Were you shocked, horrified, or maybe even a little bit scared by the news of the recent pet food recalls?  I know I was - not because my pets were eating any of the problem foods, but because the recall freshly reminded me of how complacent we all have become in assuming that whatever we buy to feed our pets is going to be good for them.  When was the last time you really looked at what you are feeding your pet?  Smelled it, poked through it, maybe even tasted it?  When did you last check the ingredient list?  Come to think of it, do you know how to read an ingredient list?  Do you know how deceptive a lot of pet food manufacturers are in preparing these lists?

When you read that a food meets "AAFCO guidelines," are you reassured?  You shouldn't be!  Are you aware that this is a group that comes from within the pet food industry, and supposedly polices the same industry?  How different is that from asking the fox to guard the henhouse?  Did you know that AAFCO guidelines represent minimum daily requirements, not optimum daily requirements?

When you buy a bag or can of food, are you seduced by a pretty label, or by a prominent spokesperson who seems to be a nice guy?  (What does Mr. Blue Eyes know about pet nutrition?)  If a cat food label says "Shrimp" in large letters, is that the same as a label that says "Shrimp" in large letters, preceded by the work "with?"  Did you even see the word "with" when you bought that food?  Do you gravitate towards packages with the words "better," "natural," "organic,” or "no-grain" on them without reading and knowing exactly what that means?  Are you aware that often it means nothing at all? 

When you buy food from a store with salespeople who sound knowledgeable, do you ask about their nutrition education?  Are you aware that usually, they are there to push a specific food or group of foods, and usually, their knowledge represents less than a weekend's worth of work?

When you go online to seek out pet food information, do you look for information that is peer-reviewed and refereed?  Or do you rely on opinions and testimonials?  The former means that the information has been critically reviewed by other individuals who have documented knowledge about the topic and who agree that what is written represents truthful and accurate information before it is allowed to become public; the latter is simply someone's opinion - their blog. 

Are you aware that dogs and cats are carnivores and don't need and can't possibly efficiently use all the carbohydrates that are present in dry and canned foods?  Or that cats are obligate carnivores, meaning that they have no requirement for carbs whatsoever?  Are you aware that feline diseases such as diabetes are directly linked to diets with high carb contents?  Come to think of it, do you know what is and isn't a carbohydrate?  Are you clear that "no-grain" diets often still contain huge amounts of carbs?

Were you aware that many of the companies that are now issuing "voluntary product recalls" - and trumpeting what good, responsible people they are for doing so - knew that there were problems with their foods for weeks to months before pets started becoming ill and dying?  Even supposedly responsible companies that many veterinarians trusted - Hill's, Purina, and the like - stalled in getting the necessary information to veterinarians and consumers.  I know I wasn't the only veterinarian to be completely disgusted by a letter I received from Hill's, when they finally admitted that prescription m/d was recalled.  Hill's attempted to reassure veterinarians that the impact from cats eating m/d would be very small, that since that food only represented a tiny fraction of all the food that Hill's sells.  But the impact to Goldie, our KPR cat who has been eating m/d, could be 100%.  Does that sound "low impact" to you? 

When you bought that food that looked like meat slices in gravy for your cat or that bag of jerky treats for your dog - did you assume that it was meat, just because it looked like it might be?  Were you aware that wheat gluten can be made to look like anything? Come to think of it, knowing what you now know about carnivores - does feeding them a lot of wheat gluten, or corn, or wheat, or barley, or rice, or potato, or even something exotic like quinoa - does that make a lot of sense?

I do believe that life offers us a lot of lessons all the time, and if we're lucky, we get to learn them at little expense to ourselves and our dear ones.  About three months ago, I decided that I wasn't happy with my pet's diets.  Even though I was doing a lot of home cooking for them, they weren't as healthy as I had hoped they'd be.  Mind you, my pets are like a lot of veterinarian's pets.  We vets usually have at most one relatively healthy pet (my Cairn terrier, Lizzie) and then an assortment of natural genetic disasters (Sofia, my Bull Mastiff, with chronic food allergies, bad hips and elbows, entropion, and 6 major surgeries to date), pets that were dumped at our hospitals that no one else wanted (Xena, a beautiful "tiger" kitty and the best mouser around), pets seized in raids conducted by humane investigators (Emmett, my senior Persian) and pets that local humane societies were going to euthanize before we stepped in to rescue them (my now-deceased Francine, adopted at age 14 with heart and kidney failure).

