We occasionally like to pick a random pet food brand or gear and do a review. On the list, today is our Life’s Abundance Dog food review. This popular food is often recommended by breeders (who receive kickbacks for selling it), however, it is rarely if ever recommended by veterinarians. I wanted to dig into why that is!
Many breeders will offer and promote Life’s Abundance puppy food to puppy buyers, and may even require it as part of your contract or health guarantee!
This is not your typical review! We are not a dog food clickbait site – you won’t see us breaking down the merits of a food solely on its ingredients, but rather, it’s manufacturing process, formulation practices, and overall ethics.
Let’s dig in!
Life’s Abundance Food & Great Dane Breeder Recommendations
It is really important to understand first that Life’s Abundance Food is an MLM Marketing Scheme.
That means that it’s often sold through a hierarchy of distributors (often breeders) who make a profit on the sale of the food. They can also profit by building teams through the recruitment of ‘Field Representatives’.
Simply put, the promotion of Life’s Abundance dog food is done in a similar way to other MLM brands such as Herbalife, Scentsy, Mary Kay, and Young living Oils.
Because their ability to profit from this product is directly tied to their ability to sell it to buyers and recruit other sellers, breeders are greatly motivated to produce more and more puppies to uphold their income stream.
This may be done without regard to health, structure, or diligence to breed type.
The Great Dane Breeders who are successful in selling lots of puppies will often be fanatic in their promotion of Life’s Abundance because, for them, it’s a winning numbers game.
More puppies produced = more food sales.
This creates an environment where unethical breeders are encouraged to breed more and more in the pursuit of ongoing commission-driven profits from puppy buyers.
Life’s Abundance is NOT a Dog Food Manufacturer or Company
Life’s Abundance is an MLM that sells nutritional supplements, cleaning supplies, and randomly…dog food.
Life’s Abundance is NOT a dog food company, and as of this writing, they do not manufacture or pack their products.
Additionally, the company does not make AAFCO Nutritional or formulation information easy to find.
As far as we can tell the brand is not involved in ongoing peer-reviewed nutritional research or legitimate testing. Despite this, their marketing relies heavily on the promotion that they sell a ‘proprietary’ blend of ingredients.
Without extensive testing and feeding trials, there is no proof behind the ‘health’ claims that this brand makes.
Life’s Abundance reps love to talk about how the brand is ‘free of recalls‘, however, this is intentionally misleading marketing. It can also be wildly unethical (see our study on Victor dog food, which had no recalls until November 2023 when it was discovered by a 3rd party that they had been selling contaminated food for months with no accountability).
‘No Recalls’ is a red flag.
Recalls are a positive sign that a brand is making efforts to uphold standards and mitigate formulation and production issues within its product.
A brand with no recalls, that wishes to uphold that record for marketing purposes is likely to ‘hide’ minor formulation and quality control problems instead of recalling them publicly.
In other words, ‘no recalls’ is NOT a key indicator of quality and safety. Recalls can happen for several reasons and many are not catastrophic.
Life’s Abundance Dog Food and Breeder Ethics
Many breeders who promote and profit from this product will offer a more robust health guarantee to buyers who keep their puppies on this food.
Some will even require that the food and/or supplements be purchased, no matter what.
The health guarantee and breeder support may become ‘void’ if the food’s auto shipment is turned off, and these breeders may even require that you return the puppy to them if you don’t support their food commission scheme.
It is not uncommon for puppy buyers to feel pressured into keeping their puppies on Life’s Abundance foods and supplements despite knuckling, chronic loose stools, stomach problems, allergies, flat feet, heart problems or low energy.
All of these are health problems where nutrition, especially nutrition from a company that has no legitimate scientific backing, may play a key role.
It is extremely unethical for a breeder to require the purchase of Life’s Abundance food and/or supplements. We consider this practice a key red flag, as it often rides in tandem with other unethical breeding practices such as inadequate health testing and breeding dogs with questionable structure.
Life’s Abundance Quality
Life’s Abundance makes it difficult to find their ingredients list; on their website, you can expect a list of ingredients within the food, but not in any particular order.
We are not board-certified Veterinary Nutritionists, so we have no business commenting on the specific ingredients, formulation, or health claims.
Coincidentally, neither do the breeders, ‘Dog Food Advisor’, or any other ‘food rating’ website.
Not to mention the fact that Life’s Abundance is not even formulated by a credentialed, board-certified veterinary nutritionist (DACVN).
A DACVN is one of the only people qualified to completely formulate kibble dog food and judge ingredients. (Read more here: https://vetnutrition.tufts.edu/2016/06/why-you-shouldnt-judge-a-pet-food-by-its-ingredient-list/)
The person in charge of creating the Life’s Abundance recipes is a ‘holistic’ veterinarian whose writings and focus seem to have been on…cats. While some people may take no issue with this, consider this.
The current FDA warnings about grain-free foods and boutique diets causing heart problems indicate that the problem is strongly correlated with boutique diets that are not formulated and rigorously tested by a credentialed veterinary nutritionist. So yes, that should alarm you.
Life’s Abundance is a marketing company, not a pet nutrition expert company.
The nutritional analysis of protein, calcium, and phosphorus in some Life’s Abundance formulas appear to be appropriate for Great Dane puppies, however, we are unable to definitively say if the correct balance of other nutrients (including key meat-based amino acids) is present.
For a 40lb bag (the typical size needed when raising Great Danes), you can expect to pay nearly $100.
As with all MLM products, the price is high to support the commission-based business model, not necessarily because it’s a higher-quality product.
We do not recommend Life’s Abundance dog food and encourage you to tread cautiously with any breeder that is heavily promoting, selling or encouraging this brand.
The same can be said for Life’s Abundance supplements and NuVet Vitamins, which we will cover in another blog post.
Do you sell or use Lifes Abundance dog food? Leave your comments below! We are open to friendly, polite, scientific dialogue on this topic.
