Anyone feed Eagle Pack?

[theshine]

Some of you may know I've had alot of trouble in the food department...we've tried several premium foods and been met with diarrhea, gas, and weight loss...I'm currently feeding Purina One, and even though I don't love the ingredients, the dogs are all doing well on it except some skinniness in the puppy.

 

Recently DH found a feed store and stopped in, came home with a bunch of dog food samples. I've been afraid to try them since I can't do a gradual switch with a sample bag, but I opened one up to use as treats, and lo and behold, it's the mystery dog food I've been trying to identify forever. Frosty came home with it in an unmarked container and the shelties ate it for months as pups and did great, but since his breeder dropped off the face of the earth I was never able to figure out what it was. It's Eagle Pack. I want to try it, but I'm afraid of upsetting their systems again.

 

Thoughts? Two of my dogs are hard keepers, the youngest looks positively anorexic, so I'm particularly interested in whether you have to feed alot to keep weight on, and if there was any digestive upset.

[Maralynn]

Eagle Pack is a pretty good kibble from what I've seen/read. I've never fed it, but know people who have with good results. If your dogs did great on it at one time, I'd give it a shot again. There are several different varieties so you might want to get a 10 or 20# bag the first time around just to make sure it still agrees with them and that you got the right variety.

[MaggieDog]

I prefer their Holistic line and really wish I could get it here. It's a good food for a reasonable price.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

It's my go-to food when I can't do straight homemade (like now, too busy with home school end o year stuff). I'm getting ready to try the Power Pack for the livestock guardian dogs - I just discovered I can get it through K9 Cuisine (free shipping for orders over $50).

 

I'm switching from Diamond Extreme Athlete because I've been getting inconsistent results lately and it's starting to worry me, given Diamond's history. K9 Cuisine carries the Holistic line too, but I can get it locally through the wonderful feed store up here in Danville.

 

It's a good company, one of the last left that seem really concerned about service rather than just the bottom line.

[herdcentral]

I feed Eagle Pack Holistic. Keeps my youngsters in good condition and doesnt pack weight on my older girl. Nice shiny coats and my mums dog that has always had an unpredictable stomach is doing really well with no nasty diarrohea like before.

 

My BC was a bit too lean but on 1 3/4 cups a day she is now a nice lean weight without being too thin. I feed my young ACD the same and she is also lean without being thin.

[JohnLloydJones]

I've fed Eagle Pack (fish) and Senneca did well on it. She used to a picky eater and Eagle Pack was one of the foods that she ate with out fuss.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

If your dogs did well on Purina One and not necessarily that great on holistic type formulas, Eagle Pack's Premium line is a great alternative. They have on based on pork, and one lamb-based food. The duck meal formula in the Holistic line is also a nice one that's highly digestible.

[theshine]

Thanks everyone...I signed up online for some coupons, I'm gonna try mixing it in with this bag of PO really really slowly and see how it goes. I was thinking about starting with the regular, not the holistic...same price as what I'm feeding now, maybe $2 more.

[Jedismom]

I'm always on the lookout for a good food so I went online to look at the eagle pack ingredients. The eagle pack has ground corn in it. The holistic line does not. I thought corn was an ingredient to try to avoid? I wonder why it's in one of their lines and not the other.

[theshine]

I'm always on the lookout for a good food so I went online to look at the eagle pack ingredients. The eagle pack has ground corn in it. The holistic line does not. I thought corn was an ingredient to try to avoid? I wonder why it's in one of their lines and not the other.

 

Their cheaper line has corn...I personally don't have a problem with corn in dog food, as long as it isn't the first ingredient. My dogs don't have any allergies to corn, just sensitive tummies...surprisingly all of the foods that seemed to bother them were corn free.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Corn's a grain like any other. What you have to watch for in corn-based foods, is a tendency to use corn gluten meal to up the protein in a normal formula, or even worse, foods where it's first on the ingredient list. I have one dog that actually does best on a corn-based food.

[Oz Girls]

I too feed Eagle Pack Holistic (chicken) very successfully. We have one girl who has ongoing problems with a sensitive stomach and had an apparent lack of interest in any food til she was 18 months old when we switched her food over to Eagle Pack. Now she actually asks for her dinner!

 

Here in Australia it is one of the only high quality kibble foods they sell, but for us it has worked really well.

 

We have found she needs 2 cups a day to maintain her weight and she is still very lean.

[Liz P]

One of the big problems I have had with corn in the past is the companies had it ground so coarsely that the dogs were getting horrible diarrhea and could not digest it at all. Eagle Power Pack is made for dogs who quite literally eat and run. By nature their food must be easy to digest and full of nutrients. I fed PP for years and my dogs were never sick on it, even at the height of race season. Eagle Pack is very well respected by the dog sledding community and their PP formula is field tested in the hardest races on earth. Some dogs really can't eat corn at all, but you would be surprised just how many dogs who can't eat cheap foods with poorly processed corn can eat a high quality food with it.

 

Another big difference between Eagle PP and other foods with corn is the proportion of meat and fat to corn. Many cheap foods are based on corn with a little meat added. Better foods are made with meat and fat first, then carbohydrates like corn. Some of the cheap foods not only use corn as their primary ingredient, they falsely elevate their protein levels with plant protein (totally useless for dogs).

 

I've even caught the better dog food companies tricking people by substituting useless plant sources of nutrients for animal sources. Omega 3 fatty acids from plants (flax seed) are not very bioavailable for dogs, and yet many foods claiming to add omega 3 FAs are just adding cheap flax seed. You want your omega 3 FAs from fish, otherwise you are wasting your money.

[Laurelin]

I've fed Eagle Pack (fish) and Senneca did well on it. She used to a picky eater and Eagle Pack was one of the foods that she ate with out fuss.

 

That's what I noticed. My picky eater will actually eat eagle pack, which is so nice and means all 5 dogs can be on one food. We've been having fantastic results on Eagle Pack Holistic. We fed EVO for a long time and it worked on 3/5 of the dogs but gave the others runny stool.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

I can't remember, but I think Eagle Pack PP does have corn gluten in it. But that's okay because I know it's got more than enough meat protein.

 

Using corn gluten to supplement high quality meat protein, allows the dog to use the amino acids available in the corn gluten, without raising the ash level of the food - in other words you can have that 30% protein food but without a horrendous amount of minerals to process. Their corn products are all sourced not only from the US, but locally (for them). The chicken they use is low ash too.

 

I'm really looking forward to trying it out. I was happy with the Diamond product for a long time but I'm not so sure now - so I was glad to find a source for the Power Pack.