After hunting around for some time for a better food source, I finally listened to one of my clients, Carol R., who experienced a dramatic turn-around in the health of all three of her pets after starting a raw food diet.  I've seen Carol's pets for years, so I was able to document the impressive changes she told me about.  I found out where Carol got her food and about three weeks ago contacted Nina Pregont at Natural Expressions.  Nina's warm, funny, wise, and self-deprecating manner immediately put me at ease.  She wasn't just trying to sell me food - she was really interested in the health of my pets, and she really had taken the time to learn about nutrition.  After a lengthy consultation with her, we decided on a three month clinical trial of a raw diet for Sofia, to see if we could resolve or at least improve her many health issues.  I decided to make it a three month trial for everyone.  Home I went with Northwest Natural Turkey for Sofia, Natural Balance Rabbit Medallions and Northwest Natural Bison Nuggets for Lizzie, and two kinds of Aunt Jeni's (Rabbit and Chicken) for the kitties - the cats can also eat the NB Medallions, since they are suitable for either cats or dogs.  I also took home a receipt that represented more than I was used to paying for pet food.

But here's the difference - I wasn't buying wheat gluten, or corn, or rice, or any of the other cheap (and as we've all now seen, sometimes deadly) fillers that are used to keep the costs of traditional pet foods artificially low.  And, I was providing a diet with a lot more meat than was present on the home-made diets I had been using.  So, I sat down and I made a choice.  The dogs and the cats are carnivores by virtue of their genetics.  I am not.  So why should I be eating more and better quality meats than my pets, who are really the ones who need it in order to maintain good health?  At least MY wheat gluten undergoes stringent scrutiny before it goes into my food.  That's not the case for pet foods (remember who guards the henhouse?).

We're two and a half weeks into everyone's new diet.  Every day now, Sofia eats two pounds of her raw meat diet plus some fresh steamed veggies.  The cats eat about a scant 1/4 pound of their raw mix twice daily, and Lizzie gets either 2 1/2 raw medallions or 10 raw nuggets twice daily (she insists that isn't enough).  Of everyone, Lizzie and Emmett have shown the most improvement.  Lizzie is thinner and more muscular.  She's gained a surprising amount of muscle mass weight - a little over 1 pound.  Unfortunately, her new strength allows her to leap onto the kitchen table quite easily!  Emmett is less "hangy" on his underside and his coat is growing faster.  Xena was already on kind of a raw food diet, since she's my mouser, but she's feeling well and seems quite content with the new diet. 

Sofia will be the interesting one to watch.  In addition to the health problems already mentioned, (stop eating NOW if you're munching while reading this) for over a year, she's suffered from horrifying anal furunculosis that makes her rectal area looks like huge, gaping, bleeding wounds. There's been minimal response to every antibiotic and immune treatment known to veterinary medicine.  Acupuncture and herbal therapies kindly recommended by the finest veterinary minds in the world and administered by them and me have been only minimally helpful in the past.  Her anal lesions appear to be less deep already, but it will take many weeks to fully assess the impact of the new diet.  We're taking pictures as we go along with the diet. She definitely feels better, though, and she loves the new food.

"Everyone's new diet" includes mine.  As I mentioned earlier, I'm eating less meat to balance out the food bills.  It's not a huge sacrifice for a former vegetarian (14 years, until enough study in Traditional Chinese Medicine convinced me that some meat is a good thing).  But I decided that twice a week is plenty, and that does indeed allow me to balance my checkbook exactly as before.

When we take a pet into our hearts and our homes, we accept a great treasure but also a significant responsibility.  Being more careful about monitoring your pet's food will allow you to live up to that responsibility - and your pet will enjoy better health and live longer, too.  Please think about what you can do, right now, to improve your pet's diet.  Read bags, cans, and labels before you feed.  To find fresh, healthy wholesome foods for your pet, check out any of the pet food suppliers listed in the "Our Favorite Things" section of our website.  If you aren't sure in which direction to proceed, ask for a consult from a knowledgeable source, like I did.  Do you home-prepare your pet's food?   Make sure that you are using a complete balanced diet from a reputable source, and not just something that you read about on the Internet.  Two good diet sources are Dr. Pitcairn's book, Holistic Health for Dogs and Cats, and the website balanceIT.com, which has purchasable, downloadable recipes that can be made specific to your pet's needs.

Finally, if you were feeding a food that has been recalled, take two very important steps.  Immediately resolve to make a significant upgrade in your pet's diet, by using the steps suggested above.  And, resolve any questions about what impact the recalled food may have had on your pet's health by scheduling an appointment with the first available Doctor at our hospital.  Call Michelle or Chani and explain that your pet was eating a recalled food. They'll schedule an appointment with the first available Doctor meeting your schedule needs, for a complete medical examination and a blood and urine test that will tell us what we need to know about how to get your pet healthy again.