How Pet food is killing your dog (Channel 5 Thursday)

Mo60

I did watch it and did not learn anything new. It reminded me of the usual human diet programs where people all have different views on which diet should be followed.

Pretzill

For me nutrition for dogs has been a learning curve over 30 years a dog owner - my first dog born circa 1980 was fed at his dinner cheapo tinned food - this was largely supplemented by our leftovers - spuds,veg and gravy and fresh butchers bones (which he took a bad skin reaction to, but we only discovered after many trips to vet and cutting out raw bones that a neighbour was feeding him through the hedge!) he passed at 13 an energetic German shep crosd a few weeks before the end of kidney failure.

My dogs since of four 3 still here - my second lovely girl passed at 14 from liver failure she was a bcx - for most of her life ate tinned or dry food and mixed with leftovers - she loved chicken - she became weighty though at about 8 and we had to look at her diet and restrict her treats - she lived longer than my 1st dog but did suffer more health problems later in life.

Her brother is still with us at 15 - his diet was obviously similiar although he has been prone to arthritis and as well as feeding him now almost always a good quality recconmended dry food he gets a lot of oil supplements and meds to help him.

Age 3 bc doing extremely well on burns and some extras as is our youngest pup although i think burns makes them appear a wee bit skinny.

Truth is, it's a minefield - but like us humans a balanced diet should work for dogs - balanced for dogs that is - too much of one thing eg just protein isn't good and for all those of you worried about the average dogs capability to digest certain foods - dogs aren't wolves they have been domestcated for generations and as such, like ourselves, their ability to take on certain foods like carbs for instance comes from their domesticated forefathers - it's not all bad really they love junk as much as we do!

fatmammycat

I feed my dog raw food and only raw food, but it's early days (he's not quite 2) so I can't say if or not this is the be all and end all of diets; anecdotally he's lean, energetic, has no digestive problems and no allergies. I don't feed him any vegetables at all and any time he has eaten them they appear to come out the other side pretty much undigested so I don't see the point.

My father bred working collies (cattle dogs) when I was growing up and none of them ate dry food, and my abiding memory is that they were lean, fit, long-lived creatures (unless from accidental death). My mother's labrador, on the other hand, had a terrible diet, Pal, Chum, toast, cake, cornflakes with warm milk (!) dear god you name it, he ate it, and he had a barrage of healthy problems, being obese for most of his life being the main one. He died quite young from cancer. I know a number of dogs, however, who lived long lives on rubbish diets, but I can't speak to the quality of their health.

It may be that as my dog ages certain issues occur, and if they do I will make note of them and also share them. But for now, I am going to avoid cereal based dried food and keep feeding him as close to a natural diet as possible.

borderlinemeath

Charles Rocher wrote: »

The average lifespan of a wild Wolf is 6 to 8 years.

The average lifespan of a Siberian Husky 12 to 15 years.

Context.

Wolves live in the wild, they have to survive an inclement climate, a lack of food, their natural habitat being destroyed by humans, and the threat of being killed by humans. Also note 'average' age. Some can die younger and some can live a much longer life, some have been observed as old as 13 in the wild. In captivity they can live until 17.

Your average pet siberian husky is kept in a live of absolute luxury compared to the wolf. A constant bed, daily supply of food (wolves may have to go for days without eating), regular health checks, defleaing, worming and exercised accordingly. No worrying about where his next meal is coming from, whether he has to trek hundreds of km to get it, no danger of being shot by hunters, or getting involved in altercations with other huskies for access to a mate.

Context indeed.

Bullseye1

Interesting read from Pete Wedderburn in response to the program.
http://www.vethelpdirect.com/vetblog/2014/01/30/the-truth-about-your-dogs-food-or-sensationalist-entertainment-dressed-up-as-the-truth/

Karl Stein

borderlinemeath wrote: »

Wolves live in the wild, they have to survive an inclement climate, a lack of food, their natural habitat being destroyed by humans, and the threat of being killed by humans. Also note 'average' age. Some can die younger and some can live a much longer life, some have been observed as old as 13 in the wild. In captivity they can live until 17.

Your average pet siberian husky is kept in a live of absolute luxury compared to the wolf. A constant bed, daily supply of food (wolves may have to go for days without eating), regular health checks, defleaing, worming and exercised accordingly. No worrying about where his next meal is coming from, whether he has to trek hundreds of km to get it, no danger of being shot by hunters, or getting involved in altercations with other huskies for access to a mate.

Context indeed.

That's exactly my point.

We've significantly extended the average life span of domesticated pets because of how we care for them which puts the 'how pet food is killing your dog' headline in a wider context.

borderlinemeath

Charles Rocher wrote: »

That's exactly my point.

We've significantly extended the average life span of domesticated pets because of how we care for them which puts the 'how pet food is killing your dog' headline in a wider context.

Humans can also significantly extend the lifespan of wolves in a captive environment. They don't feed them processed commercial dog food though.

ferretone

DBB wrote: »

Beware the confirmation bias folks. It's very easy to say "it weren't like that in my day", or to base your assessment of dog foods on one single example out of millions of dogs. But it's not right. Personal experience does not come close to permitting us to conclude anything meaningful about.... Anything!

