I feed my 1 year old Shih Tzu the Pro Plan Selects CANNED food which does not contain corn, wheat, or by-products. I was previously feeding him super-premium kibble and canned food from brands such as Nature's Variety, Wellness, and Taste of the Wild. After many bouts of diarrhea, vomiting, and constipation I said SCREW IT and put him on the Pro Plan Selects. Lo and behold in a matter of days his stools were normal and he was only having to poop once a day rather than the 2 or 3 times on the others. He also did not have any vomiting. Overall I believe that every dog is different...some will benefit from the premium foods and others won't.

I have 2 dogs, which I refer to as “The Boys” one is a cattle dog and the other is a bull mastiff/st Bernard mix. I have feed them Pro Plan for about 3 yrs and never had any issues but I had to recently switch. My mix started to develop hot spots, dry flakey skin, dull coat, chronic ear infections and his energy level started to decrease. I am not sure if it is because they changed the formula to the shredded blend but my vet recommended that I start to put additives in the food. So instead of adding a bunch of crap to the food I just did a little research and I am testing different products. I used to use Chicken Soup before my mix came along but that one was just a little to rich for him, so I am in the process of trying out Taste of the Wild Prairie Formula. I will let ya all know how it works out.

5 stars

You people read all these fancy reviews on dog food like I did. You would not feed your dog anything on the market . I went to some of the sites that do comparisons on different dog foods a lot of them outright lie to get their point across like the republicans on health care. My last two dogs lasted 15 and 17 years in good health on Purina food. So read between the lines and use what works good for you. Don't listen to all the nay sayers.

Nothing is too good for my Dachshund's. I have two sweet little girls who mean the world to me. I feed them Pro Plan Weight Managment because Dachshunds have a tendencay to have bad disc's in their backs. Keeping them thin and trim is important to this end. I have noticed that they both do very well eating this brand of dry food. My first dog is now seven and she is a smooth black and tan and we have noticed that Pro Plan gives her a really shinny healthy looking coat. The baby is six months and she is long haired and her coat also has a very nice sheen. We have noticed no ill side effects and plan to continue with this food. All in all Pro Plan seems to be a good fit for my dogs and hopefully it will be for yours as well.

So far, this food has been great for my 11 month-old Corgi. When we got him at 3 months, he was on that Holistic Nutro (very expensive and didn't do well for him). He had soft stools constantly...I thought that was the norm for him, but then I decided to give ProPlan puppy food a try. Well, the gas, loose stools, and occasional vomiting have ceased. So I gave him the ProPlan for the first 6 months, and last month started the slow transition to ProPlan Shredded. He loves the stuff. I feed him much less of it, he doesn't poop a ton, and he really enjoys it. He actually picks the larger pieces out and runs off with them. If anyone has had a Corgi, you know that they are little vacuums when it comes to food. This is the first food/treat that has made him slow down and savor it. Instead of 1.5 minutes (I timed it) to eat his cup of food at mealtimes, it takes him about 5 minutes (which leaves time for me to do some cleanup in the kitchen before he starts his puppy-rampages through the house).

Definitely going to keep him on it as long as he is tolerating it. As for the hate speech out there. I say go with your gut. Trust your own resources and not some self-proclaimed expert and feed your animal what they seem to like and what meets the industry standards. Each dog is different. My dog didn't do well on the Nutro, but did great on this. He is healthy, a perfect weight, happy, and has no food allergies. My previous dog lived off of cheap dog food and lived to be a happy, healthy 20 years.

Oh and by the way, I talked to my vet and she said that the mid-priced foods are fine. She sees nothing wrong with ProPlan and it's up to your individual dog as to whether they tolerate a specific food. Sometimes the expensive organic stuff is not good for certain dogs...so those Organo-nazi's out there can just chill. :)

P.S. read the other reviews of some of these "experts;" some of them have nothing better to do than spew hate on forums and throw their weight around.

I have gone the route of all the dog foods out there from Euke to blue to Flint River My dogs are at their peak when on Pro Plan ! 2 of my Aussies get the worst stools on Blue and Flint River!
So much for all the holistic hoo haa

Another bad dog food. Simply put, this dog food is complete crap, and my dogs would be better eating table scraps than this food. My mom's boss recommended this dog food to us, because he fed his Springer Spaniels this food, and he hunts with them. He said this dog food was really good nutritionally, and it was higher in calories so you didn't have to feed your dogs as much. We thought this was great, so we bought a huge bag of this food.

