Prescription dog foods -- why the need for control?

Factual Questions
1

During the past three months, kaylasmom’s guide dog Valor became ill, and had to spend a week in the kennel at his guide dog school while the vets there tried to figure out what’s wrong with him.

They were limited in the tests they could perform (due to cost issues), but they did come up with a tentative diagnosis of either Inflammatory Bowel Disease or stomach cancer. Since we brought him home in February, he’s consistently had blood in his stool (the black kind that suggests bleeding in the stomach rather than the intestine), although the stool no longer has a tarry appearance.

Anyway, when we brought him home, we also picked up a 25-pound bag of Purina Pro Plan Veterinary Exclusive Hydrolyzed HA dog food. Aside from the fact that hydrolyzing the proteins makes the food more expensive, what is the reason for making this kind of food available exclusively through veterinarians?

Also, Valor is approaching the end of his bag of food, and I am having difficulty finding a local vet who will order this brand of food. I’m looking into having the vet at the school mail us a prescription so we can order it off the internet. While we’re waiting to get it, would it be better to get a small bag of a different brand of food from the local vet, or to make him a pot of homemade chicken and rice?

2

I’ve wondered that myself. The only thing I’ve WAG’d is that maybe it’s not healthy enough for a dog that doesn’t need to be on it for some other reason and they’d rather you didn’t decide on your own to do it (sans medical advice).

3

It generates more profit for Purina and the vet. We have the same deal with our 14 year old cat. I haven’t yet gotten sufficiently motivated to do serious research on replacing it. Then I gotta make my wife believe in my research.

This is not just me being a cynical old guy, at one time I worked with surgical instrument design and I have stories of how “prescribed” treatments of any kind are a gold mine. Similar to “improving” a drug formulation by adding a second ingredient and re-patenting when the original patent runs out.

4

Amazon seems to have it, and I seriously doubt they’re going to require a prescription.

5

Maybe this could help

My dad is a retired Veterinarian and my current girl friend is a Vet so this is what i have learned.

First get a new Veterinarian unless you are attached to the one you have for some reason.

Just about all veterinarians are compensated to peddle so called “special diet foods”. Science diet, Hill’s prescription foods and so on. Purina food is crap…all of it but especially Beniful.

At our training seminars we have started a nutrition for dogs program mainly because we have seen an increase of allergies in dogs due to hormones and additives. Especially chicken based foods.

Research B.A.R.F diets online. The diet is natural to the dog, nutritious, and cheap especially if you get your scraps from a processing plant. The only thing I have to buy is tripe at $1 per 10 pounds.
I choose whatever additive to meet my dog’s needs for example Glucosamine, Chrondroitin for older dogs or dogs with joint issues.

The reason B.A.R.F diets are not more popular is that they can be messy, it requires work vice just scooping kibble into a bowl, and the big one is the marketing for dog food products is real good. A good vet will recommend a B.A.R.F diet but most will not because the dog food companies are in the heads of many Veterinarians. Another reason is some folks just can’t stomach watching their dog eat like an animal, that blood thing.

I make my own and add what my dog needs. Been doing this for 30 years or so. I make the food in bulk and then freeze it in single servings until needed. I feed it to the dogs frozen this way it is less of a mess.

Another trend is that many folks believe that they must feed their dog several times per day and give them treats and such. The genetic make up of a dog does not require that much food. By nature dogs are programmed to be on the move looking for their next food source which may not come everyday but when they find the source the dogs will tend to eat like it’s their last meal ever.

I rarely feed my dogs on Sundays to give their digestive tracts a day off to recover. On Monday I will give them some boiled chicken and rice or something easy on their system and then continue with the Bones and Raw Food diet.

Inflammation in a dogs digestive tract is very common because of the unnatural stress we humans have subjected them to via crappy food and over feeding.

Certainly hope nothing is seriously wrong with your pup, but in the mean time I would consider some of the things I have mentioned. The problem is not much different than the way Americans eat now days. Fast food and other so called processed foods are killing us and our dogs.

