# What is too much protein in food?



## KPoos (Aug 29, 2009)

What do you think about some of the foods having excessive amounts of protein for poodles? I know for some dogs it's very benefical but what about the poodle? I know when I went on a very high protein low carb, no sugar diet, I lost weight and then had a hard time not losing when I went off the diet. I know protein builds muscle but what is the cut off for too much?


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## WonderPup (Oct 26, 2008)

I think that depends on who you talk to these days honestly. There is a newer movement I've noticed in dry dog food to go towards grain free diets. If you flip the bags over and read the lables the protien levels in those foods are really really high compaired to most other brands. Thats to be expected though because they are mostly mean (protein). A lot of people on the more natural raw food diets end up with higher pro regaurdless, again just the natural the diet. 

With senior dogs it's been suggested that low protein is better because it is easier on the ummm Kidneys... Trying to remember correctly off the top of my head. 

As far as dry dog food goes I'm a middle of the road person myself, not to high and definitly not low. A bit higher for young dogs but you don't want to force any quick growth with larger ones. That doesn't do you much good. My mother is trying a lot of the lower protein foods and she's getting dry coats, though lord forbid I should mention it. She swears it isn't so. 

So in answer to your question I don't really know, I think it's a personal thing and what works best for your dog.


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## FUZBUTZ (Aug 23, 2008)

In the past we had a lot of trouble with kidney stones in some of our smaller breed dogs, mainly in older ones that were not real active. It ended up being the high protein dog foods that we were feeding at the time. After nearly losing both a male and a female pomeranian due to stones, and after surgery to remove the stones, we began feeding a feed with a lower protein in it per our vets advice, and never had another problem.


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## KPoos (Aug 29, 2009)

What I've noticed with Harry on the Blue Buffalo is that his bowel movements are huge. I don't know if that's from just not using everything that's going in or if that's just normal but I don't remember them being like that on other foods we've tried. I remember him doing well on ProPlan and I know that it has grain but he did well on it.


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## WonderPup (Oct 26, 2008)

Thats odd, I've can't recall every having huge stools on BB. But then I always supplement with Prozyme to make sure they are getting as much as they can for the food so that may be why. I don't do pooper scooper duty at my house anymore so I can't say what the stools were like on Chicken Soup and now Diamond, stopped with the prozyme though so I bet they are bigger now? I don't know, John hasn't said anything. 

As for ProPlan, if he did well and you can't find anything you like better then thats ok in my book. My dogs did fantastic on Purnia ONE for years and I'm embarassed to say that both of my childhood dogs ate kibbles and bits for their entire lives and lived to be 15 and 16 respectively. It wasn't until Howie came along and had a corn allergy which I figured out on my own that I got down with the food ingredient research. Switched everyone to Nutro Natural Choice and was happy for a very very long time... until Wonder who wouldn't eat it lol. Then it was solid gold and I never realized their skin and coat could be even BETTER  I like Blue a lot, just can't afford it right now. The only place here in town that sells it bumped their prices waaayy up reccently, same thing happened with Solid Gold


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## KPoos (Aug 29, 2009)

I just keep thinking he's getting too much protein for some reason. Wellness Core has even more. I wish I was just brave enough to do raw diet but I'm just not. I'd worry too much about what I was giving him or not giving him. I am just not used to him pooping as much as he is. Maybe I can try Innova? There's a place that sells it here.


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## WonderPup (Oct 26, 2008)

How Old is Harry now? Is he on puppy food or adult food? With any dry food I feel like it's a good idea to add an enzyme suuplement like prozyme. Only reason we're not at the moment is that I ran out and can't find it localy anymore, going to have to order it 

I've never tried Inova but have heard good things. Same about wellness cores, I know there are members here using both foods. My mother was up until really reccently feeding her household regualr wellness and I can say I was not impressed.


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## Mandycasey'smom (Jan 3, 2009)

How long has he been on the BB i just switched my guys to kirkland and the first week or 2 they had bigger poops but now both are back to normal. Not like when Mandy was on Orijen but not like in the beggining where I wondered what the heck.

The high protien foods are for very active dogs and after watching Casey pee constantly uncontrolable after high protien foods ( tried it a couple times with him) I wonder what it is doing to them. I can't feed it knowing it does this to him within days.
He can handle Taste of the wild but its protien is much less then Orijen.
He does best on Grain food and is doing well on the Kirkland and hey can't beet the price.


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## KPoos (Aug 29, 2009)

Harry is closer to 2 than 18 months now. He is not a very highly active dog and he's been on BB for a couple of weeks. He was on Natural Balance and same thing with the large poops. I'm going to go back to grain food for a month and see if something changes. The reason I went grain food in the first place was he seemed to have flakey skin but that hasn't changed in the months we've been doing grain free. It's probably something else.


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## bigredpoodle (Sep 13, 2009)

WonderPup said:


> Thats odd, I've can't recall every having huge stools on BB. But then I always supplement with Prozyme to make sure they are getting as much as they can for the food so that may be why. I don't do pooper scooper duty at my house anymore so I can't say what the stools were like on Chicken Soup and now Diamond, stopped with the prozyme though so I bet they are bigger now? I don't know, John hasn't said anything.
> 
> As for ProPlan, if he did well and you can't find anything you like better then thats ok in my book. My dogs did fantastic on Purnia ONE for years and I'm embarassed to say that both of my childhood dogs ate kibbles and bits for their entire lives and lived to be 15 and 16 respectively. It wasn't until Howie came along and had a corn allergy which I figured out on my own that I got down with the food ingredient research. Switched everyone to Nutro Natural Choice and was happy for a very very long time... until Wonder who wouldn't eat it lol. Then it was solid gold and I never realized their skin and coat could be even BETTER  I like Blue a lot, just can't afford it right now. The only place here in town that sells it bumped their prices waaayy up reccently, same thing happened with Solid Gold


I have used prozyme for years I use it to be sure that the food is digesting. Anti Bloat in my Setters.


