Bonnie Dog Food Review

WebsitePurina
Available fromPet Circle

On the Purina Australia website they claim this is “Real good food, for real good dogs“, which is a ridiculously un-factual statement. Truth be told it’s a diabolical food and your dogs definitely don’t deserve it whether they’re good dogs or bloody bad dogs.

We often find cheap grains used to bulk up dog foods. This maximises profit for the manufacturer but certainly has no benefit to your dogs. One of the cheapest grains is wheat, which consequentially is one of the worst grains to feed a dog. This is the main ingredient in Purina Bonnie which is appalling. It’s backed up with the non-nutritious, hard-to-digest, filthy cheap corn. At this point I could just say 1 star, don’t buy it, but I’ll continue…

Bonnie Dog Food Review

Dogs need a decent meat protein in their food, and the clever chaps at Purina have chosen Fish Meal for this. Having the main meat source third on the ingredient list is bad enough, but I doubt it’s a good ingredient anyway. The quality of the ingredient is largely open to debate, and given the quality of this food as a whole I imagine this to be the mashed up remains of mostly rank fish.

Ok, so we have poultry and poultry by-product meal, again with the quality open to debate. Kangaroo meat is a nice inclusion, but don’t be lured in to thinking this is a good food because it contains good-ole Aussie meat. I doubt there’s much Kangaroo in the food.

Why would they include skim milk? Most dogs are lactose intollerant. And blood meal…?

Bonnie Dog Food Review

If you haven’t read enough about Purina and their wonderful dog foods, then I’ll refer you to my review of Purina Beneful – a food I consistently hear rumours that it “kills dogs”.

Buy something else.

Ingredients

Ground whole wheat, ground whole corn, fish meal, poultry by-product meal, kangaroo meat, beef tallow, ground whole canola seed, skim milk, ground rice, blood meal, dried whole egg, natural antioxidants, essential vitamins and minerals.

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1 Total Score
Terrible

CONS
  • Cheap fillers
  • Little else

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13 Comments
  1. I for one am so glad Purina stopped making this food. They changed the recipe back in 2021 which I was advised on the phone by them personally. I noticed the size and shape and the awful smell and knew something was different. I was then told all was good and continue with it.
    within a couple of days after giving this new recipe my dog started having seizures, coincidence or not but I do know my dog was fit and healthy and no evidence of any seizure activity even within the dogs pedigree.
    Poison in a bag that was !

  2. In a world with servere poverty in humans, let alone dogs not being fed.. I do believe this food is brilliant for any dog to eat …
    Lets be grateful of all the choices we can bless our gorgeous dogs with …so many humans would even eat this as their bellies are starving ..
    Lets all be grateful that we can feed our dogs and that we are fed ourselves ..

  3. Reply
    Edward Quentin Waliser October 29, 2016 at 10:56 am

    We ran a boarding kennel+bred GSD years ago, fed Uncle Bens dry+raw mince. Morning cleaning was a nightmare – sloppy-poos! We tried a German DF (too expensive) and found Bonnie Roo working-dog (WD) dryfood. It was heart-shaped and felt oily at that time and poos well-formed, GSD coats brilliant! We only have 1 GSD+Volkshound now and still feed Bonnie WD (Roo) to GSD & Light to the Volks. It’s mixed with Roo from Coles and both dogs do formed poos. Bonnie WD has changed, no longer heart-shaped and not oily so somethings different? Bonnie Lite still heart-shaped.

  4. Poor dogs, roll the kibble bag over & always READ THE INGREDIENTS…. I can’t believe how Purina can do this to our dogs & cats, its awful… in America Purina is a bad word, so many dogs have died….

    • The problem is knowing what’s good and what’s not, we generally see wheat and corn as not being a bad thing for us so we assume that it’s awesome for our dogs.

      I’ve read a lot of comments of people who do read the ingredients lists and see nothing wrong with them, but I look at them and see several red ingredients, but uninformed people won’t see it, I would know I was one of those people 5 years back, the ingredients just didn’t scream bad to me, in fact I was 100% sure that the food was amazing and than I started researching and now 5 years later I am here and in the know and trying with everyone on dog food advisor to help people who don’t know, if they will listen to us we will help them as best we can and hopefully get them off bad foods and onto much better ones.

  5. Been feeding this to my German Shepherd Dog for years. She has had chronic ear infections and smelled as yeasty as a brewery. Her ear infections were constant, and cost me more than AUD$10,000 over 7 years in topical creams, vet consultations, lab results of swabs, antibiotics, skin allergy tests, and more. The vet even wanted to perform surgery to the ear canal! That’s not to mention the discomfort she must have felt by constantly itching and scratching. Of course our highly reputable vet(s) over the years always said it was common in German shepherds to get ear infections, and mentioned nothing at all about diet.

    I’ve switched to a food with no grains and the change was immediate. In less than a week her ear infections dried up, and her coat smelled like nothing at all. And so has it been since then.

    In contrast I also have a border collie who is fine on this food… Though, when I can afford to get him on the better stuff I wonder just how much difference it will make for him too!

    I’ll never go back to bonnie.

    • Reply
      Pet Food Reviews (Australia) May 23, 2016 at 11:31 am

      Hi Scott, thanks for taking the time to write that. Diet is almost always overlooked as the cause of such issues, but is often the cause. It’s surprising how little diet is covered on veterinary courses when it doesn’t take much to realise how fundamental diet is to an animals health.

  6. Disagree!
    Feed this for over 20 years to my dogs and never a problem !!My girl died at 15 and i must say looked fantastic for her age !! When she was 10 people saying what a beautiful puppy !!

    • Your comment based on a sample size of *one* reminds me of those who disagree with the risks of smoking. Why? Because they once knew a guy who smoked a pack a day and lived to 80, therefore smoking must be ok.

  7. I’m sorry but I’ve fed this to my dogs for many many years and they are all in good health with no medical problems or disease. I have Shelties and mine live to around 16-18 years old. How is this possible if I am feeding such rubbish as you would describe it.

    • Reply
      Pet Food Reviews (Australia) April 7, 2015 at 10:16 am

      Is that all you feed them Carol?

      • I fed all my dogs bonnie working dog! No health problems reported by vets when they had check ups! Lived exceedingly long lives! If you were serious about a review you would have researched the amount of roo meat and other ingredients instead of just reading the bag! And blood meal not being healthy? Blood is full of minerals and vitamins! And is part of many diets world wide! As is fish! Unless your dog has a lactose or grain allergy (which you should know) don’t feed it to your dog! Simple! Which dog food company is paying you off??

        • Pet Food Reviews (Australia) April 21, 2023 at 1:47 am

          Hi Shayne, this review and ingredients are very old. You’ll find the ingredients these days to be more like this:

          Wholegrain cereals and cereal and/or vegetable by-products; Meat & meat by-products (including poultry, beef and/or lamb) and/or poultry.

          What that means is your dog, which I’m sure you think of as an animal who prefers meat, organs, and blood (as you say), is being fed a dog feed made predominantly from cereals and by-products of those cereals (if you know what they are)?

          But, I’m interested if all your dogs were fed only Bonnie, or whether they were fed other stuff too?

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