Princess 21, looking at the plethora of comments you have left it appears you are a representative of Natural Balance. Natural Balance has done a poor job communicating its formula change of Duck and Potato and based on the number of poor ratings, you should know your company dropped the ball.

Our eleven-year old golden retriever Bailey has been on Natural Balance Duck and Potato for almost a year with great success. Then they changed the formula (unfortunately there was nothing on the bag to indicate a change had been made). Bailey immediately began having diarrhea so we called the manufacturer and found out about the change. At that point, we didn't have any of her old bag to mix with the new formula so we put her on a bland chicken and rice diet and very very very slowly began to add the duck and potato formula back in. Every time we get to 100% duck and potato, Bailey gets sick again. We are back to chicken and rice for the fourth time... starting all over again!

Now that I see others are having this same difficulty, we are definitely going to make a switch to another brand. We no longer trust Natural Balance and will never go back. In fact, I found out yesterday a friend with a golden retriever also on this diet has had the same problem and spent hundreds at the vet. She has since switched to Buffalo Blue Fish and Potato diet.

Let me please clarify for once and all, i'm NOT a rep for Natural Balance!I just believe in their products because it has helped my two dogs and two cats tremendiously so I do recommend it to others who are having the same problem. Yes I do know alot about pet nutrition, because I took classes and have experienced issues with my own pets. On EVERY bag it does specify it is the "new and improved" formula, eaither by a sticker shouting at you or by a label on the front of the bag. By law Natural Balance MUST print new bags with a new list of ingredients(labels also) before marketing the new food. You know you cant blame the company, its stated on the bags, ingredient list and also on their website. If your dog is having the same problems 4 times (Every time we get to 100% duck and potato, Bailey gets sick again. We are back to chicken and rice for the fourth time... starting all over again!) that means when you found out what was going on and the reason you should have not went back to the same food that was causing the problems; since it didnt agree with your dogs stomach, sounds like stupidity to me ;) If you care to take any recommendations from a NON natural balance rep lol ..give your dog some yogurt with active cultures in it (acidophilus) it will clear up any and all stomach problems switch him to the venison/SP and you'll be just fine! If your dog has allergies BB is not the right brand. For one it has GRAINS(dogs dont need grains in their diets it just turns to sugar and has no nutritional value!) and are allergic to the grains!! BB ingredients-whole ground brown rice,whole ground barley, oatmeal, rye, preserved with chicken fat(YUCK!!), sunflower oil (NB is preserved with canola oil low in saturated fats high in omega 3's) Please compare the two brands and you let me know..although I must say BB has a good amount of amino acids, vitmain, and minerals.

Princess, you are very incorrect about many topics... but the biggest is your assessment of grains. If grains were so horrible, why does your favorite brand, Natural Balance use them in some of their formulas? Grains are NOT NECESSARILY bad. There are bad grains and not so bad grains... rice, barley, rye, millet, and oats are some examples of "good" grains. Yes, dogs are carnivores, and no, dogs don't NEED grains. However, these "good" grains aren't just converted to sugar. If that were the case, every dog fed a food with grains in it would have diabetes, kidney failure, and death. In the "good" grains, there are any of a number of nutrients that dogs can readily utilize... B complex vitamins and zinc chief among them.

Also, Blue Buffalo isn't PRESERVED with chicken fat, it CONTAINS chicken fat, and that fat is PRESERVED with vitamin E. There is nothing "yuck" about chicken fat. Dogs, as carnivores, need a healthy dose of animal based fat for proper anatomical function. Sunflower oil is an AWESOME source of omega 6 fatty acids... around seven times more omega 6 fatty acids in sunflower oil than there are omega 3s in canola oil.

Also, yogurt with active cultures WILL NOT fix all digestive ailments. the boiled chicken and rice diet that burnettew is using is a much better way to soothe the stomach while providing digestive bulk and minimal nutrition.

