Pet Food?

[donna723]

I was told that the classes in nutrition in vet schools are taught by reps from the pet food companies ... Science Diet and Eukaneuba, and I believe it! These companies have a really good things going! They sell crappola food for premium prices that people are willing to pay because they think it's good because the vet is selling it! It's JUNK! The pet food companies sell a lot of bad dog food and the vets get a percentage. I've actually heard people who bought this s*** for their dogs refer to it as "prescription food" because it came from the vet! And believe it or not, once when there was a substitute for our regular vet, I found myself explaining to her what grain-free Taste of the Wild was and why I gave it to Ragan the Allergy Queen and how much better she was on it! I even brought in the ingredient list so she could read it and see what the difference was! I can't believe I was actually educating a vet on dog food but I was!

 

[buddy]

Not my vet. They all are picky at my clinic. But, they also know people will buy depending on their finances. I had a couple of years where I couldn't gather enough at one time to get better food.
But I told her what I had him on from where I got him and she said it was not the worst but did suggest when I could to change. She suggested home cooked or high quality. She said unless he is sensitive to grains they are ok so just pay attention to the type and not corn. And told me to ask around so I asked a bunch of my fb dog lover friends and people here. I wish I'd have done better all along for my Buddy...terrible teeth and a tumor at age16. But I'm trying harder with JJ and Buddy is getting the same now.

 

[susiestar]

I think that the best you can do is all you can expect of yourself. I have long wondered why so many vets tell you that table scraps are so bad for dogs if you are eating and serving healthy foods. I don't think the vet school nutrition teachers are employees of the pet food cos, but they ARE doing research for those co's and getting grants/scholarships and tons of educational materials and supplies from those companies. In one way or another they are given rewards of substantial value from those companies.

There ARE times when the science diet foods ARE actual prescriptions. If you have a cat with recurrent kidney problems, there IS a science diet that is designed to help fix that. It is still cruddy nutrition, but it won't cause the kidney problems and is safer than most pet foods. The problem is that only a very small portion of the animals need that food but most vets will tell you that you must keep the cat on that food for life or they will die a horrible and painful death.

Pet food companies are to vets what pharmaceutical companies are to doctors, only there are very very very few regulations for the pet food reps to follow. They CAN make wild claims for the most part as long as they word them carefully to give the impression of being proven by research but not actually saying they are proven by research.

I find it interesting that my mom and dad say their cats won't touch teh TOTW that I took over, but when I had it out as treats the cat who NEVER comes out for anyone but my parents and Wiz was all over me wanting more. My folks will NOT believe that science diet is not the most wonderful pet food around. Of course it took the vet six years to get them to believe that, and I have enough other things to deal with so I let them deal with their own cats and dog.

It is odd, but any time I hear the claims about puppies needing puppy chow or dogs being so unhealthy if they eat anything other than processed commercial dog food, it reminds me of neurontin. Neurontin is a great medication for epilepsy and a few other things. But the drug co spent millions telling psychiatrists all over that it was an amazing mood stabilizer when it was NOT one. It was proven that it was NOT in any way effective as a mood stabilizer. Many of the studies actually showed that not taking medications was better than taking neurontin for bipolar. The company buried those and told the reps to push push push and we had millions of people taking it when it was NOT working. I know there was a point on the forum where a LOT of our kids and parents were taking it and having huge problems. It ended up being one of the larger court cases to happen and some of the largest fines ever given to drug co's were given from this.

There are still psychiatrists out tehre who SWEAR that neurontin worked super well for every patient they rx'd it to though. Makes me wonder what it will take to convince people how bad corn is for dogs, Know what I mean??

 

[Hound dog]

I never bought into the notion that commercial food was better than anything else for dogs..........and I'm getting mighty iffy that way for cats to be honest. The strays are teaching me some insightful new things, lemme tell you. (and they are a hearty bunch, especially for strays)

I grew up supplementing dogs from the table, if not actually feeding them from the table. (depended on whether or not there was extra funds for commercial dog food) Our dogs were healthy......as I recall they had few health issues than strictly commercial fed dogs.

