Purina ProPlan Selects

It looks like I'm the only one who has an issue with the animal fat, corn gluten meal, generic fish meal and menadione. Those are deal breakers for me when choosing a food.

Luvntzus

It looks like I'm the only one who has an issue with the animal fat, corn gluten meal, generic fish meal and menadione. Those are deal breakers for me when choosing a food.

You aren't the only one. I not only have an issue with those ingredients, but paying that price for those ingredients.

Gizmo83036

Luvntzus

It looks like I'm the only one who has an issue with the animal fat, corn gluten meal, generic fish meal and menadione. Those are deal breakers for me when choosing a food.

 

You aren't the only one. I not only have an issue with those ingredients, but paying that price for those ingredients.

Yup, same here.  And the company gets those ingredients pretty much for free since no one else wants them.  Even if the food was free, I wouldn't feed it.

I have found that Pro Plan and Purina One give consistently good results when I have used them, in my opinion some of the best foods around.

Anyone use/like this food?

I have not tried the ProPlan Selects yet, but have been feeding the ProPlan Sensitive Skin & Stomach formula to my 3 dogs for several months now.  They are doing amazingly well--soft coats that shine, great digestion (gassiness almost non-existent) and they all act like they are feeling great.  For my dogs, this brand/formula has accomplished what other brands (Eagle Holistics, TWO, Life's Abundance,California Natural, Innova, Canidae and Natural Balance) have not.  They did do well on most of these other brands I've used/tried, just not as well as they are doing on the ProPlan. 

Luvntzus

It looks like I'm the only one who has an issue with the animal fat, corn gluten meal, generic fish meal and menadione. Those are deal breakers for me when choosing a food.

The folks I'd be recommending it to wouldn't have issues with any of that. It's much higher quality than what most dogs are fed.

jennie_c_d

 
The folks I'd be recommending it to wouldn't have issues with any of that. It's much higher quality than what most dogs are fed.

 
Indeed.   

OK jumping on the wagon with this one, I tend to avoid these threads.

I have had issue's with Kord skin since he was 6 months old, part of his problem was/is a flea allergy. He has been on:

Nutro, Natural Balance and Canidea. He still itched, over and over again. So I decide I was going to feed homemade. Money was an issue at the time, so I fell back on the time honored old fashion staple.

Purina.

I have had dogs all my life from child to adult. My parents always fed Purina, heck when I was younger I remember running to the store to buy..."gasp"...... Strongheart! Our dogs were healthy, active, had no health issue's and looked good. So I decided, why not. Food snobs bore me. Like people, not every dog is going to do well with the same foods. So I did some research, disqualified the ingredients I had used and switched him to Purina Pro Salmon and Rice. He gets suppliments that I trust and dang it, people food on occasion.

He has been on this for 12 weeks now, and you know what, he looks good, his energy is fine, same dog I had before, except, well.......the itches are gone, gone, gone!

And before someone mentions the fleas, I live in Kentucky, fleas live in Kentucky 24/7, unless it stays super cold for long periods of time, forget it, fleas are an issue.

I am staying with this one unless something serious happens.

papillon806

jennie_c_d

 
The folks I'd be recommending it to wouldn't have issues with any of that. It's much higher quality than what most dogs are fed.

 

 
Indeed.   

But really, why recommend that? If people are willing to pay that much they could get better ingredients for their money. It works for some dogs, but it sure wouldn't be something I'd recommend over the other options.

Would the cranberries (as small amount as they are) still be an acidifier for urine or wouldn't it matter if it was there or not?  And I always supplement glyco-flex but if it was in the food too maybe you wouldn't have to give as much?  I just figure every little bit helps.

Gizmo83036

But really, why recommend that? If people are willing to pay that much they could get better ingredients for their money. It works for some dogs, but it sure wouldn't be something I'd recommend over the other options

  Because of results like those mentioned by Truley; I can't remember anyone on this forum saying they didn't get good results with ProPlan Selects.
 

Gizmo83036

But really, why recommend that? If people are willing to pay that much they could get better ingredients for their money. It works for some dogs, but it sure wouldn't be something I'd recommend over the other options

There are worse foods on the market. And here there are only a handful of suppliers for the high end brands of dog food, I was paying way more for Nutro, Natural Balance and Canidea because of this, and they just plain did not solve my problem. Kord did well on all these foods, the Nutro was his breeders choice, the NB and Canidea mine, in hopes of getting rid of the itches. They just did not work.

