# Blue Buffalo Concerns



## GSDLover (Sep 12, 2012)

Hi there,
I am so so confused and need some help. I have three GSD and used to feed Innova. I live in a very rural area and for various reasons could not get to town starting last year to buy it and simply started feeding Purina One b/c I could get it in the grocery store.

Recently there have been a few minor health issues and I want to switch dog food brands again and am willing and able to drive to get it. So I did research, heard Innova was bought out and not the same, kept looking and initially went and bought a bag of Blue Buffalo Chicken and Rice and started the slow transition of foods. However, after more research I am now scared to feed it - there are TONS of horror stories on the net about liver and kidney failure, loose stool, etc. 
Really, there are horror stories about every dog food I researched but BB seemed to have a pretty significant amount of scary stories, many ending in death.

So I guess I am wondering what the opinion on the street is in this group? 

And also, what is the deal with Purina Pro Plan Selects? I know why people hate Purina but there are mostly positive reveiws and no horror stories I have found regarding this food.


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## InkedMarie (Sep 9, 2011)

I've never fed Blue but it appears to be a good food. I go by ingredients first, then the company. I wouldn't use Purina products because of the ingredients. Go to Dog Food Reviews and Ratings | Dog Food Advisor, read reviews from the author and others. Some don't agree with his reviews but the info he posts is helpful. What about ordering food? There are places with free or reasonable shipping. PetFlow | Get Started, Greenies, Orijen, Acana, EVO, Fromm, Halo, Flossies, - DoggieFood.com, Wag.com: Best Supplies For Dogs, Cats, Beloved Pets - Free Shipping are good places to start


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## mheath0429 (Sep 8, 2012)

Blue is pretty darn good - But I would only feed Wilderness. That is the one I researched, it had hardly any negative reviews. I think the reviews you are talking about were on the Chicken and Brown Rice. Correct? The Wilderness is grain free and my dogs did really well on it.


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## Liz (Sep 27, 2010)

The only thing negative I have heard is that it is rich and some dogs take some time to get used to it and you have to remember to feed a little less than usual. i have never heard anything else bad about it. I don't even think it's richness is bad just different than some others.


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## 1605 (May 27, 2009)

GSDLover said:


> Hi there,
> I am so so confused and need some help. I have three GSD and used to feed Innova. I live in a very rural area and for various reasons could not get to town starting last year to buy it and simply started feeding Purina One b/c I could get it in the grocery store.
> 
> Recently there have been a few minor health issues and I want to switch dog food brands again and am willing and able to drive to get it. So I did research, heard Innova was bought out and not the same, kept looking and initially went and bought a bag of Blue Buffalo Chicken and Rice and started the slow transition of foods. However, after more research I am now scared to feed it - there are TONS of horror stories on the net about liver and kidney failure, loose stool, etc.
> ...


GSDLover, there have been a number of threads on here addressing the rumour that there has been a change in Innova foods since they were bought out by P&G. I say rumour, because there has never been any evidence that there has actually been a change.

We have been feeding our two GSPs nothing but Innova EVO: the older one for about 4 years, the younger one since we've had him (he's 14 months old now). Personally, I have saved EVERY label from their food bags for the last TWO YEARS since the P&G buyout was announced and there has not been a single change I can find.

Our 5 yr old has been the only one of our dogs who has been eating EVO "before" and "after" and we have not noticed any difference: he still has great muscle tone, energy+++, a wonderfully soft coat. (Of course the same can be said for the puppy, but I wanted just to talk about a dog that has been through "the buyout" on the same food.) The big bonus about this grain free food for us is that because it is so calorie dense, we aren't feeding them as much as if we were using something like Exceed or Purina One. 

In fact, the older one was on Exceed for almost a year. The results were disappointing, to say the least. We were giving him 4 cups/day and he still looked half starved. And don't even get me started on "the output"! After we switched to the EVO, everything improved: he put on muscle mass, got a much shinier coat and even more energy. All this on about HALF the amount of food he was getting when he was on Exceed!

AAMOF both dogs are now on about 2 1/4 cups of food a day, because they are not in the field except to do some training. When "The Season" starts down here we will probably up them to about 3 cups because they will be burning it off like mad. 