I did my dogs the same way. I see no reason to waste perfectly good food if the dog will eat it without issue. I've had some mighty healthy dogs over the years. Although they did have a regular diet of commercial food too, usually generic. (I'm realizing now my supplementing them was a contributing factor in their health as I eat healthy most of the time)

For instance I've had vets totally amazed at my dogs teeth/gum health. They start in on me how if I don't brush blah blah blah......they look into the dogs mouth and wow holy moly those are some white teeth! They ask how..........and I say bones, real ones. They shut up and I never hear another peep about brushing teeth. ( I am soooo NOT brushing my dogs teeth omg) lol Then of course they feel it necessary to warn me about chicken bones. In which I inform them I've only had one dog who couldn't handle chicken bones.......Betsy the woofer......she didn't chew as well as all the other dogs I've had. Now I don't hand them chicken bones, mind you, but I don't freak if they happen to snitch one either. Never been a problem......Maggie is nuts for them if she can get her mouth on one you're not gonna get it back.

I've had vets give me lectures on how my dogs are going to be malnourished if I supplemented them from the table. (never quite figured out how that was supposed to work if they were still eating the kibble) I've had them tell me they'd be morbidly obese too. Molly was the only over weight dog I've ever had.........and that was because she was chubby right before being spayed.....and I'm sorry losing a uterus does to a dog what it does to a woman, makes it tough to lose pounds. Molly was the healthiest overweight dog they ever saw. Even my bassets were the appropriate weight. I didn't feed them junk....I fed them food. geez

I never bought in to that nonsense because what were dogs/cats eating prior to commercial pet foods? People food. Commercial food came along as a convenience.......then a cheaper way to feed them......and now we know why it's cheaper.

I admit I did only recently learn about the whole dogs and corn thing. Molly loved corn.......she was far more human than dog. lol If she didn't digest it, I certainly never saw evidence of it. And she ate it all the time from the table as well as in her kibble. But then she could eat anything......literally. (has to be an exception to every rule)

I've been giving this some thought today. I do like knowing what my dogs are eating.......because I'm the one preparing it for them. I have very down to earth vets and to be honest I wouldn't be stunned to discover their dogs don't eat commercial foods. So I'll let him know my recipe and see if anything should be added for Rufus or what. I know when Maggie started in on her homemade food that darn acid reflux nonsense she had every single morning.........stopped cold. Minute I run out, it starts up again with a vengeance and she is miserable. With what I put in her food and what she gets either as snacks or scraps.........I know she is getting what she needs. She also stopped eating dirt.........and I do mean chomping down dirt like it was food. (she gets potato peels every time I do potatoes for the minerals)

I keep thinking about the several recipes for cat food I found ( a couple were done by vets) and I wonder about them. easy child's cats eat just about everything under the sun......they're as bad as any dog......and as healthy as any cat I've ever seen. Same for the strays we both feed. Hers get scraps from the table because sister in law thinks nothing of giving it to them. Mine get them because they tend to dig in the trash and eat them. Mine are pretty darn healthy too. Except for Minnie with that weird thing on her neck that appears to be an open sore but doesn't act like an open sore........no clue wth that thing is but it doesn't hurt her, doesn't get infected, healed completely several times and reappears for no apparent reason at all.

Prior to seeing sister in law give cats scraps........I used to think they were picky and wouldn't eat such things. Well.......now Mr Bruce who has decided he won't eat 9 lives.......is snitching table food when he would never so much as look at it before.

But I'm just not enough of a cat person to feel comfortable making their food as I wouldn't have a clue what their real nutritional needs are. Maybe it's more similar to dogs than we think (as the strays seem to indicate) but maybe not. Know what I mean??

I have only had one vet try to basically force me into feeding a dog Science Diet.........I can't remember his spiel but it was meant to make me feel guilty as heck and of course i was supposed to buy it from him at an outrageous price. 9this was ages ago with one of my bassets) I just laughed at him and found a new vet. I didn't have anything against the food at the time.......but I had issues with a vet giving me a spiel I knew to be total bull crud. lol If he wasn't going to be honest about food.........what else was he going to be dishonest about? Know what I mean??

 

[DammitJanet]

The one thing I see missing from your diet is a few varied grains instead of just rice. I would add wheat germ or especially millet. I would go to the bird seed dept and buy a big bag of millet and add some of that to your food. Its excellent for them. I have told you the name of the food I am getting now and its about a dollar a pound. Its at TSC and if you look at the ingredients you could probably copy them pretty well. It has berries and fruit in it plus they add some vitamins and minerals in there.

