When I was a kid, it seemed to me that any family pets (cats and dogs specifically) ate whatever leftovers were to be had, free offcuts of meat from the butcher, or whatever they could scrounge or catch. In fact I recall lamb-shanks being doled out to feed the Rovers and Fidos but now are considered a prime delicacy with a price-tag to match.
Now it may just have been that I lived in a reasonably poor family in a reasonably poor community, but that was the status-quo.
Of course nowadays most pets are indeed fed out of a can or a packet (I concede some owners prepare meals themselves but they are not in the majority by any means).
Does anyone remember when manufactured food took over from the previous ways of feeding your pet?
I’m almost fifty, and have used manufactured pet food all my life. Purina <some unlikely animal> Chow jokes were common when I was in elementary school.
Approximately how old are you? It sounds unlikely that you are old enough to predate widespread commercial pet food. Purina was founded in 1894 to make food for farm animals but quickly grew and moved into the pet food business not very long after that. They already had a pet food research and quality control center in Missouri by 1926.
I am 44 and grew up with lots of dogs and cats. We always bought 50 pound bags of dog food from the feed store and cat food from the supermarket. I don’t know when the market got so big but it predates me by a very long time. I know pet food was widely available when my parents were growing up in the 1950’s. I don’t know how widespread it was before that.
Here is a good history of dog food that is interesting. It is a very old concept but there have been some major shifts over time. Canned dog food was by far the most popular variety in the U.S. until WWII when rationing put a stop to much of its production. Shortly after WWII, Purina came up with a way to make dry dog food in the form most commonly seen today. Dry dog food has been widely available and the most popular kind since the early 1950’s.
Thanks for the link Shagnasty…totally answers my question. And for the record, I’m 56. In your link it mentions a whole heap of lobbying by the pet food industry around 1964, dissuading people from feeding scraps to their pets. I guess Australia got on that bandwagon around about the same time.
kambuckta, my experience growing up is much the same as yours. I guess it was/is a difference of attitude about the role of dogs and cats in our lives. They were very much like the livestock on Mom and Dad’s farm. They were there to do a job, and you fed them as frugally as you could.
Cattle converted grass into beef. Chickens converted bugs into eggs/meat. Dogs and cats kept predators and rodents at bay and received the scraps. Of course, the wisdom was to always keep the cat hungry so they would be motivated to provide for themselves by hunting rodents.
Mom also cooked every meal from scratch, so there was a constant stream of trimmings, left over portions too small to keep etc. Most people cook a whole lot less now, especially from scratch, so there isn’t a constant flow of scraps / trimmings / excess to divert to animals.
My dad grew up never feeding pets their own food, just scraps, garbage and whatever critters they could find. Born in 1960 in rural Arkansas. My mom was born in 1961 in an Illinois suburb and her family always used prepared dog food. I have a feeling that culture and class will have a large impact on this question.
A place I used to stay at in the 60s had two large alsation type dogs as guard dogs. She used to buy, for a few coppers, a sheep’s head every week, to stew up for dog food.
One big difference during my lifetime is that dog shit used to dry quite quickly into a hard white lump that powdered when stepped on. These days, dogs seem to produce human type turds.
We fed our dogs a bones and raw food diet for most of the 2000s, and the ghost turds were one of the benefits. And our dogs always had beautiful coats and plenty of energy on that diet, too. While modern dog food does a good job of preventing deficiencies, dogs don’t always seem to thrive on it. I’d mix a few scraps/bones into their otherwise dry diet just for quality of life sake if nothing else. Could you imagine eating human chow your entire life?
I’m guessing that the rise of pet food probably mirrored the rise of commercial livestock feed, since the companies that originally sold it were one in the same (think Purina, for example).
Well, how bizarre. Since penning the OP on Fri morning, I’ve become a dog-mum again (totally unexpectedly, long story, can’t be stuffed explaining) so my interest in dog food has gone up a few notches now.
Coming in a bit late: I seem to recall something in a novel by Robert A. Heinlein, involving a time-traveller from the later 20th century, visiting the 1890s (maybe just before Purina, as in Shagnasty’s post, got going). Said time-traveller is conversing with a friend whom he makes – and feels able to confide his secret to – about how certain things will develop and change. This includes motor transport replacing horse haulage.
“So what will happen to all the horses?”
“Well, there’ll be far fewer of them. Many will be used for canned pet food…”
“Special foods for pets, in cans? Come on, now – you’re having me on…”
And for the record, I’m 56. In your link it mentions a whole heap of lobbying by the pet food industry around 1964, dissuading people from feeding scraps to their pets. I guess Australia got on that bandwagon around about the same time.