6

Those foods don’t actually require a prescription by law. That’s just a deal made between the manufacturers and the vets. They have also not been studied anywhere near as thoroughly as the vets and manufacturers pretend they have been. If your vet “prescribes” a food I suggest you look up its ingredients and the studies that have been done to support its use before just blindly feeding it. I’ve looked up several myself and well, buyer beware.

7

Jerry is spot-on, in my opinion. If he has learned what he posted from his dad and girlfriend, I expect they both have done additional study on canine nutrition. From what I understand,vets do not receive much education on nutrition (it’s difficult since every animal had different nutritional needs). For dogs and cats, most of what they know is from promotional material put out by the pet food manufacturers. Even the materials used in the Vet Schools are produced by the pet food manufacturers (not too surprising, since those companies do sponsor a lot of the research). And, yes, the vets are biased and receive compensation from the manufacturers over the mark-up they make on selling the food.

I am pretty sure, as has already been stated, you can buy Purina Pro Plan Veterinary Diet Hydrolyzed HA dog food on Amazon without a prescription. I just tried and got to the "place order’ stage without being asked for anything. There are sellers that say they require a prescription, but as I understand it, that is just a marketing angle.

If the dog does well on that food, and you don’t have a problem with the high price, I’d just order it on-line and continue. If the cost is an issue, you may want to discuss the issue with your vet, or find another vet that you are comfortable with, and see if they can find a suitable food that is considerably cheaper.

8

Vet stepping in:

The reason some of the diets require the prescription is that first, the ingredients are more expensive (such as that hydrolized diet), and second, they are certainly targeted toward some groups with special needs.

For example, let us take the HA diet first. It is for dogs that have suspected food allergies. Sure, a dog without a food allergy can eat it and it will be balanced for it, but for the dog with allergies and stomach problems, eating anything ELSE may cause discomfort and problems (such as the blood in the stool you noted).

Another example is the renal diets. In chronic kidney disease, the kidneys cannot handle the excess protein, and the byproducts can accumulate and be toxic to the dog. Hence, diets targeted for the animals with renal disease are lower in protein, in addition to the composition of some other minerals. They’re trying to soothe the load of the kidney while at the same time providing adequate nutrition to the animal.

A third example of a special diet involves stone dissolution. Dogs and cats get stones due to the mineral content and the dilution and the pH of the urine. The diets try to alter those parameters so that certain stones and crystals either slowly dissolve or not form at all (in case of a repeater animal).

It is true that sometimes animals are fed more than they need to be fed. Certainly obesity is a growing concern in veterinary medicine.

9

Some types have not, but others have. The renal and stone dissolution diets, for example. Now, there is an issue with the later in that it is hard to prevent all types of stones (because some form in different mineral concentrations and pH), but the ones targeted for some types do.

10

If there was at all a suspicion of food allergy, a chicken diet may either be good or horribly bad. Chicken protein is one of the main allergens in dog food allergy. OTOH, feeding the dog strictly that (as an elimination diet), can definitely point out if the dog has food allergies. :smiley: :rolleyes:

If they were going for “soothest blandest diet we could get”, then chicken and rice (with no spices and little to no added salt), would work until you get a better alternative.

If they were going for “possible food allergy”, and you don’t want to try the elimination diet, then find a diet that does NOT has chicken.

Do you have a final diagnosis or not? They should have done some endoscopic biopsies to rule out the diseases. And if the dog is part of a guide dog program, I thought their medical expenses were covered.

11

I don’t understand your points.

Cost alone shouldn’t make a diet prescription-only; certainly expensive human foods don’t require a trip to the pharmacist. :slight_smile: If I want caviar and filet mignon and gold on my chocolate, that’s my business, and if I want to feed the four-footed fiend something super expensive, that should be my business too.

For medications, e.g., I can see the need for control–most medications have or can have enough adverse effects that somebody who knows what they are doing should be in charge of dispensing. You yourself state that the prescription-only hydrolyzed diet would be ok for a dog without allergies, though.

