# Acana Wild Prairie VS Acana Large Breed Puppy for Dogo Argentino puppy



## mchris1 (Oct 17, 2012)

Hi Everyone!
I am about to get a 4 month old Dogo Argentino puppy and after doing a little research in the local market(I live in Cyprus) I decided I would go with either Acana Wild Prairie or Acana Large Breed Puppy

The differences I found is that the Large Breed Puppy has grain, but more Chondroitin and Glucosamine while the Wild Prairie is grain free with less Chondroitin and Glucosamine

What do you think?

Thanks


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## chubby (Aug 18, 2011)

The less grain the better - they have grain because it's a filler, as dogs don't need the nutrition that comes from it. I would go with a food that has meat/bones/organs/cartilage as the main ingredients.


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## mchris1 (Oct 17, 2012)

chubby said:


> The less grain the better - they have grain because it's a filler, as dogs don't need the nutrition that comes from it. I would go with a food that has meat/bones/organs/cartilage as the main ingredients.


Thanks for the reply. Since the puppy is a large breed, doesn't it matter that the grainless food has less glucosamine and chondroitin?


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## chubby (Aug 18, 2011)

if the food is well balanced, and you are keeping their weight under a watchful eye, a puppy shouldn't need to have glucosamine and chondroitin as those are mainly for joint pain/health. Large breeds can suffer arthritis/joint pain later on if they are over-exercised as puppies, and if they grew too fast as puppies that their joints had to handle too much weight, too early on before bones are fully formed.

My advice is to make sure you don't over-walk/over-exercise your puppy, have them walk on softer surfaces such as grass versus pavement. Also, don't over feed, make sure to give measured meals 3 times a day, versus leaving food down all day for them to scarf down


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## zhaor (Jul 2, 2009)

Honestly I would go with the grain inclusive Acana over the grain free one.

In terms of carb content percentages, the two formulas are fairly comparable. Similar protein content too but the new Acana grain free foods are using a lot vegetable protein sources so the Large Breed Puppy might actually have more meat content.

Other than that, fat is slightly higher in the grain free food so you'd be feeding slightly less food.

Calcium and phosphorus content is higher in the Large Breed Puppy food which may be useful for a puppy. There's more Omega-3 and a possibly more favorable Omega 6:Omega 3 ratio. Obviously there's the higher glucosamine content too.


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## Canaqua (Sep 27, 2011)

Are you in Canada or the US? Just an FYI, if you are in the US, check with whoever will be supplying the Acana food for you before you get too far into analyzing it...my dogs eat Acana (Grasslands) and supply has been a big problem for several months now. First, they changed packaging and had production problems during the switchover, then there was an import/customs issue, then they had a fire in an Orijen oven, which has affected supply of both Orijen and Acana once again. Many pet stores have had trouble getting orders in and the online prices for both brands have skyrocketed. I had to switch my dogs off of Acana for a while, because I couldn't get any. I just bought the ONLY three 29lb bags in the area last week, I'm hoping it will last until they get their supply problems straightened out. 

I'm in the US, I don't know whether these issues affect Canada as well, the import/customs issue wouldn't apply, in any event.


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## mchris1 (Oct 17, 2012)

chubby said:


> if the food is well balanced, and you are keeping their weight under a watchful eye, a puppy shouldn't need to have glucosamine and chondroitin as those are mainly for joint pain/health. Large breeds can suffer arthritis/joint pain later on if they are over-exercised as puppies, and if they grew too fast as puppies that their joints had to handle too much weight, too early on before bones are fully formed.
> 
> My advice is to make sure you don't over-walk/over-exercise your puppy, have them walk on softer surfaces such as grass versus pavement. Also, don't over feed, make sure to give measured meals 3 times a day, versus leaving food down all day for them to scarf down


Thank you very much for the advice. I will definitely follow it.


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## mchris1 (Oct 17, 2012)

zhaor said:


> Honestly I would go with the grain inclusive Acana over the grain free one.
> 
> In terms of carb content percentages, the two formulas are fairly comparable. Similar protein content too but the new Acana grain free foods are using a lot vegetable protein sources so the Large Breed Puppy might actually have more meat content.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the help Zhaor. I'm leaning towards Acana Large Breed Puppy also. I'm learning to read and understand the labels as you obviously do.
Do you follow the serving suggestions from the bag? I stumbled upon a food calculator, but what the food calculator
( http://goldendoodles.com/care/food_calculator.htm )suggests is a lot less from what the Acana Large Breed Puppy suggests.
For example for a 35lb 4 month old puppy should get 1094Kcal of Acana Large Breed Puppy per day according to the dog food calculator while
a 35lb 4 month old puppy that will grow to be about 100lbs as an adult should get approximately 1785Kcals of the same food per day, according to the feeding suggestion on the bag.
What would you advise?
Thank you