We brought the food home and put some food into our dog's food bowls at supper time, and I think they both sniffed it and walked away. Good for them too! This food is full of fillers, and is a complete joke. Purina Pro Plan, "markets" itself as being a top dog food, but in actuality is just a crap dog food with a fancy sounding name, and marketing. Would not feed my dogs this food ever again.

I have used Purina products over the years. I used dog chow for years, but always had lots of shedding, to much poop and hot spots. Over the last 3 years I had used natura products, wellness, eagle pack, canidae, natures variety and others of the top healthy dog foods with mixed results but some were always the same. I always had stool eating and dogs who were always hungry. If I tried to feed more the result was very loose stools. I have used Pro Plan and Pro Plan Selects for awhile now and my dogs have nice shiney coats, very small stools and they are not hungry all the time. So even though alot of people say this food is crap, I say go with what works for your dog and for me Pro Plan works. This review is for the original Pro Plan and the Pro Plan Selects, not the new stuff with the shreds.

Update: Had to change back to Diamond Naturals, my Yorkies were getting hot spots and scratching all the time. My Boston was doing great on the pro plan, but changed her also.

Can't believe I haven't yet reviewed the mighty Pro Plan. Pro Plan, the best quality of food that Purina makes (at least under it's flagship brand name)... and yet it's still not GOOD. Yes, better than Dog Chow, Alpo, and ONE, but that isn't saying much.

Their Pro Plan Selects formulas are the top of their product line, and are still corn-laden, and coated with rancid, rendered mystery-meat fat.

The newer Pro Plan Shredded Blends contain corn, wheat, and soy (undigestible and common allergens), as well as glutens (undigestible grain based protein), rancid rendered mystery-meat fat, worthless beet pulp fillers, disgusting "animal digest" (you don't want to know what that is), and, in two of the three Shredded formulas, byproducts.

And their few remaining original formulas (without the shredded bits of whatever ungodly pseudo-meat paste those things are) combine all the worst aspects of the other formulas.

Purina is perhaps the oldest animal feed company in existence... but that doesn't mean that they're doing anything right when it comes to companion animal foods. These are, supposedly, their best products, and they are horrible. Never trust a chocolate company to make a healthy dog food... and Purina is made by Nestle.

My little one loves Pro Plan Shredded Blend! I have a 2-year-old Shih Tzu, and she's been on this food since she was about 6 months old. She was previously on Science Diet (simply because that's what the people I got her from fed her), but I switched her because she was allergic to the chicken stuff in it. And thank goodness I did switch her...Science Diet has BY-PRODUCTS in its food! It's supposed to be a high-quality dog food--HA! Anyways, back to Pro Plan. I feed her the Natural Lamb & Rice Formula due to her allergy, and she LOVES the Shredded Blend. It's kinda funny...when I feed her, she picks out all of the lamb meat pieces and leaves the rest of the dry food in her bowl and eats it later. As a dog mommy, I love this food because it's approved by the AAFCO and has no by-products. It's not too pricey, and a 6-lb bag lasts her a month. My little Lulu loves it, and that's all the proof I need!

I've tried a lot of different foods for my dogs, including most of the super-premium brands. Pro Plan is the food I keep coming back to. Stool size is small and solid, digestibility is good, coats look good. While some of our dogs get gassy on other foods, we don't have this problem with Pro Plan. Although I think all dog food is overpriced, Pro Plan, when compared to the other brands on the market, is a good bang for you buck. Plus, the still sell this stuff in 40 lb bags. Why have many of the other brands reduced their bag size? (so they can get more profit without charging you more per bag - very sneaky).

The fact of the matter is that not all dogs do well on all foods, but ours (currently 7 labs and a bc) all do very well on this food and I do not hesitate to recommend it. After the last few failed experiments with other brands, I won't be switching off of Pro Plan any time soon.

We tried this for less than 10 days,we couldn t stop our dogs from having a diarrhea..terrible...

This is based on the "new recipe" for this food. We have two black lab mixes and for years this was the only food that our older dog could stomach. Then a couple months back they changed it to having the soft pieces in it and now both of my dogs are gassy all the time and their breath would knock a fly off a pile of you-know-what. And, to top it off, they raised the price! I'm going to sample a few other brands now to see if I can find something cheaper that agrees with my old guy.

