Conventional & Holistic Pet Care
Debra J. Mack, DVM, CVA
4402 Mirth Place, Boise, ID 83704

Dear Jim,

I quite often get asked the question by clients as well as my distributors as to why there is not a separate puppy formula in your product line. To be quite honest, it was a question in the back of my mind as well when I became a distributor.

I have raised several litters of puppies on most of the well known premium brands of puppy food and this summer raised my first Flint River litter. I purposefully did not supplement with other puppy food or use supplements other than yogurt and vitamin C, to determine for myself if the regular formula was adequate for weaning and growing puppies. The results - the food moistens quite readily into a soft gruel for starting the puppies on solid food. Other products take much longer soaking to completely reduce the food to a gruel consistency. There were no problems with soft stools as long as the puppies did not overeat.

I have now raised three of the puppies to the age of six months with nicely controlled growth rates, beautiful coat and condition, and to this point, excellent overall health and soundness. I cannot claim this for the "premium puppy foods" I have used in the past.

I also have a client who has recently weaned a litter of Rottweilers on Flint River and is very pleased with her results, as well as numerous other client raising healthy, sound structured puppies on regular formula Flint River Dog Food.

My question now would be, "Would it ever be necessary to have a separate puppy formula if the quality of the food was high enough to provide high quality, highly digestible ingredients which would render the necessary nutrients needed for proper (controlled) growth and development?" It appears at this time from my observations, that the answer is "No", and if so, would not be the first pet food fallacy I have discovered.

I have been breeding and showing English Setters for 15 years and practicing veterinary medicine for nearly that long, and felt you would appreciate hearing of my personal results with Flint River, as well as those of some of my clients. I feel very fortunate to have such an excellent line of pet foods available for myself and my clients, as I firmly believe it is the first and most important part of a preventive or restorative health program.

Letter reprinted by permission.

Best Friends Animal Clinic
619 Bishop Street Atlanta, GA 30318

Flint River Ranch
Jim Flint, President
PO Box 1473
Santa Ana, CA 92702

Dear Jim:

I'm so glad that I decided to become a Flint River Ranch Distributor. Not only is FRR an excellent food, I also feel we are uniquely positioned to take maximum advantage of the marketing opportunity here in the Southeast. The market is virtually untouched. I'm truly excited by the prospect of bringing such a great product to the pet food buying public.

As you know, I have been retailing FRR in my clinic for several months now. I have had only positive results. The food is so palatable, I have yet to have any pet refuse to eat it. The clients are seeing noticeable improvement in their pets' skin, haircoat and general level of vitality. I have a three-year old Westie that suffers from atopy and allergies in general. Her owner commented just today that she has never seen Maddie's hair look so good! I agree! Another patient was in the clinic almost every other month with chronic yeast or Staph. When I saw him last week, his ears were clean and healthy. The owner reports no changes other than feeding Flint River! I also have a couple of FUS cats now on FRR instead of Feline C/D. So far so good!

Only a couple of years ago I was one of the top retailers of Hills Science Diet in the metro Atlanta area. I felt comfortable feeding and recommending these products to my clients. Now, however, I am seeing the results of feeding a high quality ALL NATURAL food. Those artificial ingredients and preservatives truly do (directly or in directly) cause a of host of problems. I'll never again recommend any food that is not totally natural.

Since the introduction of the Petsmart stores in our area, I had sharply curtailed the retail side of my business. Why try to compete with the "big guys"? There was no way to compete with their prices - they were selling some Science Diet products for less than I could purchase them wholesale! Now, not only do I have a much superior product to offer my clients, I can also offer HOME-DELIVERY at no extra charge! Since Flint River will never be sold at discount prices at a pet superstore, I am developing client loyalty that will last the life of the pet, even if the owner moves out of my area.

I'm excited about working with you to bring Flint River Ranch Foods to a much wider market. By sharing this product with my clients, as well as other vets and pet care providers, we are providing a means of improving the overall health of pets in general, as well as developing a substantial income for ourselves! What a "Win-Win" proposition!!!

I hope to see you soon! Feel free to call me at any time if you have suggestions. Ann Tift and I are working hard to get our volume up so we can have a Flint River plant here in Georgia in the next year or so!

Your truly,

Dr. Junia Childs

Reprinted by permission. Original letter on file.

Walter A. McCall, DVM
Holistic Veterinary Medicine
SPECIAL INTEREST IN CHRONIC "INCURABLE" DISEASES
2160 S. Winchester Blvd.
Campbell, CA 95008
408-378-5190

To everyone in the Flint River Ranch family:

I have two Maine Coon mix cats who were born at the clinic in 1979 and who have lived there since then. They are a brother and sister team and have the run of the clinic. They both inherited the ability to form excessive crystals in their urine. The male would easily become blocked except when fed Prescription diet CD. For this reason they were both fed CD which was designed to prevent the formation of crystals by limiting the minerals from which the crystals form. This diet saved his life and allowed him to live a normal life for the 14 years that he and his sister were on it.

During this time I was very concerned about the lack of wholeness and quality in the CD. The only animal protein in the CD came from poultry by-product meal, glandular meat and poultry digest which is garbage and probably useless as a wholesome food. Most must be detoxified by the liver and then eliminated from the body because it can not be used by the body for nourishment. If you go fishing and clean the fish you catch, what you throw away are the by-products. Would you eat this stuff? If not, then don't feed it to your best friends. The dry CD also contains as preservatives BHA and Ethoxyquin. Even the FDA won't allow the use of this stuff in our food. We tried dozens of different foods which appeared to be good from the list of ingredients on their labels. In every case the boy would begin to block within two days after having as little as a teaspoon of the test food mixed with his CD. While on the CD his sister developed a severe case of military dermatitis with raw scabs over her body. She could only be keep under control with corticosteroids.

In May 1994 1 received a phone call from my friend John Limehouse who shares my concern over the lack of wholesome pet foods. John told me what Jim Flint was doing and thought I would be interested in the food he was making. The next day Jim Flint called me and since that day I have sold an awful lot of the Flint River Ranch food. The clinic cats were put on the food and taken off CD. The boy has gone over a year without a hint of the urinary crystal problem and his sister's skin is without a blemish.

Both cats have been fed only the Flint River Ranch cat food with the exception of the girl who has on occasion been given a teaspoon of different canned food as "treats." These treats were from specially chosen canned foods that had a very good looking list of ingredients on their label. These included some of the Iams products that looked very good. In every case she started breaking out again within two days. I can only conclude that someone is lying about what is contained in their canned food. I suspect that the culprit is liver in some form because it would contain all of the toxins that the animal had accumulated during its lifetime and had been stored in its liver when it was slaughtered for food.

I specialize in treating the so called "chronic incurable diseases" of Western medicine and many of my patients are considered to be dying when they come to me. One of the first changes in their life style is to have all of my patients eating a wholesome, human quality food. In order for a patient to be cured of these "incurable" diseases they must become healthy. Without a good wholesome diet the rest of the therapy can not be successful. I can not recommend any other food other than the Flint River Ranch food.

Reprinted with permission. Original letter on file.