Sitting here in Vegas, yes I actually do a little work on vacation too, I received a call from an old friend asking about his cat and the mystery that surrounds its constant vomiting. We discussed bloodwork, diagnostics that had been performed and then moved on to the ultimate question of what did his cat eat….ugh. ( I wont degrade the so named brand of food) Many of you already know I am very passionate about my thoughts and feelings on pet food, many of you have heard rants already, but for those of you who have not, here goes..
Always look at the first 5 ingredients, those are the most important and those are the items that are in the food in the highest percent…would you want to eat something that did not have meat as its first ingredient??
- Avoid foods that have things listed in the first five ingredients that you cannot pronounce or have no idea what they are..we should not be feeding our pets something we would not eat ourselves
- Have you every thought about what a by-product is?? For pet foods it is the leftovers from the market that day or week that are the cheapest and can range anywhere from turkey intestines or beaks to pigs feet… I personally say yuck…I would not want to eat that.
- Think back to when cats and dogs were not domestic, they did not scrounge around for corn meal, by-products, wheat and corn, they were meat eaters and probably consumed some fruits and veggies along the way, so why force them to eat things they would not get in the wild. Which leads me into another thought…
- Would we have so many problems with food/skin allergies, diarrhea, vomiting and general ill thrift if our pets were fed better?? Think about that question next time you read or pick up a bag of cat or dog food.
There are several good foods on the market that I highly recommend, some of which you can find at our clinic, others that you can find at Petco or my favorite pet store in Raleigh, Pet Mania. I urge you to check out a few websites: www.natuapet.com & www.onlynaturalpet.com. I would bet anyone a free bag of food that if we thought about what we fed our pets more closely and made a conscious effort to feed them better we would see less skin allergies and gastrointestinal diseases.
