Out of curiosity, Catjuggler, why would you favor SD over a product that has human-grade meat instead of meat byproducts, or one with less allergenic grains? Or is it rather more simple, mere inertia? I.E., you fed your pets the stuff, they seemed to like it, you don’t suffer as much from the higher price of the stuff since you sell it, so you simply never really tried other things to settle on what was best?
Chicken by-products (per the AAFCO) are merely the non-muscle portions of the chicken, such as intestinal tracts, spleens, pancreases, livers, gizzards and hearts – no bones, no feathers, no beaks. These organ meats are perfectly safe to eat, and are, in fact, MORE nutritious than muscle tissue. They are not called “chicken” because “chicken” is defined as muscle tissue (and overlying skin). This differentiation is made because most people don’t like giblets, NOT because there’s anything “bad” about them. Hel, we make giblet gravy, we use some of those parts for soup, and the equivalent parts of a cow are delicacies in less squeamish cultures, and their nutrients are invaluable to those who must make do with less.
Corn? If your dog’s allergic to corn, then don’t feed him corn. OTOH, most dogs aren’t, and they have no problem with it. In fact, the majority of food allergies in humans and animals are meat-related. It’s good that there are different brands with different ingredients, but castigating Science Diet, Iams, and other dog foods because they’re only suitable for most dogs, not all dogs, is ludicrous.
Vets sell everything at a markup. Drugs cost less online, food costs less from a feed store, and the pet shop charges less for nail clippers. Science Diet costs about $1 per pound for most formulas at Petsmart (but California Natural costs less, they stock it at the feed store down the street, and our pup was already used to it when we got him).
Needless to say, veterinarians, like doctors, chiropractors, and auto mechanics, have a lot of opinions that they’ve formed without adequate examination. They, like all of us, sometimes mistake the smoke for the fire, and from a few cases they’ll get an impression that something happens a lot. The vet in the OP says “9 times out of [10] if a dog came in and had cancer, they were feeding the pooch Science Diet.” My money says that 9 times out of 10, the vet had no idea what they were feeding him, and Science Diet only came up a little more often than all the other dog foods.
Cite?
http://www.aaaai.org/patients/resources/fastfacts/food.stm
http://www.farrp.org/articles/mythfact.htm
…none of which are meat. Sorry, NT.
Micro Furry, I settled on Hills and Iams products for my pets because they are research based. I don’t know what their bugets for research and feeding trials are but I imagine that they are pretty large. As far as the price goes, I would gladly pay full price for them. You may not believe me, but it’s true. If someone can show me contolled, double blinded feeding trials that show some health benefits from feeding a “human-grade meat” product to dogs and cats I’ll be happy to reconsider. Until then I’ll stick with science.
IIRC, hearts and gizzard are muscles.
Fish and shellfish certainly are meats, seeing as they’re the flesh of an animal.
Well, we’re talking about dog food, and in a dog food context, when you refer to “meat”, you’re referring to beef and poultry, since very few dog foods that I’ve seen offer fish, lobster, crab, shrimp, clams, or scallops.
SimonX:
Yes, I meant skeletal muscle; heart and intestinal muscles are qualitatively different. My bad, but I think most people knew what I meant.
DDG, I don’t think web sites devoted to human immunology are terribly germane. Most allergies are stimulated by proteins; most of the protein in a dog’s diet comes from meat – ergo, most dog’s food allergies come from meat. It’s also instructive that elimination diets for identifying food allergies in dogs always replace the meat with some exotic meat (or other protein source) that the dog is unlikely to have eaten before. If logic doesn’t do it for you, here are some cites:
http://www.pethealthcare.net/html/body_canine_food_allergy.html
All I can say is I fed the love of my life, Brody, ZD Ultra because he would get skin rashes as a pup, and the vet recommended the $ht to me. I lost him last Aug to an aggressive liver tumor that sprung up out of no where. He was only 8. I tried so many alternative therapies to save his life, but there was nothing I could do. I tried EVERYTHING. At first they told me it was benign. It was inoperable, but the biopsy came back benign. After the 3rd cat scan, it showed it had spread to another liver lobe, the doctor told me he felt strongly it was malignant…After all of my efforts to heal him and save him, I finally had to make the decision to let him go…
I can’t help but wonder if it was that $ht food! Why oh why did I listen to my vet??? I regret feeding him that dog food. I was so careful in every way with him. I was so afraid of losing him and wanted to do everything right. He should have lived till 15 or 16….I wish I had known what I know now. I miss him every moment of every day and find it hard to be free of guilt and regret. I loved him more than anything on the planet….
I’m sorry for the loss of your dog. I know how important pets are, and the loss at such an early age is a heavy blow.
But there’s no reason to suspect the food had anything to do with his cancer. Lots of dogs get cancer at that age and earlier with every conceivable diet. I understand that you’re hurting right now, and your anger is understandable. But there’s no reason to direct that at the food you chose to feed him.
That was my first thought too- it’s entirely possible that Science Diet is good enough to allow more dogs to live longer and succumb to cancer than dogs eating “Ol’ Roy” or whatever rendering plant waste products that Wal-Mart sells, and your vet just isn’t really connecting the dots.
Willing feeding Science Diet cause my dog to become a zombie dog after he dies of cancer, whether related to diet or not?
FTR, dogs LOVE–oh, wait, it’s 2003 again?–LURV rendering plant waste products.
There’s your problem.
Oh, and Dropzone, I’m sure dogs love that stuff, but it may not be the healthiest thing for them to eat in the long run. Kind of like how I absolutely love most sausages, but making them a part of my daily diet isn’t terribly wise.
I like the website Dog Food Advisorfor researching commercial dog foods. They seem thorough and rational.
According to their evaluation methods, Science Diet is a below-average, not-recommended company, based on its ingredient lists. There is a complete discussion of how they came to these conclusions.
I personally feed my pack Canidae All Life Stages, because it’s a fair balance between price point and ingredient list for me. I used the above website to make my decision.
I have had a dog die of liver cancer at age five. It’s a terrible thing. I don’t attribute it to her diet though.
This, so much. Not to mention that dogs and cats who eat Science diet are more likely to see the vet on a regular basis, and not die from something treatable, like an abscessed tooth that spread to the skull before anyone noticed. Cancer is frequently what kills well-cared for, well-looked after animals, as opposed to semi-feral animals that die from being hit by cars, or getting into anti-freeze, because the best-cared for animals live the longest, and succumb to something that isn’t preventable or treatable.
Our vet in information-heavy (the perfect vet for a Doper). Here’s their pet food page, though they have a ton more information at the practice (and a there’s a lot more out there on the net).
I think their description of Science Diet (and others) is pretty accurate given its conciseness:
"These foods represent an adequate diet. These are not premium diets, but they are the better quality brands sold in supermarkets. "
Companies don’t raise prices to compensate for advertising. The return on advertising comes from increased sales. They set their price based on what will maximize profitability.
My cats eat Hill’s t/d, which is a dental preparation. They’re doing fine on it.
I had a cat who lived to be 18 on a diet of mostly Meow Mix. She wouldn’t eat anything else.