Purina FortiFlora ?

[Cynthia Shoe]

Hi Folks,

Long story short, our pup Lambeau has ongoing GI Issues. Over the past year, after meeting with an internal medicine specialist and being enrolled in a study at our vet hospital, we have reduced his frequency of episodes (mostly vomiting). He has been through the ringer with testing and in the end, the thing that seems to cause him the most GI issues is ingesting beef. Yesterday, he started with diarrhea, which lasted through the night. We went to the vet today, who prescribed him the metro, because of bacteria in his stool. This has helped him before with diarrhea. In the past we have always done the Purina FortiFlora with the antibiotic. However, we have not used this in the past year+ since he was mostly vomiting. The ingredients list just says 'animal digest'. The vet had no idea if this means it might have beef in it. Does anyone here happy to know? I will also be reaching out to the company directly, but do not expect an answer right away. Thanks!

[Barbara, Zoey and Zeke]

So sorry your pup is having these issues.  I have no clue about the beef.  However Karen & Jackdoodle  is someone on these boards that is very knowledgeable about nutrition.  I found this discussion about some of the same issues.  Maybe it can start you on your learning curve.  Hopefully others will chime in. 

http://www.doodlekisses.com/group/thefoodgroup/forum/topics/goldend...

[Stella]

There are much better probiotics than Fortiflora.  A better choice is Proviable DC, you can buy it online. 

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Fortiflora is not nearly as good as Proviable (order on Amazon).  There is a human probiotic (recommended by vet specialists) that is even better. It’s a bit more expensive and must be kept refrigerated. It’s called VSL#3. I got mine at CVS.  Remember that you must separate the probiotic and the Metro by at least  2 hours. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Fortiflora is garbage. And animal digest is a very low quality "flavoring agent"  which very well could contain beef or any other type of animal. It's described in the Dog Food Project's Ingredients to Avoid: 

http://www.dogfoodproject.com/?page=badingredients

AAFCO: A material which results from chemical and/or enzymatic hydrolysis of clean and undecomposed animal tissue. The animal tissues used shall be exclusive of hair, horns, teeth, hooves and feathers, except in such trace amounts as might occur unavoidably in good factory practice and shall be suitable for animal feed. If it bears a name descriptive of its kind or flavor(s), it must correspond thereto.

A cooked-down broth made from unspecified parts of unspecified animals. The animals used can be obtained from any source, so there is no control over quality or contamination. Any kind of animal can be included: "4-D animals" (dead, diseased, disabled, or dying prior to slaughter), goats, pigs, horses, rats, misc. roadkill, animals euthanized at shelters, restaurant and supermarket refuse and so on.