As some of you know, I own a pet shop. I carry only foods I would feed to my own dogs (though I feed little kibble), and stock nothing with corn, wheat, soy, byproducts, etc. Pure-Vita and a couple of other brands have become my favorites recently, but I have had a rash of returns -per my vet. She recently took a nutrition course and and came away convinced that any food labeled "all life stages" contains too much calcium for adult dogs. This has been rather difficult for me to confirm or dismiss, since not only are Ca not listed on the bags, they are sometimes difficult to even find on the Internet.

I was wondering if anyone could explain this to me, or perhaps just point me in the right direction to do my own research. I will admit my bias is strong against "Puppy, Senior, Large Breed, Small Breed," and especially Royal Canin's line of food formulated for certain breeds. I feed all the fresh food I can and supplement as the dog needs. But if I fed only kibble, wouldn't adding an occasional meaty bone give more calcium than the "too much" already in an ALS diet? The whole thing just strikes me as counter-intuitive. And my vet coming away from a seminar with such a revelation (and possibly going to start carrying Hills), has me doubting the validity even more. Thanks as always.

"She recently took a nutrition course and and came away convinced that any food labeled "all life stages" contains too much calcium for adult dogs. .... my vet coming away from a seminar with such a revelation (and possibly going to start carrying Hills ...."


This might be the basis of the take-away from the seminar:
http://www.hillspet.com/dog-care/one-size-does-not-fit-all-puppy.html (called One Size Does Not Fit All)


I think that researching individual brand's numbers makes a whole lot more sense than what your vet is being told by Hills. And it's puppies for whom calcium amount is so important. Calcium, ALS, puppy food, large-breed puppy food .... this is a complicated and opinion-loaded topic, confused even more by the fact that some manufacturers consider puppy food to mean one thing and some another, and some ALS foods (as well as some puppy foods) are much lower in calcium than others. How can there be an "all ALS" calcium statement when they differ so much?


I have to get working, but I'm going to send you some links asap. You'll see what a simplistic statement that one is and how it cannot possibly apply to "all ALS foods" because of the wild variations in ALS foods.

All JMO, though. Again, this is a controversial topic.*



Also, I know there are several folks here who are knowledgeable about adults and puppies, large breeds, calcium, ALS, etc. So hang in there.




*
(mainly for puppies, though)

" .... not only are Ca not listed on the bags, they are sometimes difficult to even find on the Internet."

And this is a travesty, IMO. Why is this info sometimes so hard to get?

A healthy adult dog will excrete into the stool that which is "too much", especially true of minerals. Fine mineral balance is important for growth and in stone forming dogs.

In line with Dr. Betty's post:

McDonald's book Dog Care & Training quote:
"Adult dogs can excrete excess calcium" (page 169)


In one way or another, each book I've consulted so far has said basically: Adult dogs can regulate and excrete excess calcium, but puppies cannot do this so well; the systems of puppies aren't able to control or limit absorption of dietary calcium the way those of healthy adult dogs are.




ETA
"Unlike adult animals, puppies appear to have inefficient mechanisms for regulating how much dietary calcium they absorb from the food."
http://www.lgd.org/library/Optimal%20feeding%20of%20large%20breed%20puppies.pdf



Edited by Connie Sutherland (01/22/2013 12:29 PM)
Edit reason: ETA

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

In line with Dr. Betty's post:

McDonald's book Dog Care & Training quote:
"Adult dogs can excrete excess calcium" (page 169)

Everything so far would indicate that an ALS diet is NOT unsafe for healthy adult dogs because of calcium content, no? Interesting information, thanks especially for the PMed links, too.