LOL...it seems very apparent that you know NOTHING about pet nutrition because if you did you would know that sunflower oil yes is 7xs higher in omega 6 fatty acids but who ever told you that was a good thing? (Excess omega 6 fats interfere with the health benefits of omega 3 fats, in part because they compete for the same rate-limiting enzymes... A high proportion of omega 6 to omega3 fat in the diet shifts the physiological state in the tissues toward the pathogenesis of many diseases: prothrombotic, proinflammatory and proconstrictive...Excessive amounts of omega 6 are linked to inflammation, arthritis, and even cancer.) Omega-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids have to compete with each other in order for them to be transformed from fatty acids into eicosanoids. So, when the ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 was 1:1, it was a fair fight. Now that it is 15 or 16:1, the Omega-6s win the fight and the result is increased inflammation and disease. So PLEASE do some research before you make comments suggesting im wrong. I do like Natural Balance but the only ones I've commented on and have suggested was the LID products(mainly venison, duck, and salmon), I dont agree with the ultra formula or the Lamb formula with the brown rice in it suggesting its their "allergy formula". And how can you make this statement? "not so bad grains" what does that mean? You can wake up everymorning and feed your dogs food with "not so bad grains" in it? Come on are you serious? So your admitting they are bad but, but just not that bad? WOW...AND yes i am suggesting that dogs fed foods with high grains in it will suffer from diabetes, kidney failure, and even thyroid problems (However, these "good" grains aren't just converted to sugar. If that were the case, every dog fed a food with grains in it would have diabetes, kidney failure, and death.) Ask owners whos dogs have died from these problems and ask what brand they were feeding their pets..most likely that commercial CRAP!!! You take all of your time commenting on brands such as NUTRO NASTYNESS, ROYAL CANINE(you said it was once a good food?) You must be a vet..LOL or just completely uneducated about pet nutrition...So i took my time to write this comment back to you for the simple fact that I wouldnt want to see any pet suffer and I hope that you educate yourself more on pet nutrition and feed your pets THE RIGHT NUTRITIONAL BALANCE ;) thanks and have a nice day sweety

For the record, a masters degree in Animal Science with a specialty in companion animal nutrition and 12 years experience as a board certified veterinary nutritionist would imply that I know more than a little about nutrition.

The proper ratio of omega six to omega three is actually 3:1. Your copy and paste job in an effort to seem knowledgeable is disingenuous for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that the sites you stole text from were refering to HUMAN nutrition... not the carnivorous needs of canines.

Also, I never suggested that too much omega 6 was a good thing... but more omega 6 fatty acids than omega threes ARE necessary for proper health. If you had googled further than your meager reasearch to attempt to discredit me, you would have realized that.

You maintain that all grains are equally bad, that there is no benefit to any grains in a canine diet? That dogs fed diets including grains are doomed to die off diabetes, kidney failure, and thyroid problems? Interesting, as for 100 years, ALL commercial pet foods were almost entirely grains, and diabetes, kidney failure, and thyroid irregularity have not been among the top causes of canine death in all that time. And tell me, how are potato based carbohydrates superior, in canine nutrition, to, say, rice based carbs?

Funny how you are decrying "commercial crap" diets... but then defending Natural Balance... a commercially prepared food. And yes, Royal Canin was once the best commercially prepared food on the market... before corporate buyouts and marketing killed it.

I am neither uneducated about pet nutrition nor a veterinarian... I am merely educated beyond what can be found in a google search or via wikipedia, and beyond what the corporate shills of Natural Balance preach.

Don't worry about pets suffering due to the lack of nutritional education you perceive in me... you keep feeding your Natural Balance LID formulas and representing a company that has sickened thousands of pets, and I'll keep working as an independant nutritional consultant for owners, veterinary clinics, shelters, and rescues. Your chosen brand has harmed far more pets through the recent reformulations and the April '07 melamine recall than I ever could.