- Aug 21, 2011
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AedanRayne said:
Thank you, Aedan, but I must respectfully disagree. Even you have agreed that if there are no nutritional classes available in the school then it is up to the individual veterinarian to get themselves properly education on the subject outside of school. If there are things they can research in their own time, they may not choose to research nutrition but rather infection diseases. Some may choose to learn more about nutrition, some may not. This does not make them a bad person or veterinarian but someone who is just not as educated in that area.
You can purchase Urinary SO without a doctor's prescription and I never claimed that the food doesn't help with UTIs as obviously it has helped Jicky's dog. What I am saying is that it is not a nutritionally healthy food for them to be on as their only diet.
The first ingredient in this food which makes up the majority of the diet is brewers rice. Brewers rice is a cereal grain by-poduct made up of fragments left over after milling the whole rice making it mostly a source of caloric energy as the first main ingredient. The second ingredient is corn. Corn is also a cereal grain that is very controversial as it is mostly used as a filler with no real nutritional value, a high glycemic index causing an unhealthy rise in blood sugar, known for causing allergies in some dogs, it is not easily digestible, and only used in order to save manufacturers and consumers money. Although it does contain chicken fat, it is listed as third, and only then does it include chicken meal.
As ingredients are listed in order of weight, this means that if these four ingredients were the sole ingredients, that chicken meal would weigh far less than 1/4 of the total food, with over half of the meal consisting of rice and corn. Even humans can digest corn and rice better than dogs can and it would still be very unhealthy if over 60% of my meals were corn and rice. It looks like the only ingredients contributing to urinary health in the bag are salt for drinking more water and the very last listed ingredient being citric acid.
The crude protein is only 14%--and that isn't how much protein can be digested, that's just how much is in the bag. Since the protein sources are listed farther along in the ingredient list as having a lower overall percentage in the food itself, the digestibility may be 60% on the 14% of protein, so less than 9% may be digestible. Even quality foods with meats listed first have only a digestibility rate of 70% - 80% usually so at most it has around 11% digestible protein.
Compared to Taste of the Wild that has a crude protein of 32% or Diamond Natural's 27%.
That is why I feel that it is not a good idea to keep a dog on this food long-term. I do not know what they include in the cat brand of Urinary SO and the cat version may be a quality food, but the dog food is not something I would be willing to feed my dog. The dog food obviously does contain ingredients that help with urinary health, but I would prefer to isolate those ingredients and add them to a quality dog food that is nutritionally complete for my dog.
I am not discrediting every veterinarian. I like veterinarians and I know they have had extensive education on keeping animals healthy, but not every veterinarian is passionate learning about nutrition if they did not receive the training in school. At the same time, some doctors will prescribe antibiotics for the common cold but it doesn't mean you shouldn't research and decide for yourself if you should take them every time you get the cold or if the long-term affects are worth it.