I too fell for all the hype about grain free, holistic, blah blah blah. I have 4 different breeds of dogs- a Standard Poodle, maltese, pug, and a Labradoodle. All I got from the "healthy" dog foods were, most importantly massive stool problems from EXTREMELY loose stools, going 3 to 4 times a day, horrible gas, and flaky skin. This was feeding these foods for awhile to let them get used to it and also not feeding as much per what everyone says although they acted starved all the time. Since going back on the Pro Plan the main difference is the poo. It is now firm and way smaller and nobody goes more than twice a day. The main propaganda for those "healthy food" is easier digestability because of the fewer grains or no grains but they all had ALOT of poo coming from each of them. I tried Wellness, California Natural, Evo, and finally Chicken Soup. After a year of all the poo and Horrible gas problems I had enough and went back to Pro Plan and after a week the decrease in size and frequency of poo is quite substantial. Evidently my 4 different dog breeds need all that "unhealthy" stuff to digest their food better and actually keep the good stuff inside because being that their poo is way smaller means more nutrition is staying in. I love Pro Plan!

Purina isn't the greatest pet food. You'd be better off searching for organic pet food without bi-products or wheat gluten togehter.

Ugh... this food is AWEFUL! Though it is the BEST Purina product, it is horrible! Corn, Fillers, Rice, etc. YUK! I dislike this food very much.

I feed Taste of the Wild, very good, and NOT as bad/expensive as this CRAP.

This is for those people who blast this food because they think it's "garbage" or "poor quality" or any other negative adjective. I have beautiful white boxer baby girl who does just fine on this food thank you. She is about a year and half old, and when I rescued her there was no background info on her at the shelter. When I got her about 6+ months ago she had a slew of problems. She had heartworm, tape worm, frequent vomiting and diarrhea...not to mention she was severely underweight. Given the fact that she is a white boxer she has very sensitive skin in addition to a very sensitive stomach. Now that all her medical problems have been cleared up she is the healthy, active, adorable boxer girl she should be. When I first got her we weren't sure what to feed her so I read up on some foods and went "middle of the road" with the natural hype and started feeding her Natural Balance brand dog food. This was after she had been vomiting from the wet and dry purina puppy food I gave her that may have been too rich for her since she wasn't really a puppy, but I wanted her to put on some weight. I started mixing her Natural Balance dry food with the brand's wet food. Every once in a while she would throw up and have diarrhea. I wasn't sure if this was due to her heartworm treatment in addition to adjusting to having a normal diet. She also had a habit of getting in to the trash after she would knock over the trash can and jump up to the counter. Once we stopped her from getting into the people food things seemed to get better but every once in a while she would still have some problems. After a while she stopped eating the Natural Balance dry food. She would poke her nose around the bowl and then walk away. She wouldn't eat it at her regular times, and would only eat a bit throughout the day if she was really hungry. I spoke with my vet and my best friend and her husband who are both vets and I got the same response all around...EVERY DOG IS DIFFERENT!!!! If it works for your dog, then feed it to them! When she gave up on Natural Balance I switched her to Puring Pro Plan Sensitive Skin and Stomach. She is very picky so I still mix it with some Natural Balance wet food, but she loves it. She is lean, has great muscle definition, has healthy teeth and gums, her white coat is soft and shiny, and has more than enough energy to go around. Dogs are dogs. They get in to things, they throw up, they have diarrhea...IT HAPPENS! But my dog has had no skin problems and has not thrown up from this food since she's been on it. My vet has not said that she should be on any other food so why should I doubt them?

If you've never tried it on your dog don't knock it because the hype says it's bad. If you try it, and it works, what other proof do you need???

Corn,rice nothing that is dupposed to be a dog food :

Full of grain,causes gass,itching,lot of stool,I fed with pro plan for several months,only bad words for it.

Yes.. I believe in this food!  I fell into the super premium hype too.  Paid lots of money... for minimal results to top it off had loose stools.  Made the switch to Pro Plan and I am thrilled with the results!  People should only rate this food if they have tried it against other brands!  These so called high end foods are not what they are cracked up to be....

this dog food is terrible, it has menadione in it, much like the other dog foods you will find at Pet Smart.  I took my dog off of this immediately when I found out that menadione is a fake vitamin K derivative used in dog food.  Google it, it can kill a human fetus if a pregnant mother ingests this vitamin.