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## bigredpoodle (Sep 13, 2009)

I would be afraid of Kidney issues in a very high protein food. I cook for my dogs as well as using the Evangers pheasant and Rice, chicken and Rise Whitefish and sweet potato foods. We believe that less is best. WE gibe pobiotic as well. In setters we jhad to be concerned about HOD


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## bigredpoodle (Sep 13, 2009)

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+1561&aid=446


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## WonderPup (Oct 26, 2008)

KPoos said:


> Harry is closer to 2 than 18 months now. He is not a very highly active dog and he's been on BB for a couple of weeks. He was on Natural Balance and same thing with the large poops. I'm going to go back to grain food for a month and see if something changes. The reason I went grain food in the first place was he seemed to have flakey skin but that hasn't changed in the months we've been doing grain free. It's probably something else.


Kpoo, Blue Buffalo is NOT grain free so I'm not sure what you mean by saying you're going back to grain food. Another note is that if he's only been on it a few weeks you probably need to leave it alone and stick with it. Nothing you put him on now if going reduce the size of his stool right away and if you continue to switch you're not going to be happy with anything. As for skin issues a food needs a couple of months to really resolve ths issue, though opinions vary on this. You kind of need to give him a while for his body to adjust I think, and maybe look into an enzyme supplement to allow him to extract more from the food (this will allow you to feed LESS as well). You say you're going back to grain food for a month, and a month isn't really enough time to see any real changes in the og anyhow, so why not just leave him alone for a month and see what happens. I worry about switching foods often personaly.


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## dt7624 (Apr 2, 2009)

Is it not good to change foods often? I was going to get a different brand each time to see which she likes more. l thought she would benefit from different brands just like we get different nutrients from the foods we eat. I had first tried Innova but she doesn't seem to like it much. I just got a bag of the Chicken Soup.


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## KPoos (Aug 29, 2009)

Well, crap. Must have been the Natural Balance that was completely grain free. I don't know why the heck I thought BB was grain free.



WonderPup said:


> Kpoo, Blue Buffalo is NOT grain free so I'm not sure what you mean by saying you're going back to grain food. Another note is that if he's only been on it a few weeks you probably need to leave it alone and stick with it. Nothing you put him on now if going reduce the size of his stool right away and if you continue to switch you're not going to be happy with anything. As for skin issues a food needs a couple of months to really resolve ths issue, though opinions vary on this. You kind of need to give him a while for his body to adjust I think, and maybe look into an enzyme supplement to allow him to extract more from the food (this will allow you to feed LESS as well). You say you're going back to grain food for a month, and a month isn't really enough time to see any real changes in the og anyhow, so why not just leave him alone for a month and see what happens. I worry about switching foods often personaly.


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## WonderPup (Oct 26, 2008)

dt7624 said:


> Is it not good to change foods often? I was going to get a different brand each time to see which she likes more. l thought she would benefit from different brands just like we get different nutrients from the foods we eat. I had first tried Innova but she doesn't seem to like it much. I just got a bag of the Chicken Soup.


Nope, not a good idea. You can create a picky eater and/or cause digestive upset. Neither is a good thing  Your best bet is to find a good food and stick with it. You can purchase two or three brands of food and mix them and accomplish what you were thinking. I know people who do this and a few of them switch the third food in the mix around every so often. There's some debate on how useful mixing foods is and it's to complex for me to be interested in explaining. In a nutshell one formula mixed with another can throw off the ratios of what you need and unbalance the diet. It's a concern too when making your own food and or feeding a raw diet. I have several books on it, but lol they don't make for exciting reading so I won't be digging them out again anytime soon.

Kpoos which Natural Balance forumla were you feeding?? They aren't grain free either! Only their allergy formulas are grain free. I'm assuming Harry isn't an allergy case since you've been switch foods around so you would have no need of that formula and would be better off using something else. 

Some grain free foods I can think of off the top of my head are
Taste of the Wild and Orijen. However, if you're worried about protein which you were in your first post you need to remember that these foods are going to be ALOT higher in protein than anything else on the market. There are plenty of opinions for or against such a thing. I did some research on it when I first discovered orijen. I decided not to go the grain free route at this time but you may feel differently after you've read up and researched the pros and cons.


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## bigpoodleperson (Jul 14, 2009)

There are studies now that say a high protein diet is not as harmful on the kidneys as once thought (sorry guys, not searching for the link now). 

Personally though, i cant say im the biggest fan of them. I just get worried they are too much for alot of dogs. Also, i was told by a vet friend who also feeds raw, that raw diets are not much higher in protein then the average food. If you were to take all the water, etc out of the meat, it would equal down to pretty much the same percent protein as most foods. Since "mother nature" designed that, and i havnt seen her make to many mistakes yet, i like to stick with that. If they were ment to have more, then mother nature would of designed that.


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