Nutro??

Does anybody use Nutro? I went to PetsMart looking for Canidae, which PetsMart doesn't carry, and this wonderful lady showed me the Nutro brand. She explained the ingredients, and their purpose, to me and everything. Nutro sounds like a really good food, so I bought a bag of Nutro Natural Choice Large Breed Puppy, and a bag of Nutro Natural Choice Senior (Shelby's 11).

She also gave me some samples of Nutro Max Puppy, and when I got home, I opened one of the bags, and was using the food as treats, to see if they liked it, and even my cats were going nuts for the stuff !! I couldn't believe it....cats are sooo picky. All three of the dogs loved it, too. And, I couldn't believe the price! It wasn't much more than Puppy Chow, or Kibbles 'n' Bits: one bag was 15.99 and the other was 19.99.

I love the fact that there are no by products in Nutro foods. What do you guys think of Nutro foods? I've heard they're wonderful, so I'm hoping I made a good choice for my furbabies

Here's an older link on Nutro. http://www.chazhound.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2179&highlight=nutro There are more if you search it in the dog food/recipes forum

i think nutro is a great food my dogs love it too

Thanks! I don't know though...reading the label, Nutro sounds pretty darn good. I'm going to see how my dogs do on it, and then, when I run out, I may switch to Canidae.

nutro isn't a great food. most of the varieties barely contain 30% meat, the rest even less. that alone is one compelling argumant against feeding it. there are many others, if you want to learn more, click on my signature image and start reading.

LOL Anything is better than the Puppy chow and Kibbles 'n' bits they were eating. Since I am so tired right now, and don't want to read anything more, would you reccomend Canidae? Thanks, Mordy. You're so much help (considering I know squat about dog food)!

yes, canidae is a good brand. it's made from good quality ingredients and also not very expensive. in my area, it's actually mostly less expensive than the nutro natural choice line. interesting, isn't it?

That is interesting...I wonder why it isn't through the roof? When I run out of Nutro, I'll get some Canidae, from the pet store (which doesn't sell puppies, so I'll buy from them). Thanks Mordy.

Good girl, Purr. Nutro does a remarkable job of packaging and "spinning" their product. They should spend that money on developing a good product.

well i like nutro i think of it this way there are millions of dog that dont even get food so

sure and there are lots of dogs (and people) that get sick from eating inferior food

purr - as renee pointed out, canidae doesn't advertise as much as nutro does. what they save in advertising cost they can deduct from the price of the product. besides that, many of the big companies will charge what the market allows. if more people were aware of the fact that they can get better quality products for less money, they'd very likely be forced to sell their junk cheaper.

2pups622 - just what is it that you like so much about nutro, compared to better quality products? the cute advertising? i'd really be interested in hearing your opinion on this. and yeah, sure, there are many dogs out there that don't get food, or even worse quality food than the nutro, but the care for your dog is in your hands and you have the power to decide to protect your dog's health and maybe even prolong his or her life.

a good diet is the foundation for good health.

I'm with Mordy here. Nutro isn't a great food, but I also think you're right Purr, it is a step up from store brands and kibbles and bits.
A food that I think is decent, and not too expensive, is PetSmart's Authority brand. Generic, yes, but the ingredients seem pretty good. My Papillon was eating it (the canned lamb and rice puppy food) when he came home from the breeder's, and he did wonderfully on it for 2-3 months until we weaned him off of that and onto natural balance. (Natural Balance is another good food that is not too expensive!)

Thanks for the info, guys Compared to when my pups were eating Puppy Chow, they have a ton more energy with Nutro. I will be switching to Canidae fairly soon.

Thanks,
~Purr

rip's girl - authority is actually worse than nutro.

at least nutro doesn't contain "animal fat" - which can contain anything from roadkill to rendered restaurant grease. you can compare ingredient lists here.

Mordy, yikes. I wasn't aware of that, thanks for pointing it out.

My two cents: My breeders freaked out when they heard I thought of feeding our dogs Nutro. We are a Canidae family from day one. Always will be.

Canidae is better, cheaper and if you make a small effort to find it you will be happy. Dogs have a beautiful coat and lots of energy.

My dogs are 90lb each, they get 3-4 cups per day and that enough for a daily 3 mile walk and other exercise. They look excellent.

Our Jack Russell Terrier (now 3 years old) came home with us from the breeder at 8 weeks, with a bag of Purina dog food (and the breeder was feeding Purina to all his dogs) and she was also crawling with fleas. We treated her for fleas with Advantage, but she was still itching and scratching constantly. Nutro Lamb & Rice food was recommended to us by our vet... and I just "assumed" we were switching Lucy to a very high quality food. She remained on Nutro Lamb & Rice for 2 1/2 years. In September of 2004 Lucy went totally blind overnight from SARDS (suddenly acquired retinal degeneration syndrome) and SARDS (even after being around for around 20 years) at this time is still listed as "cause unknown" and not thought to be a hereditary condition.

The only "theory" so far on the cause of SARDS is a combination of diet, over- vaccinations, chemicals (such as flea treatments... yard treatments, household chemicals, etc.) that cause an immune problem that results in over-production of cortisol, which in turn causes cell damage that shows up in the retina destroying the cones & rods, and there is no treatment for this.

While I sure can't/don't "blame" the Nutro diet Lucy was on, because there is of course no way to pin point a single cause of for her blindness, changing her diet was just one of many things I've done to keep her as healthy as possible. After doing a lot of research I learned there were many other more "reputable" dog kibbles out there... but I just wasn't aware of this. My first change with Lucy was her kibble, and started feeding her Canidae. We had also recently adopted Holly from a rescue, and was having trouble keeping each dog out of the puppy/adult Nutro anyway, and picked Candae because it did not have a separate puppy/adult food (only a senior choice) so they could both eat the same food. Both Lucy & Holly have done wonderful on the Canidae. For their dinner feeding I also make them a "goodie" gravy topping using plain non-fat yogurt and alternate with high-quality canned dog foods, sardines, canned salmon, canned mackeral etc. mixed with left-over veggies, fruits etc. heated in the microwave, and then add the yogurt. They LOVE this topping on top of their kibble... and Lucy's skin is 100% normal these days! She is never itchy now... is is not on ANYTHING for fleas either... and no fleas!

i have to add something about the nutro here. up until early 2002 things weren't quite as bad, at least the company didn't use any generic fats (e.g. chicken fat instead of poultry fat) in the nutro natural line. they had extensive information about it on their site, but at some point it all disappeared and the product quality dropped drastically.

i remember all this because it was around the time i adopted my current dog and i had to pick a "mainstream" food for the first few weeks since nothing else was available to me. the nutro natural choice puppy was the only one without any generic ingredients,, so it was what i chose. when i bought the second bag, the ingredients had changed and the food smelled a lot worse too.

compared to products like california natural or innova, nutro truly smells like (sorry, there is no way to be polite about it) dried, processed poop.