 

[susiestar]

I did some searching online and found that contrary to popular belief, dogs CAN utilize grains and do need them. There is a site dedicated to dog food and dog issues that has a lot of info that basic common sense says is logical and most probably correct. In looking at the author and her credentials, it sure looks like she has done quite a bit of research and knows what she is talking about.

Here is the site, open to a page on myths: http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=myths

One question is about dogs needing special foods for different life stages. The answer is that any nutritionally complete diet is fine for any stage of life. Puppies and senior dogs do NOT need special food. The amount of food needs to be adjusted, but not the food itself. It makes sense. Dogs do not automatically die if they are raised in teh wild and they eat what Mommy eats after she weans them.

Here is info about the author: http://www.betterdogcare.com/?page=about

The myth section says that dogs DO need grains. they eat what they can get, and that ncludes grains. They cannot digest all of each grain, but they are a good thing. rice is the most digestible, but even corn is somewhat digestible. They claim 54% digestible for corn, but who knows the exact number. Most dogs still hav problems from it, and if you bulk them up with corn it will move things through the digestive tract faster so they do not absorb all the nutrients that they can from food.

Itnteresting site, in my opinion.

 

[Hound dog]

Sounds reasonable.

I'm going to venture to guess that some dogs/breeds may have more issues with corn than others, somewhat like humans. Then again our corn nowadays in my opinion is not all that fit for human consumption either in my opinion.

 

[donna723]

The thing about corn is that a lot dogs are allergic to it. It's one of the most common allergens with dogs. And it's in almost every commercial dog food out there. Before I got smart enough to read labels (well duh!), I used to feed Ragan an expensive canned food that appeared to be just little meat slices. Her coat was thin - almost non-existent in places, and her skin was itchy all the time. Once I read the label I saw that the gravy in the little meat slices was thickened with a corn derivitive! Once I changed her food, her coat filled in and she stopped scratching.

Barring any allergies, I think certain types of grains and vegetables are good for dogs and cats too. Many of the expensive premium foods contain oatmeal and a lot of them have rice. Both of them are usually non-allergenic and healthy. They weren't made to get by strictly on meat. Their wild ancestors lived by killing smaller animals and eating them. This part is a little gross but true ... when they ate their unfortunately little victims, they ate the entire thing including the stomach contents of their prey including whatever grass, vegetation or grains that their prey had eaten. So in the wild they would be eating a balance of all of these things.

 

[AnnieO]

Lisa, the processor is yours! I'll make sure you get it soon... May take it to Nichole as she is so near my parents.

I know some people food can be toxic, such as onions... But that would have to be in quantity. We let Bubbles lick plates, have fat etc. He's pretty darned healthy. The cats don't get as much, and Possum had the skin issues. So.

As for corn... If I poop out hulls, Lord knows what happens with my furries.

 

[nerfherder]

Just a note - if you can get "green tripe" from your butcher, that makes one of the kinds of balanced foods. It's kind of gross to us modern humans - it's unprocessed tripe, and it's green because, well, that's what the cow or steer had in its rumen when it was zapped.

I've got 8 portions of "green" rabbit "tripe" in the freezer right now. That, plus a head and some feet will be an occasional treat of a meal for Marley. Pita and Cowboy are *much* pickier, and won't touch obvious organ meats (they get theirs as marrow or the weird bits off the chicken backs.) I also have a pot of stock going in the crockpot overnight, and Cowboy is a crazydog for cooked rabbit meat. He was hovering over me (much as a 2.5 lb deerleg chihuahua can be said to "hover") in the kitchen this evening, I expect he smelled the crock simmering.

 

[donna723]

Just as a rule, I would never a dog have ANY chocolate because if they react badly to it, they could die. It's something to do with the cocoa content. Chocolate candy like a Hershey bar would potentially be much more harmful to them than something like chocolate cake that just flavored with chocolate. And it has to do with the amount eaten vs. the size of the dog. If they ate a large amount of chocolate with no ill effects, it was just lucky.

And unless a dog is allergic to corn like my Ragan is, it doesn't actually "harm" them. But it's a filler and does them no good either - no nutritional value at all because they don't digest it. It goes right through them and creates massive poops. I've known people who gave their dogs whole ears of corn and the dog loved it. But a few of these dogs died or had to have expensive surgery because they swallowed large chunks of the corn cob and got intestinal blockages from it.