So please, don't let rumour, innuendo and hearsay come into your process of choosing of a food. Do some unbiased research on good dog food sites like here, Dogfood Advisor Dog Food Reviews and Ratings | Dog Food Advisor or Dog Food Aware DogAware.com: Diet Options for Dogs THEN make an informed decision based on facts, not fiction.

FWIW,


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## Caty M (Aug 13, 2010)

I agree with Submariner, EVO is a good product. When my cats refuse to eat raw, just to get something in them we use EVO. Previously they were on it full time and had good coats, poop, condition. Watch out for the amount though, my kitties gained weight very quickly on it! It's very dense. I also noticed no change after the buyout.

As for Blue, I've not liked some of their advertising and they have been less than upfront about recalls, etc.


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## GSDLover (Sep 12, 2012)

Thank you for the responses. I liked Innova when I used it before but I have done my research - it appears to have been bought out. BUT that doesn't necessarily mean anything has changed I guess.

Regarding Blue Buffalo - I read tons of terrible reviews on this sites Dog Food Review page and on dogfoodadvisor.com
More than several people cited horrible Kidney failure and excessive thirst.


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## GSDLover (Sep 12, 2012)

One other thing - how does one know whether it is best to go all grain free (EVO) or just go corn/wheat free (Innova)


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## 1605 (May 27, 2009)

GSDLover said:


> One other thing - how does one know whether it is best to go all grain free (EVO) or just go corn/wheat free (Innova)


I think that is really personal preference: you can get good foods in both grain inclusive and grain free.

As it happens, we prefer grain free.


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## Georgiapeach (Jan 24, 2011)

I prefer grain free b/c my dogs don't do well on grain inclusive kibbles; they make them itch. If you like Innova, you might want to check out their new grain free Innova Prime kibble. It's not as rich as Evo, and less expensive. 

If your dog has issues with chicken, be careful putting them on BB. All of their foods that I've looked at have some sort of chicken source in them, no matter what the variety is; grain inclusive or grain free.


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## Jacksons Mom (Jun 13, 2010)

I'm not a big fan of Blue Buffalo. Their foods are made in, like, 5 different manufacturing facilities. Makes me nervous for some reason, it just seems like a lot, and I have to doubt they have reliable workers at every plant but maybe that's just me.

Besides that, I've read a lot of bad things as well. Also, when we fed the Wilderness to Jackson and my dads two dogs (who can eat anything... they can go from eating purina crap to Acana no problem etc) all got bad gas and loose stools. So my personal experience wasn't great.

I choose company first THEN ingredients. Because it doesn't matter what a fancy ingredient list looks like if it's coming from a messed up facility (eta: Taste of the Wild at Diamond).


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## mheath0429 (Sep 8, 2012)

Georgiapeach said:


> I prefer grain free b/c my dogs don't do well on grain inclusive kibbles; they make them itch. If you like Innova, you might want to check out their new grain free Innova Prime kibble. It's not as rich as Evo, and less expensive.
> 
> If your dog has issues with chicken, be careful putting them on BB. All of their foods that I've looked at have some sort of chicken source in them, no matter what the variety is; grain inclusive or grain free.


Basics line has no chicken. They have a salmon formula and turkey formula - also have a grain free turkey formula. 

I know its not kibble, but have you thought about freeze dried?


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## GSDLover (Sep 12, 2012)

SubMariner said:


> GSDLover, there have been a number of threads on here addressing the rumour that there has been a change in Innova foods since they were bought out by P&G. I say rumour, because there has never been any evidence that there has actually been a change.
> 
> We have been feeding our two GSPs nothing but Innova EVO: the older one for about 4 years, the younger one since we've had him (he's 14 months old now). Personally, I have saved EVERY label from their food bags for the last TWO YEARS since the P&G buyout was announced and there has not been a single change I can find.
> 
> ...



