We want to take a moment and send out a note about the new food changes Lauren and I are making in the diets for our dogs. We have just started swapping our dogs from Canidae AND Taste of the Wild Salmon “TOTW” over to Purina Pro Plan Sport 30/20 Salmon and Rice All Life Stages “PPPSSR.” We need our Boarding Contract Families and our Puppy Buyers to do the same food change. We will be updating the website with the correct food information and articles explaining our reasons for the change.
This decision was a hard one to make as we have fed Canidae for years with good success but they have recently changed their ingredients and we are not happy with the changes. Part of the new ingredient changes include swapping the omega source from salmon to whitefish which is not ok for our breeding dogs but more alarming to us is the inclusion of peas as a main ingredient. 15% of Dilated Cardiomyopathy “DCM” in dogs is caused by peas, lentils, chick peas or legumes in dog food (ingredients found in most boutique dog foods) causing Taurine Deficiency. As much as we love Taste of the Wild Salmon & Canidae Salmon as a topper, it too has a heavy content of peas as the main ingredient in the bag. We have spent weeks researching dog foods and are happy with the decision to move to Purina Pro Plan Sport 30/20 Salmon and Rice (PPPSSR). The 30/20 stands for 30% protein and 20% fat which is great for bone and glossy coat. It’s better for the mother dogs and developing puppies. Chewy.com has the best prices and free delivery in 1-2 days if you auto ship. It’s $45 for the large bag.
The bag to pick up to make the swap has a picture of a Husky on the front of it. One of the nice things about Purina is there is a different dog pictured on every variety so it makes it easy to remember which one to buy.
Making their diet change is a slow process and takes a month. When you have 1/4 bag of current food left begin the transition to the new food:
- Week 1. Decrease 1/4 cup of Canidae (including TOTW) and Add 1/4 cup of Purina Pro Plan Salmon & Rice “PPPSSR.”
- Week 2. Decrease 1/2 cup Canidae/TOTW serving and Add 1/2 cup PPPSSR.
- Week 3. Decrease 3/4 cup Canidae/TOTW serving and Add 3/4 cup of the PPPSSR.
- Week 4. Should be on 1 cup PPPSSR and 1/4 cup of old food. Some of our dogs are on 1 cup to 1.5 cups 2x/day depending on body conformation.
- Week 5 will be the complete swap to 100% PPPSSR.
We want to make sure everyone was starting the switch in food and had the correct instructions to do so. If you have any questions please call me. There is also a forum on FaceBook for Taurine Deficiency if you want to read up on it more or the link below to Tufts Veterinary.
Thanks again. Mary & Lauren
also see our news article here.