THE EUKANUBA 28-DAY CHALLENGE (WEEK ONE)

We continually research new trends in the dog food industry to ensure Morris Animal Inn has the best food for our pet clientele. Our interest piqued when DogTime asked if we would take the Eukanuba 28-Day Challenge and blog about it. Three of our managers, Patty Segal, Patti Kreitler and Joanne Morris agreed to feed Eukanuba dog food to their pets and provide their feedback. Patty Segal writes about her observations first as she presents her two dogs Clover (a 4-year-old Doberman Pinscher) and Jersey (a 5-year-old Hound mix) the Eukanuba Pure food. Visit us frequently for updates… The hope is that after just 28 days, there will be a remarkable difference in their health and well being or “your money back 110% guarantee.” Here goes…

So the long awaited Eukanuba Pure has arrived. In the back of my mind I expect all things Eukanuba to be shockingly pink so a black, slick, sexy bag made me do a double take. Just a touch of the familiar Euk pink with the paw print and a mustard yellow stripe. Hmmmm… interesting color palette. Guess at some point all the more popular, charming colors get used up and a new product like Pure gets the underrated “black & mustard” theme. Then another underrated feature catches my eye, the Brittany…or is that a Welsh Springer or a field-bred English? Whoa, this is no food for the designer-breed clique, this is a serious food. No AKC Top 10 Most Popular dog in America here! Labradoodles and Peek-a-poos step aside, here comes the working dog who needs a “real food”…a “pure food”.  Hmmm. Ok, I’m intrigued.

Ok bag, what else have ya’ got for me? “Optimal fatty acid ratio”, “FOS” (an ingredient that helps grow beneficial bacteria in the large intestine), yeah, yeah I expect that from Euk. Not that I’m down playing those items I just truly expect that from Eukanuba. Novice dog food window-shoppers might be impressed but I learned about the benefits of FOS years ago. Give me more, Eukanuba. Ok now, “Clinically Proven to reduce tartar build-up in 28 days”. Guess I should have saved the thousand dollars I just spent getting my dogs teeth cleaned at the vet. Oh well, next bullet point “No fillers, corn, or artificial preservatives” ah, the essence of what makes Pure pure. So I guess I have to believe that fillers, corn and artificial preservatives are bad for my dogs. Let’s start with the easy one, artificial preservatives. In my book artificial equals bad so this is any easy sell for me. I would rather eat real sugar than an artificial sweetener any day, calories be damned. Do I want my dogs being fed artificial anything? No, so I’m happy. 

Jersey Segal



Fillers. Well obviously fillers are fillers and not real food, right? Fillers, like the bad stuff in cheap hotdogs. I mean that’s what I’ve learned from Hebrew National commercials since I was little, no fillers because “we answer to a higher authority”. Maybe Euk is answering to the same authority. So my assumption of “no fillers” means that there is more real food right? Guess I’ll have to investigate that a little further when I read the ingredients but certainly on the surface I agree that no fillers is better than being full of fillers.

Ok so what’s left, “no corn”. Well I know enough about the dog food industry to know this is a point of contention with troops rallied on each side. I also have read Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan so I know that corn, its by-products and the whole corn industry is a lightning rod in the human food category too. Well, let me look at the label of my dog’s current food and let’s see if my dogs are currently being subjected to the dreaded grain. Luckily for the anti-corn contingent, they have influenced my past purchasing decision enough that no, my previous dog food did not contain corn either. So as far as corn is concerned it’s an equal playing field. My dogs will not be in corn withdrawal since it appears they have not tasted the succulent kernel in quite some time.

Stay tuned for more on the challenge!