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## mchris1 (Oct 17, 2012)

Canaqua said:


> Are you in Canada or the US? Just an FYI, if you are in the US, check with whoever will be supplying the Acana food for you before you get too far into analyzing it...my dogs eat Acana (Grasslands) and supply has been a big problem for several months now. First, they changed packaging and had production problems during the switchover, then there was an import/customs issue, then they had a fire in an Orijen oven, which has affected supply of both Orijen and Acana once again. Many pet stores have had trouble getting orders in and the online prices for both brands have skyrocketed. I had to switch my dogs off of Acana for a while, because I couldn't get any. I just bought the ONLY three 29lb bags in the area last week, I'm hoping it will last until they get their supply problems straightened out.
> 
> I'm in the US, I don't know whether these issues affect Canada as well, the import/customs issue wouldn't apply, in any event.


Thank you for the heads up Canaqua. I'm actually in Cyprus, one of the Greek islands 
From what I understand there isn't a shortage of supply, at least for the time being. From what you are saying, with their problems and all, it is bound to affect their shipments to Europe at some point.
How much do you get Acana there? MSRP here for the Acana Large Breed Puppy is 75 euro (approx $98) for an 18kg(39.6lbs) bag. The petshop I go to sells it a a discounted price of 60euro (approx $78.6)


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## hamandeggs (Aug 11, 2011)

zhaor said:


> Honestly I would go with the grain inclusive Acana over the grain free one.
> 
> In terms of carb content percentages, the two formulas are fairly comparable. Similar protein content too but the new Acana grain free foods are using a lot vegetable protein sources so the Large Breed Puppy might actually have more meat content.
> 
> ...


Wait. I'm not an expert on this, but I thought that you wanted LOWER calcium/phosphorus for large breed puppies, or maybe it was a certain ratio, to avoid the puppy growing too fast. Wrong?


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## zhaor (Jul 2, 2009)

hamandeggs said:


> Wait. I'm not an expert on this, but I thought that you wanted LOWER calcium/phosphorus for large breed puppies, or maybe it was a certain ratio, to avoid the puppy growing too fast. Wrong?


No you're partially right I think. I'm not an expert on it either. I did look it up before out of interest but I'm not really a large breed person.

Excess calcium is considered a problem for growing puppies. Excess calcium can cause bones to grow too fast and so bone density is decreased. However low calcium is also an issue since calcium is required to build and maintain bone density. I'm not sure if there have been enough studies to really pinpoint an ideal amount of calcium. For large breeds, I think the safe range established by various studies was something like 250-540mg/kg of body weight though I haven't actually read the specific studies.

Both of the Acana foods are well within the safe range. If I remember correctly, I believe "excess calcium" is about double the amount in these foods, about 3% calcium. Well it would also depend on the kcal content of the food since more food means more calcium.

Within the safe range, I'm not sure if there has been studies to show what's better. I guess I worded it kind of poorly, I should have said "might possibly be useful" maybe. When not in excess and during normal growth, I would think slightly higher calcium to maintain bone density could be useful.


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## boxerlover876 (Dec 31, 2011)

hamandeggs said:


> Wait. I'm not an expert on this, but I thought that you wanted LOWER calcium/phosphorus for large breed puppies, or maybe it was a certain ratio, to avoid the puppy growing too fast. Wrong?


Yep, ideally you want around 1:1-1.2:1. You don't want too big of a gap. Most giant breeds want more around 1:1 as its even more important obviously for that ratio to be exact. 


Glucosamine and condroitin in kibble is basically a waste because it's so cooked it's not highly available an useful. Don't look at that. Personally, I would go grain free, especially with ears like a Dogo's. They can have ear infections because of the drop ear. Plus, it will help keep that red yeasty color out of his white coat.


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## Kathyy (Jun 15, 2008)

zhaor said:


> No you're partially right I think. I'm not an expert on it either. I did look it up before out of interest but I'm not really a large breed person.
> 
> Excess calcium is considered a problem for growing puppies. Excess calcium can cause bones to grow too fast and so bone density is decreased. However low calcium is also an issue since calcium is required to build and maintain bone density. I'm not sure if there have been enough studies to really pinpoint an ideal amount of calcium. For large breeds, I think the safe range established by various studies was something like 250-540mg/kg of body weight though I haven't actually read the specific studies.
> 
> ...