Yesterday I visited the pet food store - a very specialized store with a knowledgeable staff that carries just about every pet food you can think up - I was informed that Innova has in fact recently started changing its 'recipes'. Most recently they changed from sea salt to regular salt and from sunflower oil to some other oil I can't remember the name of. The employee told me that although these changes are minor they are reflecting the lower grade ingredients that are coming with the new ownership and that he was having complaints from customers and those customers were switching brands. Just thought you all would be interested.


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## lovemydogsalways (Mar 4, 2012)

Jacksons Mom said:


> I'm not a big fan of Blue Buffalo. Their foods are made in, like, 5 different manufacturing facilities. Makes me nervous for some reason, it just seems like a lot, and I have to doubt they have reliable workers at every plant but maybe that's just me.
> 
> Besides that, I've read a lot of bad things as well. Also, when we fed the Wilderness to Jackson and my dads two dogs (who can eat anything... they can go from eating purina crap to Acana no problem etc) all got bad gas and loose stools. So my personal experience wasn't great.
> 
> I choose company first THEN ingredients. Because it doesn't matter what a fancy ingredient list looks like if it's coming from a messed up facility (eta: Taste of the Wild at Diamond).


Not arguing with you just telling what the rep told me yesterday. He said CJ foods manufactures the Blue food and sometimes a manufacturer in Minnesota does. 
I was and am leery of Blue Buffalo, not sure why. I had thought they had a recall with cat food that was killing cats, but h said that wasn't their foods. It was during the '07 recalls.


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## mheath0429 (Sep 8, 2012)

lovemydogsalways said:


> Not arguing with you just telling what the rep told me yesterday. He said CJ foods manufactures the Blue food and sometimes a manufacturer in Minnesota does.
> I was and am leery of Blue Buffalo, not sure why. I had thought they had a recall with cat food that was killing cats, but h said that wasn't their foods. It was during the '07 recalls.



i believe they were involved in the recall, as were a lot of companies. It wasn't necessarily blues fault - there rice had been contaminated and they were not informed. Im not condoning it but it did open their eyes big time. From what I know, the company is VERY persnickety about who they work with. They also source from the U.S. except for lamb, which they source from New Zealand (completely acceptable and most fodos with a lamb recipe do.)


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## rannmiller (Jun 27, 2008)

Many of the Blue formulas don't contain chicken, but you do have to read the labels. I prefer grain-free foods because I believe it is the grain/gluten that greatly contributes to renal failure in our pets. I feed my dogs raw but my cats get Blue because I trust the company (so far) and their Freedom formula was the only one that fit the needs I had for a grain-free, higher meat content, and lower protein (less than 35%) besides Acana. 
Anyway, my mom just switched her Doberman to that exact formula of Blue that you got and so far she loves it... as does every other pet in her household. Hopefully we won't see any longterm ill-effects from the food. For the most part I've heard nothing but great reviews from people who use it correctly (not over-feeding).


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## DaViking (Sep 27, 2011)

BB is less than average in my opinion. Take for example their Freedom Chicken formula. All they get out of de-boned chicken, chicken meal and turkey meal is 24% protein and 7% fiber! In comparison Now Adult get 26% protein from de-boned turkey and eggs (no meals), carb sources are potatoes and peas for both.

If BB was as good and professional as they like to portray themselves in various advertising they would demand fingerprinting of ingredients to make sure there are no contamination. A company with moderately priced products need to find the money for huge advertising campaigns somewhere. BB is just whatever and you might as well feed a diamond brand or a plethora of other big box brands. Many other Petsmart brands I'd choose before BB.


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## DaViking (Sep 27, 2011)

rannmiller said:


> Many of the Blue formulas don't contain chicken, but you do have to read the labels. I prefer grain-free foods because I believe it is the grain/gluten that greatly contributes to renal failure in our pets. I feed my dogs raw but my cats get Blue because I trust the company (so far) and their Freedom formula was the only one that fit the needs I had for a grain-free, higher meat content, and lower protein (less than 35%) besides Acana.
> Anyway, my mom just switched her Doberman to that exact formula of Blue that you got and so far she loves it... as does every other pet in her household. Hopefully we won't see any longterm ill-effects from the food. For the most part I've heard nothing but great reviews from people who use it correctly (not over-feeding).