Unless you have had a dog that itched constantly, day in and day out, sores, patches of hair chewed, and the awful feeling that your dog is trying to jump out of his skin, vet visits, pills, more vet visits, baths and a million other "fixes" forget it, I will pay the price and gladly to have a dog that now has a beautiful coat, hair that is growing in, sleeps contently at night and does not sit next to me begging scratches to help alieve his discomfort. Heck, I pet him now and his hind leg does not keep time with my hand. Hallelujah!

My only concern with PP was the calories, Kord is highly active and energetic, he stays lean no matter what I feed him, so I decided to supplement with additional canned human food ( read jack mackerel, tuna) pureed greens and veggies and other raw meats from time to time, not to mention vitamins and glucosamine.

He has not been weighed in some time, last time he was he weighed in at 75lbs or so, but he has a dreaded vet visit tomorrow since I discovered that he has an ear infection of some kind that I managed to catch early and by chance, so we will see what the vet has to say. My guess is overall she will be happy.

Gizmo83036

But really, why recommend that? If people are willing to pay that much they could get better ingredients for their money. It works for some dogs, but it sure wouldn't be something I'd recommend over the other options.

     I don't really care too much about the ingredients ... ok, I don't want a slew of preservatives, artificial dyes, sugar, etc. However, the digestability and vitamin premix are what REALLY matter. It always makes me LOL when someone brings up the argument that for the money, one could purchase a food with better *looking* ingredients. Well, yeah, I could probably go back to TWO if I wanted to buy the dogs a food that had a better ingredient list. But TWO did not agree with my Shepherd mix in a big way, and by that I mean it caused temporary sever behavioral problems that went "poof" the minute he was taken off the food. Made a few of my Beagles incontinant, and I had a bear of a time keeping weight on several of the dogs despite being relatively high in kcals. In fact, the Shep mix was at the Vet several times during the few weeks he was on it, and dropped from his constant weight of 65lbs to 59lbs :( Not good. 
     Got a good value and a nice ingredient list with Canidae, but it ruined the health of my GSD, ruined coats, and caused two of my bitches to not come into heat then when it finally seemed as they were coming in - they began dropping a white mucousy discharge instead of blood. Vaginal yeast infection. Ugh.
     Then there was Best In Show that we fed years ago. Similar in formulation to Innova but made them poop several times a day and coats got so, so GREASY. Nutro Ultra ... too much went wrong for me to even begin to get into. Chicken Soup, Natural Way, Back To Basics (which I affectionately call Back To the Bathroom, as my dogs pooped 6x daily on this), Pro Pac, Merrick (rotted teeth and did a number on my dog's stomachs). I had been using Evolve for a while until they changed the formula and I had one dog pass a stool that was nothing but a pool of blood and mucous. I actually thought someone had been injured, as it was just bright red blood, and you had to get close to realize there was mucous in it & it smelled like poo - the others had very bad diarrhea and the dog who pooped out blood also had some skin eruptions on her muzzle.
     Needless to say, after the Evolve fiasco, I was hard pressed to find a decent kibble. I had a few dogs who were slightly underweight. Could get fat on them, but not muscle mass. Was also having problems with dandruff in this weather, even supplementing with fish or flaxseed oil wasn't doing enough. So, I go with Purina ONE and Pro Plan Selects for the dogs a few weeks ago and I have bitches FINALLY cycling regularly, coats are glossy, weight is perfect, just enough fat & muscling. Teeth are clean, eyes are bright, energy level is good. Stools are very, very firm. So what are the better foods for the ingredients? I certainly haven't found them, and I've tried more than a few diets. The only ones that have been worth their salt for my dogs have been Blackwood, Purina & Healthwise. Out of all of them I like Purina the best.    

Truley

Gizmo83036

But really, why recommend that? If people are willing to pay that much they could get better ingredients for their money. It works for some dogs, but it sure wouldn't be something I'd recommend over the other options

 

There are worse foods on the market. And here there are only a handful of suppliers for the high end brands of dog food, I was paying way more for Nutro, Natural Balance and Canidea because of this, and they just plain did not solve my problem.

You aren't feeding the Selects though (or are you - I thought the salmon was a regular Pro Plan formula) and that is what I feel is overpriced for the ingredients. I've never seen Selects cheaper than Nutro, Natural Balance or Canidae. There absolutely are worse foods out there but at least they're as cheap as their ingredients.

What I don't understand is that if Purina works for your dogs, why bother paying the outrageous price for the selects? I mean, the only difference between regular Pro Plan and selects according to Purina is the quality of the ingredients, yet those who use Purina say ingredients don't matter.  You are paying 50% more for the Selects.  If you don't care about the ingredients than I certainly hope you are seeing a big difference in results between the regular Pro Plan and the Selects for those prices.  If not it seems a waste of money in my opinion.