Provo's Noni hopes to make tails wag with pricey canine supplement

PROVO — A new product produced by Tahitian Noni International boasts it will provide man's best friend with the nutrients needed to become top dog — but at top price.

A 32-ounce bottle of the new product — called Canine Essentials — costs between $38 and $48. For a dog weighing between 41 and 60 pounds, one bottle will last a little more than two weeks.

Canine Essentials comes in a liquid form. Depending on the size of the dog, between 20 and 120 milliliters of the supplement is poured over regular dog food.

Dr. Barry Rimmasch, a veterinarian at All About Pets in Provo, says, "They (supplements) can work sometimes. It depends on what is being supplemented and what the patient's problem is."

Keeping dogs healthy, Rimmasch said, requires no more than bringing them in for annual physical exams, keeping them updated on their vaccines and feeding them high quality dog food.

The noni plant is, of course, the key ingredient in Canine Essentials. Those who use products with noni juice say it, among other things, relieves stress and strengthens the immune systems.

They also say the antioxidants take care of free radicals — a molecule that has lost one of its electrons and becomes unstable. A free radical will attack other, healthy cells to get that electron back, setting off a chain reaction known as oxidative stress.

Richard Godbee, director of Companion Animal Nutrition for Tahitian Noni International, says people are talking about free radicals and the damages they can cause to health.

Dogs, specifically puppies, are pretty rambunctious, and the more an animal exercises, the more free radicals are created. If free radical production becomes excessive, damage can occur.

Just because the noni plant contains antioxidants doesn't mean it's the only place they come from, however.

Rimmasch says a supplement containing noni can be helpful, but a lot of things fight free radicals, like vitamins C and E.

"Most of those nutrients are found in regular good quality dog food, so if a dog is eating a good quality dog food they do not need any supplements," he said.

Also, he said the claims made by manufacturers does not apply to every single patient every single time.