High meat! Where do you get that from? Freedom chicken for dogs is terrible in that respect. Lacks in protein and lacks in fat. This is more than likely a carb based food. And on top of that they use tomato pomace. If you are looking for a low to moderate protein GF food with no rendered meals look at Now from Petcurean. You get what you pay for. What make you trust them in terms of food safety?


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## lauren43 (Feb 6, 2011)

I'm not a fan of BB and honestly don't know enough about innova to comment.

My go to dog foods considering ingredients and company:
Fromm
Annamaet
Acana
Horizon 

"Rich" but still good foods: 
Orijen 
Nurtisource
Earthborn


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## rannmiller (Jun 27, 2008)

DaViking said:


> High meat! Where do you get that from? Freedom chicken for dogs is terrible in that respect. Lacks in protein and lacks in fat. This is more than likely a carb based food. And on top of that they use tomato pomace. If you are looking for a low to moderate protein GF food with no rendered meals look at Now from Petcurean. You get what you pay for. What make you trust them in terms of food safety?


Well if you actually read what I wrote, I was talking about the cat food Freedom Blue. It has three meat sources right at the top of the list, unlike Now, which has one... and it's deboned. And it still has a ton of carbs and tomatoes. I just don't understand how that's a better recommendation. 

I like Blue. They don't have recalls all the time like other companies, I've been feeding it on and off for years, tons of my friends and family feed it and their pets do great. 

I'm not saying there aren't better brands out there but in terms of what I've seen and had work, it is what works best for me at the moment, Blue wins. I did about 4 days of research and Acana was a close second, but at 35% protein, and knowing my cats already like the flavor of Blue, I had to go with Blue. But again, I'm talking about _cats_. I think the only one I would feed my _dogs_ is Wilderness, but I don't because they're on raw.


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## lovemydogsalways (Mar 4, 2012)

mheath0429 said:


> i believe they were involved in the recall, as were a lot of companies. It wasn't necessarily blues fault - there rice had been contaminated and they were not informed. Im not condoning it but it did open their eyes big time. From what I know, the company is VERY persnickety about who they work with. They also source from the U.S. except for lamb, which they source from New Zealand (completely acceptable and most fodos with a lamb recipe do.)


It was melamine right? 
Th rep told me thy do not get their lamb from New Zealand anymor because thy were having a very hare like getting it regularly. I guess New Zealand is in short supply. Famine or drought something like that. He said they get it in the US somewhere, but he didn't know where exactly. I wonder if it says on the website.


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## DaViking (Sep 27, 2011)

rannmiller said:


> Well if you actually read what I wrote, I was talking about the cat food Freedom Blue. It has three meat sources right at the top of the list, unlike Now, which has one... and it's deboned. And it still has a ton of carbs and tomatoes. I just don't understand how that's a better recommendation.
> 
> I like Blue. They don't have recalls all the time like other companies, I've been feeding it on and off for years, tons of my friends and family feed it and their pets do great.
> 
> I'm not saying there aren't better brands out there but in terms of what I've seen and had work, it is what works best for me at the moment, Blue wins. I did about 4 days of research and Acana was a close second, but at 35% protein, and knowing my cats already like the flavor of Blue, I had to go with Blue. But again, I'm talking about _cats_. I think the only one I would feed my _dogs_ is Wilderness, but I don't because they're on raw.


I don't care about cat food. I did "actually" read what you wrote. Quote; "Anyway, my mom just switched her Doberman to that exact formula of Blue" That's what I was replying to.
It's all smoke and mirrors when listing 3 animal sources of protein but all they get out of their heavily promoted 3 sources is a meager 24% protein, including legume protein. Doesn't that raise a flag? There are two alternatives 1) the actual amount of each individual animal source is minimal or 2) the amount in weight is good but the actual quality of those 3 ingredients are terrible, thus resulting in only 24% protein. This is numbers more consistent with average grade lamb formulas, not what is passed as a "high quality" grain free food.

