Both of those are good foods. I personally would probably lean towards Blue Buffalo. Wellness was a really great food for a long time and prided itself on being a smaller independent company that was focused on providing an all life stages food product. They have since "sold out" so to speak and went big time with their marketing - packaging their products for inside cats, outside cats, overweigh cats, senior cats, senior dogs, overweight dogs, etc. - most of this is strictly marketing hype and a clear indication that they are going after the $ and not so much the original intent they had behind their products which was a high quality good pet food for "all life stages". In their defense, a good majority of pet food manufacturers offer these products suppsoedly tailored to overweight pets, senior pets, etc. so it's not that specifically that has me down on them. It's the fact that they made such a big to do about creating a product that is healthy for all life stages and plugged themselves for that, and being selective about where their products are carried and they made promises to the small town pet stores that they would never sell out and take their products to the big boys like Petco and PetSmart. Then shortly after they started changing all their packaging to reflect on these new "formulas" they went big time with the big box stores. It was all a big marketing ploy from the start, if you ask me.
Wellness is also the same company that produces the "Old Mother Hubbard" line of pet foods and snacks, I haven't looked up this line recently, but it used to be mediocre petfoods with by-product ingrediets. Being that Wellness is supposed to produce a great product such as Wellness with pets health a a top priority, I never understood why they also produced a significantly lessor quality product.
Before all the pet food recalls, I would shy away from basically anything sold in PetSmart, Petco and grocerty stores, as they were really all garbage quality. Finally though, they are starting to bring in better quality foods. I honestly think Wellness thought of this as their prime opportunity to take advantage of the growing market for higher quality pet foods. The problem is I have noticed their packaging, ingredients and products seem to be taking a backseat and I think ultimately their end product is suffering. I don't think they are producing the product they used to.
Blue Buffalo has seemingly stayed commited to the health of pets and providing the best products they can. They have a Wilderness version and an organic version of their foods now as well. They are available in PetSmart, but it seems that they really emerged there to begin with. If you shop at Petco Natural Balance is another pretty good one. Though, I think if I had to pick between the two, I'd go for Blue Buff over the NB anyday. I want to say that I remember one of the Natural Balance products having been recalled for rice gluten when it wasn't even supposed to be in the product int he first place...but I'm not certain on that one.
Oh and Blue Buff also has a foundation that they created to help provide funding to veterinary universities and organizations that are trying to research treatments and ultimately a cure for cancer, which is the number 1 disease related cause for the death of our pets. Having a rottie that I lost several year ago to an aggressive cancer, that means a lot to me. I lke to support businesses that give back.
Message Edited by UpUpUp on
09-01-2008 04:39 PM
