Problems With Purina Pro Plan

The Purina Pro Plan is a dry dog food plan created for dogs of all sizes. Although this plan includes healthy meats and other staples like chicken and brewers rice, the plan has several drawbacks as well. Most of the problems with this feeding plan exist in the ingredients that make up the dog food.

  1. Wheat and Grains

    • Wheat is a healthy ingredient in many human foods, but it can actually cause canine allergies, which will make your puppy or dog sick or lethargic. Cereal grains or other wheat granules have been known to cause serious illness or even death. Whole grain corn and corn bran, while high in fiber, can also cause your dog serious illness. Corn gluten meal, another grain by-product, is a grain-based protein that in reality does not provide enough protein for a growing dog, according to Dog Food Advisor.

    Animal By-products

    • Purina Pro Plan dog food is known to contain poultry by-products, which can be harmful to your dog. These by-products come from processing plants where chickens are hatched and slaughtered for human consumption. By-products are often beaks, claws, undeveloped eggs or any other chicken product not fit for human consumption. Though poultry usually means chicken, the product label does not specify, so the by-products could be from any poultry animal slaughtered for food. One benefit of these by-products is that they usually contain more protein than fresh poultry.

    Animal Fat

    • Animal fat is added to dog foods to provide healthy fats for your dog to gain weight. However, Purina Pro Plan food doesn't specify where the animal fat originates from. Fats could be left over from a slaughterhouse, restaurant or even from animals that had to be put down, reports Dog Food Advisor. Good fats come from chickens or flax seed, sunflower or fish oil. If the label fails to specify the fats as coming from one of these sources, the dog food is most likely unhealthy.

    Soy Products

    • Soy flour is created from soybean processing. Although soybeans are high in protein, they still don't provide the protein that meat does. Soybean meal is a by-product of soybean remnants after the oil from the beans has been removed. Both soy substances are present in Purina Pro Plan food to boost protein content, but it doesn't add much protein since the main source of the food's protein is chicken and chicken doesn't add much protein in the first place.