Why is Now with it's single non rendered meal de-boned ingredient a better product than BB you ask? They have 1 - one - source of "fresh" meat and still manage to squeeze out more protein than BB freedom with its 3 - three - sources. Further, there is no rendered meals at all in Now and for some that is an important selling point. Sure there is less protein in the Now formula compared with many other GF formulas but it is by design in this case, not by "trying to save money so I can pay for expensive advertising campaigns" motive. If they wanted to make a good quality low to medium protein GF food they could just have followed Petcureans example with "fresh" de-boned or even dehydrated sources. Do you believe any formula who list lots of animal protein sources automatically contain more animal products than formulas who only list a cpl or even a single? If you do you are only fooling yourself. This BB formula is a perfect example, list multiple good sounding sources but at a closer look it's disappointing all around. What would you personally rather have, 200g of fresh de-boned turkey or a combined 70g of de-boned chicken and rendered chicken and turkey meals? I haven't even touched on the 7% fiber. Holy mackerel. Why do you think there is so much fiber in BB, compared to Now with 3.5%? Or any other decent formula with around 3% fiber.

The only ones that "have recalls all the time" as you put it are historically Diamond and Merrick products. Not sure about the "all the time" though, that's on you. If ingredient safety is a main selling point you are better of with Royal-Canin or Hills.

So, as a raw feeder, of all the great alternatives out there you would choose or recommend BB if you or others cant/wont feed raw?

Many like to talk about "filler" ingredients. BB is one of the brands/products where you can actually start to talk about true fillers. A filler doesn't have anything to do with individual ingredients but rather the amounts and/or the qualities of individual ingredients. That some on the internet don't like a particular ingredient doesn't make it a filler. In this case, 7% fiber is ~4% filler right there. It wouldn't surprise me if this BB food is around 10% ash, so add 4% more to the pile of fillers. Looking at it in more detail would probably reveal even more true fillers.


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## mheath0429 (Sep 8, 2012)

lovemydogsalways said:


> It was melamine right?
> Th rep told me thy do not get their lamb from New Zealand anymor because thy were having a very hare like getting it regularly. I guess New Zealand is in short supply. Famine or drought something like that. He said they get it in the US somewhere, but he didn't know where exactly. I wonder if it says on the website.


They still do - I don't want to mention how I know. I just know. You may PM me for details. 

It was melamine in rice.


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## mheath0429 (Sep 8, 2012)

DaViking said:


> I don't care about cat food. I did "actually" read what you wrote. Quote; "Anyway, my mom just switched her Doberman to that exact formula of Blue" That's what I was replying to.
> It's all smoke and mirrors when listing 3 animal sources of protein but all they get out of their heavily promoted 3 sources is a meager 24% protein, including legume protein. Doesn't that raise a flag? There are two alternatives 1) the actual amount of each individual animal source is minimal or 2) the amount in weight is good but the actual quality of those 3 ingredients are terrible, thus resulting in only 24% protein. This is numbers more consistent with average grade lamb formulas, not what is passed as a "high quality" grain free food.
> 
> Why is Now with it's single non rendered meal de-boned ingredient a better product than BB you ask? They have 1 - one - source of "fresh" meat and still manage to squeeze out more protein than BB freedom with its 3 - three - sources. Further, there is no rendered meals at all in Now and for some that is an important selling point. Sure there is less protein in the Now formula compared with many other GF formulas but it is by design in this case, not by "trying to save money so I can pay for expensive advertising campaigns" motive. If they wanted to make a good quality low to medium protein GF food they could just have followed Petcureans example with "fresh" de-boned or even dehydrated sources. Do you believe any formula who list lots of animal protein sources automatically contain more animal products than formulas who only list a cpl or even a single? If you do you are only fooling yourself. This BB formula is a perfect example, list multiple good sounding sources but at a closer look it's disappointing all around. What would you personally rather have, 200g of fresh de-boned turkey or a combined 70g of de-boned chicken and rendered chicken and turkey meals? I haven't even touched on the 7% fiber. Holy mackerel. Why do you think there is so much fiber in BB, compared to Now with 3.5%? Or any other decent formula with around 3% fiber.
> ...


I have never fed any of the blue formulas but Wilderness. From my research on that, I know it is low ash content. My dogs did great on that in comparison to quite a few kibbles.


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