I've always heard that onions are harmful but small amounts seem to be OK. If they occasionally get a small amount of leftover human food with onions cooked in to it, it won't hurt them. There are two absolute NO-NO's with dogs though. NEVER give them grapes or raisins! A few fresh grapes mght not hurt them - we used to have one that would pick them off the vine and eat them, but they really shouldn't have any. But a dog that ate a large amount of raisins could be in serious trouble. Another thing they should never, ever, EVER have is anything containing artificial sweetners like the kind in sugarless chewing gums! Even a small amount can be fatal to dogs. If you use sugarless gum, please be very careful how it's disposed of. If a piece of gum is carelessly tossed down outside and your dog finds it and eats it, you could very well lose your dog!

 

[witzend]

I know when we talked to our vet, they did advise that puppy formulated foods were really not necessary unless you want them to grow fat and fast. I agree that they will also advise you to buy whatever is on their shelf, so...

I find that when the dogs eat food when they're at the doggy day care - the cheap stuff - their poop is HUGE and stinkier than usual, they get gas (Mandy will bring tears to your eyes) and they are starving! So, we do buy a brand with very few additives to it. Some vitamins and minerals, but that is about it. Mandy LOVES Fish Oil pills, and we'll give her those when her coat gets too dry.

 

[greenrene]

Ok, as if I didn't have anything else to do - now I want to give homemade dog food a shot. I have an elderly Rottweiler who has bad hip problems (has a hard time walking, poor girl!) and apparently itches ALL the time, although I wonder if some of her licking is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) because she licks the floor quite a bit as well. I also have a 2-year-old pit/lab mix who is prone to flea infestation - it's strange, he could be covered in fleas, and the other dog won't have a single one on her. I just gave him a very thorough flea bath the other day, and I'm already finding more on him. I wonder if it's something in his body chemistry...

 

[susiestar]

I think it can be body chemistry, green. I was around fourteen when we were visiting my gma and taking care of her neighbor's pool and house while they were out of town. The neighbor helped care for my gma, so we timed our visit to care for their home while they were away. The hose to the icemaker broke at some point and we found it in the middle of our stay. Their entire kitchen, living room, dining area, and even into one bedroom was soaked. Carpet was totally wet and in the FL heat? They had a big dog (not at home at this time) and he was always full of fleas. This was before frontline and dips/collars were about the only choices. Until then I never had a problem with the pets' fleas bugging me. I was in that house for three min or less and my legs looked like I had black knee high socks on. It was hideous and painful. After about 3 hours my legs were all swollen from the flea bites. Since then? I know BEFORE the cat starts to scratch if he has fleas. I have with every animal we have had since then. They LOVE me.

So I do htink it is body chem that attracts them.

As for odd cuts of meat, our grocery offered something new last week. They called it KC mix and it was sixty percent beef and forty percent pork ground together. We couldn't find it on the shelves because it flew out of there at under $2 per pound. It will be coming back, of that I am SURE. I am hoping to get to Sam's tomorrow early enough to find their closeout meat deals. Some of them are amazing.

If the dogs chew the corn, they can digest some of it. It is getting it broken down a bit by chewing that is the hard part. Sort of like with teenage boys, they often don't chew well.

 

[AnnieO]

Well... I went to TSC this morning and picked up TOTW for cats and dog. The cats have turned up their nose... Oh well, if they get hungry they will eat.

 

[nerfherder]

Molly ate chocolate all the time. Betsy did too........also ate one of those huge bags of m&ms at one sitting before we caught her (she was a little pup) Never bothered them. I wonder on that one if it's more small breeds because as I think back, I've had most my dogs eat chocolate. My kids had a tendency to share most of what they ate with the dogs regardless of what I said. lol

I almost lost my Grin because he jumped the kitchen gate during the night and got at a pound of unsweetened baking chocolate. He ate 3/4 of it, puked most of it all over the carpet, enough of the rest got into his brain and heart that he was a twitching mess barely able to keep out of seizure territory. Once I figured out what was going on we got him to the Vet ER, and he was there for 72 hours on sedatives and heart medications. He slept for nearly a week solid when he got home, only getting up to poo, pee, eat and drink. And his metabolism was never quite right after that, I think it maybe did something to his pancreas - he had occasional attacks of pancreatitis, we could only feed him the cheapest, lowest protein kibble he could survive on. He was a 40 lb lab/Italian greyhound cross. Lived to about age 11.

