General Mills and Blue Buffalo
 

Just saw on the financial news that General Mills is taking over Blue Buffalo dog Food. Don’t know if this is good or bad news???

I think they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I don't expect any changes. If they do end up improving quality control, it would be good news, but I won't hold my breath. Blue Buffalo still has a lot to prove.

:thumbup: just changing owners certainly won’t make me trust them.

You don't like Blue Buffalo?

They have lost multiple law suits for lying about what is in their food. They have extremely bad quality control and there has been one member whose bag had way to many of the life source bits and their pups got very sick and the company told them it happens. I'm not sure that they even have feeding trails and a vet on staff. I have heard many many many people complain there dog had serious GI issues on that food. It's just not a trustworthy company.

I'm also not a fan of Blue Buffalo. I used to feed it to my Bella, and she liked it well enough, but I bought a bag that had NO life-source bits in it and realized that they had poor quality control. Those life source bits contain some of the vitamins and minerals, so a bag without life source bits is nutritionally unbalanced. They should have put the vitamins and minerals in the regular kibble so they wouldn't have that issue, but they decided to be gimmicky and cute. It backfired.

BB food
 

I agree the quality control became terrible. When I first used B.B. it was after a food recall of another brand, and the B.B. rep in a store convinced me that their ingredients were good and pure. For some time my dog did well on it, but I found that with time, the variation from bag to bag was unacceptable, especially when my dog got sick. As for the black bits, I was told that they included nutrients that were destroyed in the high temperature processing. That seemed a good idea until the bits had severe quality control issues.
I would not buy B.B. again as I only feed the Hills, and also the reason for GM buying the company was to make money!!! Not likely to improve the BB quality!
I do wonder though about high temperature processing and loss of nutrient value in kibble? Or perhaps the spray they put on the kibble at the end of the processing also has added nutrients?
But even in the Prescription Hills ID that I feed my dog for health reasons, I found the color of the kibble sometimes varied from bag to bag. I was told by Hills that it was due to a variation in the final spray. So now I look at the kibble in each new bag for kibble color, and it seems that now the color is more consistent. I was concerned in case the spray contents were important for nutrients as well as smell and taste.

What do you feed your babies?

I feed Wellness Core Grain Free Small Breed. Bella likes the small kibble size, and she does well on it. She has also done well on Royal Canin Yorkshire Terrier, which also has a small kibble size.

My Small Animal Clinical Nutrition text book has a chapter on dog food manufacturing, and they say that very few vitamins are lost during the processing of dry kibble, and the losses that occur are compensated for by adding more so that the final product is nutritionally balanced. There is no reason for Blue Buffalo to have separate dark bits containing heat-sensitive vitamins--they could have mixed them in with the other kibbles and had a more uniform product. It's purely an advertising gimmick. Interestingly, the product applied during the final spray of the manufacturing process are flavor enhancers--they are much more appealing to the dog when they are on the outside of the kibble because that's what first hits their taste buds.

The problem with Blue Buffalo is that since they separate some of their vitamins into separate kibbles (the darker "life source bits"), they have to be extra careful that they achieve a uniform mixture when they bag the kibble, and they haven't been able to. It would be a good dog food if they could, but as I mentioned earlier, I bought a bag that had NO life source bits in it, so they are still not doing a good job.

I was thinking about trying Royal Canin. Right now she will not eat it, she smells it and walk away. Thank you for your response.

We've been blessed that our Bella is not a picky eater, LOL!

Dog food
 

Thank you. It is good to know that the heat treatment does not ruin the nutrients, and that any that are lost are replaced on the kibble. Certainly in B.B. it must be hard to get the distribution right now even if there is the correct amount in the bag, the bits could end up at the bottom of the bag and each feed could be variable.
I gathered that the Hills kibble color change was mainly there for taste, but thought that nutrients might be added too.
I think when I was feeding B.B., the mix was ok for a long time. I wonder if my issues were the relatively high fat content as when I changed to Wellness, my dog still had GI issues. But I have heard of B.B. having issues in recent years.
I agree that the taste spray is probably needed as the kibble does seem so bland! I don’t know how my dog is still happy after years to gobble up the low fat Hills!!!
My vet suggested adding omega 3 oil to the feed as my dog is older. I must say he really loves the oil addition, so perhaps a picky eater would enjoy that too Cindee?

Picky eaters
 

I wonder if picky eaters, especially those who suddenly are more picky about food they have eaten ok before, may have some GI or other health problems? I know that my boy had a minor bout of pancreatitis after eating the B.B. and Wellness, and that since eating only the Hills ID low fat, he has been fine......and still loves the bland kibble!
I originally thought it was the B.B., but when my dog threw up on
Wellness too, I got worried. He really needed to eat lower fat with his digestive system, and most regular kibble is higher fat.
For picky eaters with no underlying health problems, sprinkling a little Parmesan cheese powder or other more tasty additive onto the food will attract them usually. But I found that doing this to my pancreatic sensitive dog just masked the problem. He just was not hungry but could not resist the smell of the additive. But that is just for my situation and probably does not apply to others.

I feed prescription food but my favorite regular foods are Royal Canin and Wellness.