PetMeds^® Blog

As I have written in other blog entries, one of the most important health care decisions an animal guardian can make for their pet is the type of diet they feed their pet from puppy/kitten hood and as they grow up. Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, was quoted as saying, “Let food be thy medicine.” Nutritional imbalances, as well as deficiencies and toxic ingredients are major factors in the increase in chronic degenerative, autoimmune, and cancerous diseases in younger pets these days.

Also, as I have previously stated, veterinarians receive minimal formal training on nutrition in veterinary school. As a result, some veterinarians often make pet food recommendations based on what sales representatives tell them. Fortunately, in recent years, there has been a great expansion of wonderful quality and natural brand commercial pet foods that I have discussed in previous blogs, such as Be Well, Pet Guard and Wysong

However, an alarming trend that I’m noticing in the pet food industry is the process of corporate companies buying out previously reliable and trustworthy pet food companies, who may be more interested in profit over quality, at least from my perspective. Many pet food company giants include companies whose initial business began in various industries including toothpaste, chocolate, and ketchup. Just because these companies have excessively large marketing and sales forces does not mean that they are the healthiest choices for your pets.

And while one must always be vigilant when choosing a smaller pet food company which may make several wonderful claims, I would strongly recommend a consultation with a more holistically oriented veterinarian. For more information, I recommend visiting www.AHVMA.org for any questions you may have regarding which diet you should choose for your pet.

As more and more clients are exploring vegetarian life styles, the exploration of vegetarian recipes is becoming more common in both canine and feline guardians. While I’ve seen a few diets out there that can supply all of the nutrients a cat needs in vegetarian format, I certainly question the validity and safety of such diets, as cats are obligate carnivores, meaning that they require meat and certain animal derived amino acids like Taurine in their diets.

True vegan recipes for cats are almost impossible to make even by researchers, as well as being extremely costly. While dogs are more omnivorous, it is possible for a vegetarian food to reasonably be used. Some excellent home made recipes can be found in the Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats by Richard Pitcairn, DVM, PhD.

There are a few vegetarian commercially available pet foods for dogs such as PetGuard, which comes from a very reputable company. If clients insist on following homemade recipes found on the internet for vegetarian recipes, a board certified veterinary nutritionist should be consulted (i.e. www.balanceit.com) to ensure adequate level of nutrients.

Hippocrates, often considered the father of modern medicine, was reported to have said, “Let food be thy Medicine.”  In my 18 years of veterinary practice, I have not found a single more important medicine than the feeding of as fresh a diet as possible to our dogs and cats.  While animal guardians often rely on their veterinarians as expert resources on both surgical and medical approaches to various diseases, when it comes to healthy and preventative nutrition, this is one area of veterinary medical school training that is truly sadly lacking.  While in school, most veterinarians spend only a few hours in a nutrition course, and much of commercial pet food recommendations that are given to clients are based on what veterinarians hear from pet food sales representatives.  Many of the common foods sold across the country out of veterinary offices are often filled with toxic meat byproducts and preservatives, as well as many of them being cheaper carbohydrate cereal based protein foods, rather than the protein/fat rich fresh diets that carnivores like cats and dogs evolved to eat.

If there is anything that the huge pet food recall taught us and the public, it is how poorly regulated the pet food industry truly is.  Many pet foods do not contain optimum nutrition, but often minimum levels of cheaper nutrients that were at best adequate during short feeding trials.  The pet food recall involved many major pet food manufacturers cheaply buying their main protein sources from a Chinese based company that was contaminated with a toxic ingredient known as melamine, which was toxic to the urinary tract and kidneys of pets consuming such foods.   These were many of the same pet food companies commonly available at pet supermarkets, grocery stores and even many from veterinarians around the country.

When evaluating pet foods, it is important to always look at not only the quality of ingredients in terms of fresh meats or meat meals, but also the order of ingredients on a pet food label.  I usually recommend to clients that the first two out of three ingredients should be some sort of meat products, preferably fresh meat or meat meals. Foods should have a variety of ingredients, as well as preserved naturally with vitamin E known as tocopherols or vitamin C, and not other preservatives like ethoxyquin, BHA or BHT.  I always tell clients that if they don’t understand what an ingredient is on the food, or it is cryptic sounding like “meat and bone meal”(i.e meat and bones of what?), than those ingredients probably should not be in pet foods.

And while I always encourage my clients to feed fresh proper home made diets if possible, following balanced recipes, there are a growing number of trustworthy and reliable natural commercial pet foods.   Amongst the ones I have found quite effective when feeding home made diets is not possible, are Eat Great, Be Well Dog Food available from 1800PetMeds, as well as Wysong and Azmira as other reliable and trustworthy companies.