 

[buddy]

This got me interested so I went on you tube and other sites and read more. Such diverse ideas!
I did find it interesting that vegetables are not able to be processed unless pureed but that is only of you want them to get some of the nutrition.
They are valuable in other ways of eaten raw, not pureed, like they naturally express the anal glands if eaten whole.

I was reading about feeding raw versus cooking for homemade. That is interesting too.....but the big take away was that almost any bones are ok....as long as they are not cooked. Some said not to use the really strong weight bearing bones because teeth can break.
I thought all chicken bones were bad, some sites were picky about the back bones and some said to supervise of your dog doesn't know to chew them yet sure to no experience, to start holding it to force them to bite. But as long as they are not cooked, they are fine.

Not sure I'm up to raw, but really seems the most nutritious overall.

Well, JJ happily ate his nutri source.....but I'm really considering....

And the list of no no foods...some I knew but some I didn't

So we have chocolate
Onions
Grapes
Raisins
Macadamia nuts (and others loo forgot but loo don't buy them)
Apple seeds and some other seeds
Did someone say cauliflower?

Jj loves crunching carrots, spinach, broccoli.....

I saw that many people feed turkey....but some here said no I saw.

gonna do some more research.......

 

[DammitJanet]

They say taters...white...are bad for dogs if raw but okay if cooked. This is one Im iffy on because dogs in the wild dont have microwaves. LOL

I cant do a completely homemade diet. I like my food I buy at TSC but cant afford taste of the wild. I found this new one there that is just as good according to the dog food site and is cheaper. TSC has a ton of treats made for all the different ailments...like teeth, bone problems, skin issues...etc

 

[HaoZi]

There was an interesting article in Popular Science recently on pet food.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-03/chemistry-kibble?single-page-view=true

 

[susiestar]

My biggest problem with raw food for dogs is the cleanup. Most of us have kids. Kids are generally not the greatest hand washers. Many foods have e. coli and other dangerous bacteria unless/until cooked. If feeding a raw diet and kids do cleanup or play in that area, the risk of serious disease goes up tremedously.

Given that I know a family that comes close to losing one son once or twice a year due to e. coli, this is a big deal to me. The son was two and was playing in a barn that had not had livestock in over a decade. He got e. coli and it was confirmed as coming from playing in that barn and putting dirty hands in his mouth. His mother was pregnant and two days after she delivered her next child, the ill child had a kidney transplant. She was not able to be with her newborn son for almost thirty days due to the risk of taking disease back and forth between the children. She was blessed to have family to care for her other children including the newborn, and to have her ill son get the transplant and have it work for several years.

I met them several years later and saw the toll that having such a sick child takes on the family. I won't do anything to increase the risk of that. in my opinion a raw food diet for a family pet is one of those risks.

I do realize that wild animals can poo in the yard and spread disease as can the waste of any animal regardless of diet. Wild animals are less likely to poo in your yard if you have a dog. This means that giving a raw food diet can increase the risk that otherwise is fairly low. This is just a risk that I dont' think is reasonable. Of course each of us has our own opinions on this and it likely won't harm the pet too much to have a raw diet.

Well, in some ways it may. Feeding a raw diet high in animal protein means parasites. Tapeworms and other parasites are more likely to end up in your pet and this can increase vet bills dramatically, as well as harming your pet. Not all parasites are killed by cooking, but many are.

Just my two cents.

Step, try mixing TOTW with your old food for a few days or a week, gradually increasing the TOTW and decreasing the old stuff. Cats are finicky and have delicate digestive systems. Switching cold turkey is one of the worst things to do. Instead change over a week or two to let their bodies adjust.

Janet, what food are you using? I would be curious to seehow Cap'n would respond. Little brat saw a package of treats that my aunt sent for him and I had put up in the bedroom. Now if the door to the bedroom is closed, he seems to have a moral imperative to get it open. I have thought about getting greenies (pet treats - our pets have always gone bonkers for them) for Cap'n again, but he can be such a PITA if he knows we have them. He is bad enough with-o them.