Wow... ProPlan caused my dog to spray bloody diarrhea all over my house, then she had ear infections and and hot spots for a6 weeks. Not to mention the sources of the ingredients are pretty shady and the food left grease in her lunch bag just like fast food does in the the paper bag...I will NEVER touch a grocery store dog food again! ...somewhat unrelated, check out iamscruelty.com

This

  My Golden did very well on this...his coat seemed to improve.  It hard to gauge these things because his coat goes through phases with the seasonal shedding but I think its better then I've ever seen it...soft, shiny.

Unfortunately he stopped liking it after the bag was 3/4 done.  Would eat it but grudgingly.   Don't know if it got stale.....so I have a container to keep it air tiight.

I have been feeding my dogs proplan since they were puppies. I got it in my head to try a holistic dog food so I tried Blue Buffalo. My Rottie/Shepherd mix swelled up like a buffalo. I went back to Proplan why mess with a good thing. Besides how many dogs in the wild eat blueberries?

High protein may not be suitable for puppies. High protein may not be suitable for puppies. High protein may not be suitable for puppies. High protein may not be suitable for puppies. Some mixed quality ingredients.

We were feeding our dog the "light" version on the recommendation of our vet. After a month or so he started to have an odd odor. As soon as we stopped using the food, the odor went away. He liked it fine, but we didn't like the smell!

Not enough meats, only 1 st ingredient then it goes to all the fillers another Big mac in the doog food world

Funny how the people who slam the dog foods have never even tried it on their dogs. You can't knock it until you try it. You may surprise yourself. All the accurate ratings come from people who have tried it whether it is good or bad. The others are just an assumption. People are looking for ratings from those who have actually tried it on their dogs not just ingredient readers.

I really like this dog food.

I have tried several "better" foods over the years (EVO, Canidae, Timberwolf Organics), with mixed results, but for my own dogs, Pro Plan has given the most consistent results. Very nice coats and stools, and even my 16 year old is bright eyed and thriving.

We all want the best for our pets, and the miriad of choices out there can be a bit overwhelming when selecting a proper food. Our dogs, a 5 month old Lab mix and a 7 month old Boxer/Beagle mix were fed Science Diet since the day we got them. Both dogs had a terrible case of the runs for weeks on end. We could not figure out what was causing it. A few times the poor guys couldn't even hold it long enough and eliminated in their kennels! How embarrassing! We eliminated their snacks and their rawhides, but the diarrhea remained. We finally felt it must be the Science Diet that was causing it, so we decided to switch food to see. We settled on Purina Pro Plan (Large Breed Puppy formula), and the results were incredible! In only a few days, their stools firmed right up and look how they are supposed to, and they are active and playful, just as puppies should be. Plus, they obviously like it more than the Science Diet, as they devour the food in the dish relentlessly. Obviously all dogs are different with different needs and tastes, but I would highly reccommend this brand to anyone who asks.

Most of the poor rewiews are based on an analysis of the food rather than the dogs performance on it,such as activity, coat, digestion, longivity, and general health. Both my Airedales are in agility and are doing fine on Pro Plan Sens. Skin and Stomach. I tried a holistic food once and it took a week to get their digestion back on track. I also know a breeder and showperson with 30 years experience that uses Sens. Skin and Stomach for her dogs. The proof is in the dog, not in the analysis.

I am a breeder of Cocker Spaniels and I too fell into the Holistic food Hype, what a mistake. I had nothing but problems on it. After searching far and wide to try and find a food that matched up to the results I had on Selects I finally just went back. All my problems have since disappeared and everything is back to normal. Thank god. I will never buy into the "Holistic" marketing ploy again.

Our 2 dogs do very well on Pro plan.  I've been switching around to find a food they both do well on (one has skin allergies) and Pro Plan seems to agree with them.  No more scratching, good digestion, they look good in every way  and they enjoy eating it.  It is AAFCO tested and looks to be a very popular food(its not sitting on the shelf for long).  We're all happy with Pro Plan.

