Probiotic Dog Foods

All dog Foods That Contain Probiotics

While the first probiotic dog foods were introduced by Wysong as far back as the mid 1980s, it's during the last decade that the concept of probiotics in dog food has really taken off.

And for good reason. Find out why here.

Benefits of Probiotics in Dog Food

Probiotic dog foods can aid the digestion process and reduce common problems such as bloating and flatulence. In fact, some breeders of adult and giant breed dogs that are prone to bloat/torsion are beginning to stipulate in their contracts that puppy buyers feed a dog food that contains probiotics or use a probiotic supplement.

While I am not aware of any studies evaluating the ability of probiotics to prevent this life-threatening condition, it seems possible that probiotics may indeed be effective in reducing the likelihood of bloat.

While the gastrointestinal benefits of probiotics in dog food are impressive, the advantages don't stop there. By increasing the presence of beneficial bacteria in your dog's digestive tract, probiotic dog foods can help limit the proliferation of pathogenic bacteria such as Escherichia coli and Salmonella and prevent the overgrowth of opportunistic yeast organisms that may cause skin problems and ear infections.

Probiotics in dog food can also promote the absorption of nutrients and aid in the synthesis of certain vitamins. Finally, probiotic bacteria such as Enterococcus faecium have been proven to stimulate immune function in dogs.

Dog Foods that Contain Probiotics

With the health benefits of probiotics well established, you might wonder why not all dog foods contain probiotics.

The reason is cost: The probiotics themselves as well as the process utilized to add them to dog foods are expensive. As a result, it's currently only super premium brand dog foods that contain probiotics.

The following is a partial list of probiotic dog foods:

• Acana
• Before Grain
• Blue Buffalo
• CANIDAE
• Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul
• Eagle Holistic Select
• Eagle Pack
• Earthborn Holistic
• EVO
• Evolve
• Flint River Ranch
• Fromm Four Star Nutritionals
• Horizon Pet Nutrition
• Innova
• Merrick
• Nature's Variety
• Orijen
• Petcurean
• Precise Plus
• Taste of the Wild
• Timberwolf
• Wellness
• Wysong

At least as of June 2010, you will not find probiotics in dog foods of standard premium brands such as Iams, Eukanuba, Royal Canin, and Hill's Science Diet.

In fact, the presence of probiotics in a dog food is an excellent indicator that the kibble in question is a super premium food. That means the ingredients are almost always "human-grade," the food is meat-based not grain-based, and there are no questionable ingredients such as generic meat sources and by-products, grain fractions, or artificial additives.

The good news is that many super premium brand dog foods that contain probiotics and 100% human-grade ingredients are no more expensive than the more mainstream brands like Iams and Eukanuba.

How Probiotics Are Added to Dog Food

Companies that don't make probiotic dog foods have, on occasion, accused the manufacturers of dog foods that contain probiotics of deceiving the public with their claim of viable probiotics in dog food.

Kibble, they maintain, is processed at such high temperatures that the probiotics in dog food couldn't possibly be viable.

They are partly correct.

Studies have indeed shown that probiotic bacteria cannot survive the extrusion and drying process. This is why companies making probiotic dog foods add the probiotics after the food has been cooked and dried.

Probiotics and other heat-sensitive supplements such as digestive enzymes are applied to dog foods as a powder coating after processing is complete.

Studies indicate that at least 60% of probiotic bacteria remain viable when applied in this manner, although viability is reduced by another 25% after foods sit on store shelves for 12 months.

Since canned foods are cooked at very high temperatures right in their cans, you will not find any canned dog foods that contain probiotics.

Viability and Amounts of Probiotics in Dog Food

Researchers at the Ontario Veterinary College purchased 19 commercial pet foods (13 dog foods and 6 cat foods) claiming to contain probiotics from local retailers in order to evaluate their probiotic content.

It turned out that while live bacteria were present in all 19 foods, none of the probiotic dog foods or cat foods contained all of the organisms listed on the label, and 26% contained no relevant probiotic growth whatsoever.

Enterococcus faecium was the most commonly found probiotic organism, while Lactobacillus acidophilus could not be isolated from a single food even though 13 products claimed to contain this probiotic.

The researchers were also concerned about the amount of probiotics in dog food and cat food.

No therapeutic dose has been established for probiotic use in dogs, and the amounts required for optimal effect most likely vary from strain to strain. However, the researchers point out that clinical studies demonstrating the effectiveness of probiotics for a number of applications used doses considerably higher than the amounts of probiotics found in commercial pet food.

Your dog would need to consume 5.5 kilos of the food containing the highest levels of viable probiotics a day in order to receive the dosage used in most clinical probiotic studies.

That doesn't mean, however, that probiotics in dog food are useless.

First, it's possible that a dose lower than the one commonly used in studies is effective for many purposes. And second, the presence of probiotics in a dog food is, at least at this time, a good indicator of the food's overall quality.

Probiotic dog foods are good for maintaining health. If, however, your dog is on antibiotics or has specific health problems that may respond to probiotics, it's recommended you also use a quality probiotic supplement developed specifically for dogs.