reason not to get a second opinion anyway, right?  Don't take whatever you hear as gospel from any source.  Be curious.  Investigate. 

Spiritdogs, If you want to talk to her it will cost you plenty! ...But the books are more affordable. (Rebecca Remillard, Ph.D., D.V.M., DACVN )
"This person has canine nutrition credentials so it would be nice to hear her comments on Innova Large Breed Puppy Food/"
 
"the less credentials they have, the more they know..."    This is true- a lot!
 
You would think that breed specific diets would be well documented.  Siberians for instance do tend to do great on food like Salmon, chicken...
 
 

ORIGINAL: ron2

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.

Food safety course description, "Principles and uses of epidemiology in veterinary medicine. Introduction to public health and diseases transmissible to humans. Potential human health hazards in foods of animal origin and principles of safe food production, processing, handling, and inspection, including pathogen reduction, HACCP regulations, and pre-harvest food safety."

Still not nutrition related.

They're the Cowboys, Oklahoma U is the Sooners []

FWIW, I've always fed pups regular Innova from the time they are weaned.  As they get a little older we add in homecooked as well.  The ONLY problem we've had with the shepherd pups is with the boy who went to another home and was fed P[:'(]digr[:'(][:'(] for two months.  HE has pano.  Gotta make you wonder.

we shouldn't generalize. Some "all life stages" foods are just fine for giant-breed puppies; some "large breed puppy foods" aren't fine for giant-breed puppies (Eukabana comes to mind). You got to read the label. You want calcium around 1.7% dry weight, and then the only thing you have to do is keep the puppy skinny so he doesn't grow too quickly and get pano, or worse. It's not that difficult to figure out.  Frankly, I think most "all stages" foods are superior to most "large breed" puppy foods. Many of the "large breed" puppy foods don't have enough calcium or protein (it's a myth that high protein levels per se cause problems in growing large breed puppies-- that one was disproven several years ago).

To get back on the topic, my current vet sells Natural Balance, Innova Evo, Merrick, and a few formulas of Breeder's Choice in her clinic.

Of course, that's why I switched to her.

ORIGINAL: Vinia

 ...He then told me that, firstly, he'd never heard of Canidae, that there's no such thing as an all life stages food, and that I should be feeding Science Diet or Euk large breed puppy instead.

 
Oh boy, perfect example of how uninformed most vets are about nutrition.  Canidae has been around for years and it's one of the more well known "holistic" types foods. I'm wondering how on earth he hasn't even heard of it considering that's he's a vet and just how many dogs and owners he sees on a regular basis. [&:]

Again, Anne, well put.
 

I did goof on that. Sorry. Anything north of the Red River is yankee land. You're right. Sooners are OU, not OSU.

FWIW, My first college was UT at Arlington. So, I is a longhorn.

I agree with you in a sense. Regardless of what the bag says or is, the calcium/phospohorous ratio is what's important.
 

Canidae isn't readily available where I live- in fact, I haven't found any actual pet stores that stock it- so it's not  his fault. I think here in NZ we're a little/ a lot behind in terms of dog nutrition- as I said before here SD and Euk are considered almost super premium foods. Brands like Natural Balance, Innova etc. dont even exist down here 
.
Personally I dont expect my vet to know everything about canine health- given that he has to know about and treat more than one species of animal, I feel it's a little unfair to expect him to know all the ins and outs of dog nutrition (or whatever else) as well. Having said that, what really upset me was the fact that feeding Canidae wasn't even an option (that was the impression I got)- he very matter of factly told me to switch back to Euk/Hills as soon as I'd finished the bag (little does he know,  it's a 9kg bag []) without being even a little bit curious about what the food was like. 
 
 

Most of the time we have visited the vet, we didn't talk about food.
 
And if a lot of a vet's clients feed Whatever's cheap or on sale, they're going to take any vet advice on food and disregard it.
 
OTOH, my vet has never had anything to say, good or bad, about what I feed. Pushed to a point, he might recommend Purina, since he's had good experience with it in the past. More than likely, he will simply give a quick understanding of the clinical picture and help you make decisions from there.

I don't understand how Dr. Remillard can say "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." and "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". Probably 98% of foods fall within that range...

[linkhttp://www.cvm.tamu.edu/dcvm/curriculum/CurrOverView.shtml]Texas A & M[/link] does require one 2-credit hour nutrition course. 950. Clinical Nutrition.(2-0). Credit 2. Nutritional management of medical and surgical cases. Florida, Cornell, and Purdue have similar programs.

[linkhttp://www.cvm.msstate.edu/academic/current/schedule.html]Mississippi State[/link] does not have anything nutrition related.

My vet asked what I feed, I said lamb & rice kibble. She said okay. That was the extent of that.

In Dr. Remillard's defense, she is an attending vet at Angel Memorial Animal Hospital. She is accredited also as a canine nutritionist from the ACVN and is also president, now, of the ACVN. And she runs the website, petdiets. com.
 
Unlike the vets we've been reading about, she does have the creds for nutrition. She just doesn't always agree with Mordanna.
 

I don't understand how Dr. Remillard can say "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." and "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". Probably 98% of foods fall within that range...

 
Here is an example for adult food, I have also seen a similar example for all life stages food. It was what I did a bad job of trying to show in my example.
 
It is the absolute level of calcium, rather than the calcium/phosphorus ratio, that most influences skeletal disease.(11) Young, giant-breed dogs fed a diet containing 3.3% calcium (dry matter basis) and 0.9% or 3% phosphorus have significantly increased incidence of developmental bone disease. These dogs seem to be unable to protect themselves against the negative effects of chronic excess levels of calcium.(26) Calcium levels for a growth diet should be between 1% and 1.6% (dry matter basis). Often puppies are switched from growth to maintenance diets to avoid calcium excess and skeletal disease. However, because maintenance diets are generally of much lower energy density than growth diets, the puppy must consume more dry matter volume to meet its energy requirement. If the calcium levels (dry matter basis) are similar between the two diets, the puppy will actually consume more calcium on the maintenance diet. This is exemplified in the case of switching a 13-week-old Great Dane puppy from a typical growth diet (4.2 kcal/g and 1.6% calcium on a dry matter basis) to a typical maintenance diet (3.2 kcal/g and 1.4% calcium on a dry matter basis). The puppy would consume approximately 638 g of the growth diet containing 10.2 g calcium. To meet energy needs of 2680 kcal/day, this same puppy would consume approximately 838 g of the maintenance diet containing 11.7 g of calcium.
 
 
Here is a link.
 
[linkhttp://www.msu.edu/~silvar/hips.htm]http://www.msu.edu/~silvar/hips.htm[/link]