12

yeah, except that lots of studies have shown that dogs in kidney failure that are fed low-protein prescription diets die much faster than dogs fed low-phosphorus higher protein non-prescription diets. Or the scam involving the j/d diets which have never actually been tested in clinical trials per se. Yeah, fish oil is good for joints but everything else in j/d is not.
I edited a textbook on vet nutrition a couple years ago and it was truly weird. The first chapter was all about convincing clients to buy prescription diets and how to get the dogs to eat them. Then the rest of the book presented a lot of research completely contradicting everything the prescription diets offered.
I say do some research and buyer beware. I feed my own dogs a raw diet.

13

To keep it from people who would try the diet without consulting the veterinarian to check the problem. So if the diet is for allergies, and they can get it without the prescription, they may say “skip the vet, just do the diet”. Obviously a veterinarian wants to check that the dog truly has allergies and not something else.

Because the diets are intended as part of a treatment plant for different conditions, the veterinarians also want to be involved making sure that the dogs are eating something that is useful for them, and not ignoring other things.

14

Which studies? In checking the treatment guidelines put up by the International Renal Interest Society, I see that the recommendations still include low-protein or modified protein diets as well as low phosphorus and low sodium, and changes in the fatty acids used in the diets.

As one who was a veterinary student, I do know some of the nutrition books are sponsored by companies, but a few things to know:

  1. Most of those books were pamphlets that detailed some of the available diets, not necessarily a comprehensive textbook.

  2. There are full, boring, regular textbooks of animal nutrition, and I know because of I have one, that are not related to food companies.

  3. You are forgetting that we still have teachers, many of whom are board-certified by the American College of Veterinary Nutritionists, and who are not and do not have to be pushers for a specific diet. Yes, my own professor disliked some of the prescription diets available them because she didn’t think they passed thorough research. Others, though, she did like (at least in general) because of the research backing up.

15

it was one of those big, boring nutrition books unrelated to any company.
I’m not a vet and don’t pretend to be one. I just think that pet owners should know that those diets are NOT actually “prescription” diets, as in, there’s no legal requirement for a vet’s prescription; they have not been FDA approved; and the science behind many of them is a bit shaky.
Do your own research.

16

I did, which I could not find recent publications related to the claims you mention. So I ask if you have any recent studies to back it up.

I also addressed the issue of veterinarians requiring prescription, since they are intended as treatment plan, part of the issue is that the veterinarians want to make sure they are being given to the animal with those conditions.

17

Hey KAYLASDAD, would you be so kind to report back when Valor has been diagnosed or if there is any progress with his condition?

Thanks

18

You might want to look into natural dog food mixes - we’ve had great success and there are enough varieties on the market to suit your budget and needs. All of them are a base of dried vegetables and legumes, with some natural supplements. You add warm water and some protein to round it out.

We used Honest Kitchen, and mixed it with rinsed lean beef. We’d make up a day or two’s worth of food and stick it in the fridge and it really wasn’t too onerous to do that instead of just dumping kibble in a dish.

Our issue was primarily kidney failure; our vet recommended trying a range of mixes until we found one that seemed to promote steady or decreasing creatine levels. It actually worked really well, and I think our dog probably saw an additional year of good quality of life as a result.

IANAV, YYMV, etc

19

I am reviving this thread for those who mention lack of FDA regulation:

FDA releases guide on pet food diets intended to treat diseases.

20

I’ve heard of the Sunday Fast from several sources now and I’m curious if there’s any science behind it. I used to volunteer with a very large dog rescue that practices the Sunday Fast and I assumed it was more about cost (they were all volunteer and all donation-funded) than nutrition of abused and formerly-starved dogs. Anybody have citations for science behind this?

I have retired racers and have been very successful at keeping them at their ideal “retired weight”. For example, my male raced at 78 pounds and I keep him at 80-82 pounds. I feed them a high quality fish/sweet potato kibble twice a day every day. The meal schedule is for consistency of routine (i.e. stability) as much as to not let them get too ravishingly hungry. I treat them occasionally but not routinely, and half of the treats they get are fresh veggies that they love.

You know the saying that over time a dog and his owner start to look alike? Not true in my case. My dogs are slim and sexy, but I have a weight problem! I find it so much easier to keep them on a proper diet than myself!