ProPlan = PROSUCK.
It does not take a genius to read the ingredients and know it is crap. No pet owner who cares about their pets well being would knowingly feed a food full of cheap ingredients!
The first ingredient is a named meat product. This is not a meal ingredient, but is inclusive of water content (about 80%). Once that is removed, as it must be to create a dehydrated product, the ingredient will weigh around 20% of its wet weight. Ingredients are listed in order of weight, and the dehydrated ingredient would probably be more accurately placed much further down the ingredient list. It is unlikely that this ingredient makes any significant contribution to the overall meat content of the food. The main meat ingredient in this food is in fact poultry by-product meal. It is impossible to ascertain the quality of by-products and these are usually products that are of such low quality as to be rejected for use in the human food chain, or else are those parts that have so little value that they cannot be used elsewhere in either the human or pet food industries. The AAFCO definition of poultry by-product meal is a meal consisting of the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered poultry, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs and intestines, exclusive of feathers, except in such amounts as might occur unavoidable in good processing practice. Unable to be identified even by species or source, it is a very low quality ingredient. This is the 5th ingredient, making it unlikely that there is any significant meat content in the food at all, but rather it is primarily a collection of grains.


Fish meal is a further meat ingredient in the food, but it is far too far down the ingredient list to make any significant contribution to the overall meat content of the food. We find no sign on the manufacturer's website of a guarantee that only ethoxyquin-free protein ingredients are used in this food (ethoxyquin is a chemical preservative, commonly added to fish ingredients, and that is banned or heavily regulated in human food due to the belief that it is carcinogenic).


The main grains, and main ingredients, in the food are corn and brewers ricet. Corn is a difficult to digest grain of limited value in dog food. It is also commonly associated with allergy problems. Corn gluten meal it is that part of the commercial shelled corn that remains after the extraction of the larger portion of the starch, gluten, and term by the processes employed in the wet milling manufacture of corn starch or syrup. In plain English, the remains of corn after most of the nutritious bits have been removed. Brewers rice is a low quality grain and byproduct. Corn bran is a grain fragment and further filler.


Animal fat is an ingredient of unidentified origin for which it is impossible to determine species, source or quality. Unidentified ingredients are usually very low quality. AAFCO define this asobtained from the tissues of mammals and/or poultry in the commercial processes of rendering or extracting. It consists predominantly of glyceride esters of fatty acids and contains no additions of free fatty acids. If an antioxidant is used, the common name or names must be indicated, followed by the words "used as a preservative". We note this is the fourth ingredient in the food and that research at Purdue University has identified fat in the top four ingredients of dry food as a factor increasing the risk of bloat in large breed dogs. Smaller breeds are untested. We would prefer to see the use of whole eggs rather than egg product in the food.


We note the use of synthetic vitamin K, a substance linked to liver problems and that is progressively being removed from better quality products.

Ever notice how those that bash this food (and virtually any other pet food that doesn't bat its wings under the "holistic halo"?) make totally baseless and non-scientific statements (albeit for some fear mongering crap they read somewhere on the internet that someone else wrote likely without scientific basis?

Purina, just as an example, has a SCIENTIFIC research and development center in St. Louis, MO that's 60,000 (yes, count it... That's 60,000) square feet! Plus, there are other research centers around the globe. http://www.purina.com/science/facilities/PetCareCen ter.aspx

Plus, Purina has a facility for Immunology, Cell Physiology, Molecular Biology & Genetics... the list goes on. http://www.purina.com/science/facilities/Index.aspx

Purina (or officially "Nestle Purina") had U.S. sales of $828.3 million. http://www.hoovers.com/nestlé-purina-petcare/--ID__104717--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml?cm_ven=Biz_Dev&cm_cat=Google&cm_pla =Free&cm_ite=Factsheet

So, with that kind of sales volume basis economics suggest Purina is left with a few hundred million in PROFIT. Which should be obvious considering the aforementioned facilities that are currently operative.

Now, before someone can even say it, yes I know Purina had a few canned varities involved in that recall. But, back in September 2007 Bravo! raw diets were recalled due to possible salmonella/listeria contamination.(http://www.newsinferno.com/archives/ 1843)
In 2006, holistic Merrick had a recall because there was a metal tab under the chicken wing. (http://www.merrickpetcare.com/swf/letter.html)
Now according to Merrick they were not informed of this by the supplier and have since discontinued using that company as a supplier. Purina, on the other hand, along with the FDA have stepped up ingredient testing as you'll see here: http://www.purina.com/wheatgluten.aspx

I know this post appears that I'm holding Purina in a ray of sunshine and holisitic formulas under a shade tree in a pile of dirt. But, allow me to clarify:

I'm certain there are perfectly fine holistic foods and I'm equally sure there are perfectly crappy ones. The same can be said for store and national brands. All I'm saying is that from MY perspective, Purina has both the facilities and the monetary resources to really be a major force in the pet food industry (which they obviously are). Oh, and for those who say "Purina's only in it for the money". Uh, well, isn't that why people start a business in the first place? To make money? I'm quite certain that beyond making pet food the folks at Old Mother Hubbard (makers of Welness) or Garth Merrick thought... "Boy, I hope I can make some money doing this".

