In I can smell crappy dog food a mile away. Literally.
I can never emphasize enough the importance of feeding your dog a quality diet. Even if you do not see a negative reaction, it still takes its toll on your pup’s tummy.
In my opinion, Purina is at the top of my ‘crappiest food ever’ list.
As you may remember Phoebe has a very sensitive stomach. If her diet is not “just right” she starts farting up a storm. I went through many food options but her gastroenteritis got the best of her. I won’t belabor the issue, since I covered these issues in prior posts.
At one point I found a commercial dog food that agreed with Phoebe’s defunct digestive system (Merrick’s Grain Free). I was ecstatic to have something to offer her for variety. Sadly, my happiness was short-lived.
In July 2015 Merrick’s sold-out to Purina. Unbelievable. As a matter of principle, I stopped buying food with the Merrick’s label immediately and just stuck to Phoebe’s homemade diet.
After a few months, I decided to try and find another commercial dog food that I could offer for variety. It took awhile but I finally settled on Wellness Stews.
I was at the pet food store a few weeks ago and noticed that the store rearranged the shelves and put the Merrick Grain Free next to the Wellness food. I must have had some sort of brain fart, because I picked up a few cans of Merrick’s just to see if the quality changed.
The first night that I gave Phoebe the “Purina Merrick’s” she had a serious case of gas. The kind that can clear a room. Just to make sure it was not a freaky coincidence, I gave her the newly dubbed “Crappy Merrick’s” for breakfast. She was a stinker all day. I had enough of that. Still trying to be fair I fed her Wellness dog food for a couple of days and she went back to smelling like a rose. Then I did another test with the Merrick’s and she started having room-clearing gas. Nasty!
The bottom line here is this: Purina sucks. They bought what used to be a very good dog food company and now that dog food sucks. You can put on a bow on crap and it is still crap. That is what happened here. Crap Purina uses the Merrick’s label as a bow, but underneath it all, it is still crap.
It just goes to show that you can’t always trust what you see. Dogfoodadvisor.com still rates it as a 5 star food, however according to dogfoodavisor.com:
“The Dog Food Advisor does not test dog food products.
We rely almost entirely on the integrity of the information posted by each company on its website. As such, the accuracy of every review is directly dependent upon the quality of the test results from any specific batch of food a company chooses to publish.”
So what is a person to do?
Some people still rave about it (maybe their dogs have cast iron stomachs). All I know is Phoebe’s overly sensitive gut lets me know when something has changed.
Before Purina bought Merrick’s = Phoebe was fart free
Two years after Purina bought Merrick’s = Phoebe has fart that would gag a maggot.
Can you tell that I have a very poor opinion of Purina?
Phoebe's Tails 
March 30, 2017 at 9:15 pm
Well I sure missed this comment. A response five months later? That is pathetic blogging. I really need to get my act together.
I haven’t tried the Whole Earth stews, but I do like the Wellness Stews.
Stews in general look less dog food-ish, but just like you I sometimes get the smell stuck in my nose.
I guess it wouldn’t hurt to shake things up a bit.
Thanks for the info.
October 11, 2016 at 3:25 pm
You should really try the Orijen, Fromm and Arcana line of kibble. I switch mine around, for variety, and my dogs do well on all of them. Since I have so many dogs, raw or cooked toppers from a variety of meats I buy, are a treat a few times a week. ( I do include a can of mackeral with that variety). I find that some of the canned food leaves me with a bad smell in my nose. Not in the sense of dogfarts, but I just do not like the smell of them. The newest line I am trying is Whole Earth. I like the smell, I like the chunkyness, I like the veggies, some gravy, and the chunky meat. And so far, the herd seems to approve. Might be worth a try?