Eukanuba 28 Day Challenge: Final Week

It’s the last week of the Eukanuba 28 Day Challenge for Buddha.

There’s not much to report. Buddha still loves the food, he can still unpack his Tug-A-Jug in minutes, and his weight has remained steady.

While I do not think I will change over to the Performance formula that Buddha has been on during the challenge, I am interested in Eukanuba’s new Naturally Wild formulas. We rotate between a few different foods, and it looks like it may make the cut. What do you think?

The Eukanuba 28-Day Challenge officially kicked off last week for the general public, and it includes some fun ways for you to get involved. I have some details on the challenge below.

Can you tell much from only a month? Not really, especially not if you are already feeding your dog a premium food. That said, there are many lower quality foods on the market (especially if you include the Performance and Naturally Wild formulas) and switching from them to Eukanuba could result in an improvement.

I found the Challenge rewarding since it motivated me to learn more about my dog’s nutrition, and not simply accept the “common knowledge” that is so prevalent on the Internet. Just this week there was a discussion on nutrition on the IAABC Dog Division e-mail list, and the lack of solid facts to back up a lot of assertions being made about canine nutrition played a big part in the conversation.

The fact is, we don’t know if ingredients like corn are automatically bad or if hihg levels of protein is automatically good. Very little solid research on dogs and nutrition has been done, and much of it has terrible flaws. I even found out last week that research relating protein to behavior that I mentioned on Dog Star Daily last month had another, more critical tremendous flaw than the small number of dogs in it – the dog’s diets were not completely controlled, and the owners had fed the dog treats at home that were not part of the study. This is another reason that the studies we would like to see on “real dogs” are not being done. (It’s not all a conspiracy by the big evil corporations, folks.)

What I am willing to recommend is this: find as much information as you can and make a judgement for yourself. Apply some critical thinking. You can figure out what’s best for your situation and your dogs. Does it makes sense for a dog to eat the same diet as a wolf? (Have you ever seen the teeth on a wolf?) At the same time, does it make sense for the first ingredient in a dog’s food to be corn or wheat?

Don’t accept someone’s word that one brand is automatically bad and another is good. Do your homework.

Here’s the Eukanuba 28 Day Challenge.

Anyone who completes the Challenge and is inspired by their dog’s transformation can enter the Facebook Contest where one dog will be crowned the “Challenge Champion”.

• The contest runs from Feb. 15 – April 30, 2011.
• Sign-up for the 28-Day Challenge on Eukanuba’s Facebook page over here.
• Once you have completed the Challenge, submit a current photo of your dog and explain how your dog did.
• Eukanuba and Dog Fancy magazine will select five finalists and each will receive a free year’s supply of Eukanuba dog food.

• The grand prize “champion” will win a photo shoot in his or her hometown, an editorial feature in the September issue of Dog Fancy magazine, and be spotlighted in a Eukanuba print ad!