I know that Max needs about 1000mg of calcium a day and weighs 38 pounds. That translates to about 59mg of calcium per kilogram of dog. He is no pup but pups don't need 10x the amount of calcium that adult dogs need. Perhaps this site could help.
http://dogaware.com/diet/commercial.html#puppies This article has citations but you would need to use the wayback machine to find them now. http://www.b-naturals.com/newsletter/puppy-protein/ http://archive.org/web/web.php

Perhaps the chondroitin and glucosamine is unavailable when cooked, don't know but it isn't present in therapeutic amounts in food, that isn't allowed.


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## zhaor (Jul 2, 2009)

Kathyy said:


> I know that Max needs about 1000mg of calcium a day and weighs 38 pounds. That translates to about 59mg of calcium per kilogram of dog. He is no pup but pups don't need 10x the amount of calcium that adult dogs need.


um are you sure you have those numbers right? The NRC minimum calcium from the 1985 revision is listed as 320mg/kg for growth and 119mg/kg for adult maintenance.

I don't know if that's changed in the 2006 revision since it isn't available online. Where did you get your value?


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## mchris1 (Oct 17, 2012)

Thank you all for taking the time to answer


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## mchris1 (Oct 17, 2012)

boxerlover876 said:


> Yep, ideally you want around 1:1-1.2:1. You don't want too big of a gap. Most giant breeds want more around 1:1 as its even more important obviously for that ratio to be exact.
> 
> 
> Glucosamine and condroitin in kibble is basically a waste because it's so cooked it's not highly available an useful. Don't look at that. Personally, I would go grain free, especially with ears like a Dogo's. They can have ear infections because of the drop ear. Plus, it will help keep that red yeasty color out of his white coat.


 Hi boxerlover876. Thanks for the info. I was under the impression that uncropped ears protect the ear canal better, and are less prone to ear infections than cropped ears. I am not planning to crop my puppy's ears.


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## georgiapeach (Mar 17, 2012)

mchris1 said:


> Hi boxerlover876. Thanks for the info. I was under the impression that uncropped ears protect the ear canal better, and are less prone to ear infections than cropped ears. I am not planning to crop my puppy's ears.


Dogs with drop ears are more prone to ear infections b/c they harbor moisture more, allowing yeast to grow more easily. Just feed a good, low carb food, and keep the ears clean. You should be fine.


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## zhaor (Jul 2, 2009)

Floppy ears trap moisture and air which is what can make them more prone to ear infections.

Anyways despite this discussion, the two foods are similar enough that either one is just fine.

I would mostly put it down to price since I don't feel like wild prairie (or any of their grain free stuff) is noticeably better than their grain inclusive foods. However, I tried a google search to compare the price but I can't even find the large breed puppy, maybe due to the issues at their plant. So I guess go with Wild Prairie


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## Canaqua (Sep 27, 2011)

mchris1 said:


> How much do you get Acana there? MSRP here for the Acana Large Breed Puppy is 75 euro (approx $98) for an 18kg(39.6lbs) bag. The petshop I go to sells it a a discounted price of 60euro (approx $78.6)


I just paid $76 for a 13kg bag of Acana Grasslands, up from $58 back in June. Yikes! Your 60euro price on an 18kg bag is a pretty good price.


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## mchris1 (Oct 17, 2012)

Thanks yall!!


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## Kathyy (Jun 15, 2008)

zhaor said:


> um are you sure you have those numbers right? The NRC minimum calcium from the 1985 revision is listed as 320mg/kg for growth and 119mg/kg for adult maintenance.
> 
> I don't know if that's changed in the 2006 revision since it isn't available online. Where did you get your value?


I calculated it from the NRC 2006 values that are published in Monica Segal's Optimal Nutrition. That is HIS value, a larger or smaller dog would have a different mg/kg value as they are not on a linear scale now and of course it is for an adult dog. It seems like a very dramatic drop but consider he is still getting the same amount of calcium as an adult human weighing 3-4x as much.


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## boxerlover876 (Dec 31, 2011)

mchris1 said:


> Hi boxerlover876. Thanks for the info. I was under the impression that uncropped ears protect the ear canal better, and are less prone to ear infections than cropped ears. I am not planning to crop my puppy's ears.


Eh, sorta about protecting the ears. It's not that big of a deal. I have an uncropped boy here. You do have the whole ear infection thing backwards though. The drop ear makes it easier because of how it lays over. It keeps in warm air and moisture which helps yeast and bacteria grow. Duke had ongoing eat infections basically when he was on grain inclusive food.


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