We have pets. They make pet food. That's capitalism. Buy what works for you and your pet. But, don't just take my or anyone else's word for it. Do your own research from reliable sources... not baseless claims that are plentiful on the internet and do what makes sense to you.

*Disclaminer*: The author of this post is not affiliated with any pet food maker. He feeds Purina One to his dog and has tried holistic formulas with (mostly) abysmal success. His dog food pantry is currently stocked with Purina brand treats along with Merrick Texas Toothpicks and Merrick Beef Filet squares.

I gave my Greyhound Pro Plan Sensitive Skin and Stomach after he had a bout with hemorrhagic gastroenteritis.  It was a suggestion by the vet's office after that ordeal, or to go back to his original food, I was a little leary since there was no identifiable cause, so I went with the suggestion.  He did very well on it, skin and coat was glossy, poops compact and normal, it was only after my experience with Eukanuba (bad, see that rating) that I decided to investigate dog foods.  It was certainly an eye opening experience for me and have since switched, I rotate with By Nature and Canidae and he's been doing very well.  I have to say that I got a lot of information from dogfoodanalysis.com and I notice that there is a LOT of cross referencing and blatent plagierism on this site when some people give reviews.  I KNOW what THEY say, I've been to the website many times and I don't need to see rating comments that have obviously been cut and pasted from their reviews or are intertwined with someone's understanding of dog nutrition--heavily influence by what they have read.  I appreciate people's OWN experiences with a particular dog food, we are, after all, all looking out for our dog's best interest.  I wonder if the people at dogfoodanalysis knows about the plagierism???  Just my 2 cents, and for a penny more... I would use Pro Plan again, it worked for my dog and I'm sure countless others who use it.  For shame on those who do not have an original idea or opinion

Anything made by purina should be avoided at all costs. People wake up and look at the ingredient list and you will find ingredients so poor they aren't fit for human comsumption. Corn gluten meal, brewers rice, animal fat ( this could literally be any animal, if theres nothing to hide then why don;t they specify which animal?), and i won't go on any further. The reason dogs like the taste of this terrible food is becaise -big surprise! It is sprayed down with animal digest and fat. Your dogs digestive system has to work double time to process all the grain fragments and this food is way overpriced for what it contains. This company does not care for the well being of your pet, all they want is your money!!@

These reviews are funny. Either this food is totally CRAP (silly!) or it's the best thing since the invention of the internal combustion engine (also silly!). I find that this food has served me well with my many siberians over the years (have used Performance, and the regular beef blend). I am now using the Sensitive Stomach forumula, because I have a husky with a touchy stomach. This food is great for her...her coat and energy level is optimal. And she's not barfing every third meal. I also switched my pit mix to this food as well, as he seemed to have some unknown allergy to something (we trouble shot this for months). Tired of having (three) vets tell me to either use steroids, or benedryl--and before I caved, and used the Science Diet Z/D (which is hard to find and available only with a Rx), I thought I'd try this food first. He responded very well. His coat, which had become dull, is lovely and lusterous again, and his itching and flakiness has decreased quite a bit (have had him on this food for about 12 weeks). This may not be THE answer, but I believe it is part of the answer to his problems. The particular food has a decent guaranteed analysis of protein, fat and fiber, no colorings, and good supplements. So there. Take it or leave it, but this food works for my dogs.

We started feeding our four dogs Pro Plan when Royal Canine was not available. After two 45 lb bags, our dogs no longer have gas and their coats have improved. That holistic food that people rave about is crap and a rip off. Here is a news flash -- your dog is not a wild wolf therefore don't treat them as such. I will continue to purchase this food because our dogs love it and it keeps them healthy and active.

