A diet with the pet in mind

Sponsored by Blue Buffalo

Julia Miller, DVM, DACVD: Hi, my name is Dr. Julia Miller. I am a board-certified veterinary dermatologist. I practice out of Louisville, Kentucky, and I'm here to chat a little bit about Blue Buffalo with you.

Karen Labarre: And I'm Karen Labarre. I'm the Veterinary Sales Director for Blue Buffalo Veterinary Diets and we're owned by General Mills, so we're based out of Minneapolis now.

Miller: So, Karen, I know certainly a lot about how I utilize these in practice, but could you help us know a little bit about how they're created, some of the background, AAFCO feeding, things like that?

Labarre: Sure. All our diets are formulated by Ph.D. nutritionists and veterinarians that work for the company. We do AAFCO feeding trials on all our dry diets, so they're all AAFCO fed. And then we also do all kinds of quality checks while they're being manufactured. So, like on your dermatology diets, we do a burnout, which is kind of like, I like to tell people it's like having yourself cleaning oven turned up to 700 degrees to burn anything out, that might be stuck in the lines. We do a clean out and then we do a flush to make sure that there's no other protein sources or other kibble that are in the lines before we make them.

Miller: I think that's so important because if you hear any dermatologist lecture about how to do a diet trial, we always preach that prescription diets are superior to over the counter. And just like Karen just mentioned, this is exactly what Blue Buffalo does to make sure that the proteins that they say are in the food are exactly what you're getting. That burnout, that washout is very important. That's not something you get in over-the-counter diets. So, I think it's great that you have so many checks and balances in order.

Labarre: Right, and then what we do on top of that is we do ELISA testing on it. So we're testing to make sure there's no other proteins. So we're checking for beef, for chicken, for soy to make sure there's nothing in there. And then on our alligator diet, we also do PCR testing, which will say that the DNA is definitely alligator.

Miller: From a dermatologist, that matters tremendously to me, because if I'm feeding a diet that says it doesn't contain chicken, one of the number one allergens, I want to know for a fact that it doesn't contain chicken. So, whenever my clients talk to me about “oh, but that prescription diet is so expensive,” this is why it is expensive. Because there's incredible quality control and you actually know what you're getting which is not the case with over-the-counter diets.

Labarre: Correct, correct. A couple of key facts our alligator diet is it's also approved for all life stages. If you have puppies that come in at an early age that you suspect a food allergy, you can feed that even to a large breed puppy.

Miller: So as a dermatologist, I get asked fairly regularly, “what do I do with a puppy, especially like a large breed growing puppy? How can I do a diet trial? What diet is approved for growth?” And what's lovely is the NP, the alligator based novel protein NP is labeled for growth. So, this is safe for you to use in your Great Dane puppy or your Labrador puppy or your Chihuahua or even a kitten, right? You could also use it for a young cat so you've got a lot of opportunities there. The other questions I always get asked about this diet in particular is, “is it swampy? How does it taste? How does it smell, right?” Nobody wants a swampy dog burp happening all the time. This product is lovely. It doesn't smell swampy or fishy or nasty to me. I like it a lot.

Labarre: It’s all farm raised alligators so it's not like we're out catching alligators after the hurricanes, but it is all farm raised so we can you know have consistency in the ingredients that we're getting to make sure that from one batch to the other it's going to meet the same standards for every time we make it.

Miller: And that's so important. I think standards and making sure that everything is exactly as it's presented, that's the benefit of utilizing a company like Blue Buffalo. They put a lot of time and effort into making sure that what you see is what you get, and that's not necessarily true for every food company. So, I think that they really strive and shine there, which is great, yeah. Another diet of yours that I love, that I use all the time, is the HF. And HF is the hydrolyzed salmon. So, tell us a little bit about the hydrolyzed salmon diet.

Labarre: It’s a hydrolyzed salmon. It's hydrolyzed down to 2,000 Daltons, which is relatively low on the Dalton scale. The palatability is good because it's salmon. It's very high in omega-3 fatty acids. And like I said, we do the ELISA testing on that so we know that it's salmon. Salmon hydrosilate is the first ingredient. So, the palatability is very high on that. It's our number one diet.

Miller: It's great. So, full disclosure guys, I feed this to my own dogs. Again, it's not too fishy smelling. The burps are not so bad in my house. What I love about HF, and I reach for this all the time, the palatability is incredible. There's a canned option, there's a dry option, I mean we got lots of good stuff, but the palatability is awesome. The second thing is that it is hydrolyzed, which we love, and it's salmon, so it's kind of a twofer. You get a hydrolyzed and a novel protein for certain dogs, so you get a two for one there. And there actually is a study that looked at this compared to Ultamino, and it actually performed very similar with fewer side effects in that particular diet. So, it's a wonderful diet. It checks all of my boxes. Not labeled for growth, but that's okay. We got NP covered, you know, if we need to do that. But I think the HF is an awesome diet and I reach for it all the time.

Labarre: Great. And for the cat, we do have a hydrolyzed salmon can, which, you know, is very hard to find a hydrolyzed salmon or a hydrolyzed of anything on the market.

Miller: And that's really palatable for the cats too. And palability matters, right? Diet trials aren't gonna work unless your dog eats them and there's a lot of diets out on the market prescription wise that just don't taste that good. So, one thing that I actually like about all of the Blue Buffalo diets is the palatability is really there and if your pet will eat it then you can be successful in going through your diet trial.

Labarre: If for any reason your pet doesn't eat it, we'll take it back.

Miller: Yeah, you want a company that's great to work with. I mean Blue Buffalo has been amazing. My clients can get free bags of food if there's something up with the bag, money back guarantees. They've been an incredible company to work with and my clients have all been really pleased at their customer service which also you don't always get that for some of the other companies to be honest with you. I think they've been great. And these little sample bags, I mean these things are incredible. Because I get so many clients that'll say, “Well I don't want to buy a big bag. I don't know if they’ll eat it.” If you can get your hands on a little sample bag this is perfect to send home and say, give it a shot. If he eats it great, order the big bag. If not, we'll move on to another thing. So, I love that too.

Labarre: And those are free to any clinic that would like to order them from us. They just have to contact our customer service, and we'll get a rep to send some out to you.

Miller: So, if you haven't given Blue Buffalo a try, I think you should. It's a great company.

Labarre: Thank you.

Miller: Thank you, Karen.