Didn't see the show myself, I'm a raw feeder, but was too busy providing a birthday/retirement meal for my fellow-raw-feeder neighbour.

Anyway, just in light of what's been posted after the show, just thought it is pertinent to bump up this very important point of DBB's, as it does look as tho it's been forgotten :rolleyes:

The Bishop Basher

Thanks DBB for going to the trouble of looking all that up and posting it.

Apologies for the delay in coming back but i've been laid up all weekend :-(

Anyway,

To be fair, while the links you posted certainly indicate an issue with allergens in some of the processed foods, there's nothing really to back up a lot of the assumptions made on here with regard to a direct link between feeding trends and declining / improving health in our pets.

Many of us, including myself, would have a gut feeling that an all dry food diet can't be that beneficial but we really have no scientific evidence to conclude one way or the other.

Same goes for those who so enthusiastically push the raw food agenda.

It's quite amazing, given the amount of money we spend on this that a more comprehensive scientific study has not been completed. That said though, it would be difficult to nail down an overall result given the differential between breeds.

I still firmly believe that the biggest negative impact on canine health is directly attributable to humans and our approaches to breeding, not just over breeding but inter breeding, but that's a whole different thread.

borderlinemeath

Swanner wrote: »

Thanks DBB for going to the trouble of looking all that up and posting it.

Apologies for the delay in coming back but i've been laid up all weekend :-(

Anyway,

To be fair, while the links you posted certainly indicate an issue with allergens in some of the processed foods, there's nothing really to back up a lot of the assumptions made on here with regard to a direct link between feeding trends and declining / improving health in our pets.

Many of us, including myself, would have a gut feeling that an all dry food diet can't be that beneficial but we really have no scientific evidence to conclude one way or the other.

Same goes for those who so enthusiastically push the raw food agenda.

It's quite amazing, given the amount of money we spend on this that a more comprehensive scientific study has not been completed. That said though, it would be difficult to nail down an overall result given the differential between breeds.

I still firmly believe that the biggest negative impact on canine health is directly attributable to humans and our approaches to breeding, not just over breeding but inter breeding, but that's a whole different thread.

Apart from a few very small independent fresh food companies who would benefit from such a study? Butchers? There have been plenty of studies done on feeding but all of them by the dry food companies and of course the results favour feeding dry. It's in their best interests. They may agree that there's a benefit to feeding fresh, unprocessed food, but will quickly put the frighteners on with the 'dangers' to human and canine health through handling raw meat, and the chance of contracting it through their faeces. Yet I handle raw meat when I'm cooking it for myself anyway, and I've yet to find anybody who willingly picks up dog poo in their bare hands, nor washes them.

Sure even the plum voiced owner of Lilys Kitchen in that programme had been sold that line, she was convinced that if she fed raw meat that the salmonella would come through in her dogs coat. (if by chance a bit of contaminated faeces got stuck and was left there:rolleyes:). And I'm sure she was fed all that scaremongering by the vets who have been 'advised' of the dangers by the dry food companies. It also makes her product look safer, so it's easier to believe in

Mo60

Bullseye1 wrote: »

Interesting read from Pete Wedderburn in response to the program.
http://www.vethelpdirect.com/vetblog/2014/01/30/the-truth-about-your-dogs-food-or-sensationalist-entertainment-dressed-up-as-the-truth/

I also found this very interesting. He gave a varied and, apparently,unbiased view on all aspects of feeding, and did not appear to have any special agenda.

DBB

Swanner wrote: »

To be fair, while the links you posted certainly indicate an issue with allergens in some of the processed foods, there's nothing really to back up a lot of the assumptions made on here with regard to a direct link between feeding trends and declining / improving health in our pets.

Many of us, including myself, would have a gut feeling that an all dry food diet can't be that beneficial but we really have no scientific evidence to conclude one way or the other.

I wasn't able to post some stuff the other day, it's not available (not even abstracts!) from some of the journals without paying for it, so no point in linking. On the off-chance you have access to the journals via university or somesuch, one of them that caught my eye is called "Nutrient-gene interactions and their role in complex diseases in dogs" by Swanson, it's in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medicine Association:)

If you can't get access, the gist of it is cited by the utterly fantastic Gary Landsberg (vet and behavioural scientist with too many letters after his name to list here ) et al, in their bible of veterinary behaviour, "Behavior Problems of the Dog and Cat (3rd ed)":

"Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in phenotype or gene expression due to mechanisms other than DNA mutations. Diet is one of the more impactful nongenome catalysts in this regard, and the interaction of nutrients with genetic and epigenetic traits is sometimes referred to as nutritional genomics, or nutrigenomics. In this way, nutrients may affect the expression of a certain genetic trait, make a pet more or less susceptible to disease process, and have a variety of other positive or negative effects. This will become progressively more important in veterinary medicine, as researchers find links between genetic profiles and disease, the impact of diet on epigenetic inheritance, and the effects of diet on gene transcription and translation rates"

I think we're going to have our eyes opened one way or t'other in the years to come