I have successfully exhibited dogs in both the conformation and agility ring for over a decade. Thus, to enhance their condition, I fell for the purist mentality and fed my dogs all the big buck foods (Nature's Variety, Wellness, Natural Balance etc.). Despite this nutrition and high dollar additives, my Malinois would shed excessively and my Sharpei mix had terrible dandruff. My ES puppy had watery stools from the $2+ per lb Wellness Supper Puppy kibble. Moreover, he was a picky eater. A change in my financial status mandated that I reduce all expenses so I switched to Proplan Chicken and Rice based upon the recommendation of my English Setter Breeder in MA. Lo and behold, my ES puppy turned into a chow hound. My senior dogs' coats are thick and shiny with no dandruff. And all 3 dogs' shedding has been substantially reduced. My excellent vet even commented on their appearance. Hence this message: "Beware of Big Buck Dog Food Scams". The so called "purists" try to lay a guilt trip on you for not buying the most expensive food. The high dollar dog food is primarily a marketing ploy. I would not feed my dogs junk but there is a happy medium. Buy this food and save your money for a nice road trip with your dog!

I couldn't see feeding any dog food where the main ingredient ISN'T meat, and to top it off, the main "meat" ingredient is "poultry by-product meal," which is ranked below brewer's rice (a very poor and cheap substitute for whole rice,) and whole wheat grain.  Yes, Chicken is actually listed as the first ingredient, but since it's not chicken meal, you need to deduct 80% of it's weight, which is water and is cooked off during manufacturing, and that means that it's really much further down the ingredients list when all is said and done.

  I've been sucked into the whole holistic hype as well, but I was looking for a senior dog food that had a higher protein and a high level of glucosamine in it.  Well I tried my miniature pinscher, who is 12 years old, on it and he's really doing great.  Generally I wouldn't touch a Purina product at all because of it's "reputation" among the dog foodies out there.  Anyway, he has always had a chronic soft poo problem on the other foods and his poo now is formed and firm and NO gas at all, which we all think is great.  His coat is thicker, even for a short haired dog, shiny with no dandruff. Clean ears, nice breath (although we use Oxyfresh Pet Rinse in his water bowl) nice even energy and he likes the flavor just fine.

So, I dunno, don't knock it till you try it I guess. We're happy with it here!

Just because your dog seems to be doing alright, doesn't mean its great dog food. Great dog food is food that makes dogs thrive. Look at the ingredients and you'll find lots of poor ingredients like animal by products. This food is a rip off: it is expensive and has cheap ingredients. I wonder how hard it is to convince/pay 3 vets to recomend it. Just because a food has been developed with the use of science doesn't make it good! Science isn't always correlated with good things! I can do research on making an entirely grain based food and say it's been scientificaly developed, woop de doo

its not a hype, its called common sense..

I fed Pro Plan chicken & rice to my German Shepherd (now 8) and Rottweiler (now 7) for over 4 years and thought it was great. Both had been back and forth to the vet for various ailments ranging from dry flaky skin, chronic ear infections in the Rott so bad that I was considering having a Total Ear Canal Ablation (which is removing everything in there and the dog would be deaf) just to give him some relief from the constant pain, scratching, etc, to allergies and vomiting after eating, which the vet said on more than 1 occasion was from eating to fast. They received different pills, ointments, sprays on and off to alleviate the problems. The GS especially had skin problems, chewing his legs bloody at times. Both were lethargic which was attributed to old age. We moved to another state last year and finally got an excellent vet that did a full physical/metabolic workup on both dogs, the findings: (both overweight by more than 20 lbs, both mildly anemic, the GS has hypothyroid, both hypertensive, both have itchy skin problems as mentioned previously...coincidence? I think not. The vet suggested I switch food, she did not tell me what brand to buy, just to read labels and what to look for. I did and have never looked back, since switching both dogs have lost over 15 lbs, no more dandruff, the GS legs have healed completely and no chewing on himself for the first time ever, both are no longer anemic and their blood pressure is back to normal. Not a single ear infection in the Rott (we found that it was a brewers yeast allergy). The GS continues with thyroid replacement and the dosage has decreased since 11 months ago. Both are now active and playful once again.

Shoot me for what I posted on 6/25.  I fell for all the holistic and "natural" dog food hype and all the scare tactics by companies that don't even test their foods on dogs.  I'm feeding Pro Plan because three certified VETERINARY NUTRITIONISTS like it.  The marketing tactics in this country are amazingly dangerous.