Pet Treats & Foods... what is safe & how do you choose?

With all the recent news about treats and chews from China and multiple food recalls every year, the recurrent questions arise… what treats and foods do we recommend? I wish the answer were simple, but some things are more clear than others.

We recommend avoiding all jerky treats made in China (chicken, duck & sweet potato) as all have been implicated in the long history of toxicity issues related to Chinese origin jerky treats. See this link for the most recent update from the FDA. If the package says made in the US, it's likely safe. If it's distributed by a US distributor but doesn't say where it's from, assume the worst. Many US distributors have their name on products that originate in China and have been implicated in this ongoing problem. It's probably just safer to avoid all Chinese made jerky treats or those with an unknown country of origin. Trust that you will pay more for American made jerky treats and chews, but it is definitely a whole lot safer. If you have a food dehydrator, you can easily make your own chicken jerky and sweet potato chews. I purchased some chew treats from a major pet food distributor just a few months ago and discovered they were made in India. Funny, they hadn't indicated that information anywhere while I was placing the online order. Now I don't know that I necessarily have a problem with foods made in India, but these were the nastiest smelling dog chews I have encountered in a long  veterinary career filled with many rude odors. And believe me, I am not easily offended by odors! These smelled as though the animal product was not dried adequately and perhaps "cured" by dry rot. I can only describe the odor as resembling rotting meat. They went straight into the garbage, not into my house or my dogs. Now, I'm sure my pooches would have loved the foul odor, but they've been known to roll in raccoon poop in our yard, so they aren't terribly discriminating!

As for actual pet foods, the debate rages. Pet nutrition was pretty primitive until about 40 years ago and has improved dramatically since then. As the role of pets transitioned more to companion animals rather than working dogs and the human-animal bond deepened, the science of feeding these animals became more important. When I was a kid, the food offerings for dogs were pretty pathetic, and for cats, downright grim. Then several small family owned pet food companies evolved, the first being the Hill's Science Diet company followed by the Iams company and Royal Canin. The quality of their diets was vastly superior to the typical grocery store foods produced the huge corporations, but you had to go to your vet or the pet store to purchase them. As things have evolved, these companies are now also owned by megacorporations too (think Proctor & Gamble, Colgate/Palmolive, etc). On the positive side, they have tons of money to dedicate to R & D, multiple nutritionists on the payroll, their own manufacturing plants and the ability to produce a large variety of quality foods. The original goal of these diets was to provide a higher quality alternative to the dog & cat foods one finds at the local grocery store and they clearly succeed in that goal IMHO. They typically have much higher quality ingredients and are more digestible (which also means less poo produced). The average grocery store food is commonly deemed less nutritious due to lower quality ingredients, poor digestibility and constantly changing formulas, primarily based on the price of the ingredients the day each bag of food is produced. The higher quality foods are "fixed" formula and each bag is produced with the same proportion of each ingredient every time. This decreases the tummy upset often noted during the first few days feeding a new bag of grocery food. Often the grocery brand food actually may cost more to feed than the higher quality food due to the poor digestibility - the lower digestibility means more cups may need to be fed to achieve the same amount of nutrients actually available to the dog. For years, the debate was between the grocery brands and the higher quality pet store foods like Hill's and Eukanuba. Personally, I fed Eukanuba for years and my Dobermans did well on it and my cats did well with Iams foods.

Over the last 20 years, countless newcomers have joined the pet food fray. Many of these foods are touted to be organic, all natural, low grain or grain-free. The food debate is less clear now than 20 years ago, when it was pretty black and white. Many of these new offerings contain more unusual ingredients than traditional foods including duck, lamb, venison, bison, white fish, salmon, sweet potato and brown rice, but it's not clear if this is actually advantageous. In order to compete with these marketing strategies, both the grocery foods and the traditional high quality foods have begun marketing the healthful nature of their foods, lower grain versions and a few organic lines. But I can assure you, I see great looking bags of dog food at Publix with pictures of chicken and steak and fabulous veggies, but I wouldn't buy most of them. That enticing package hasn't much to do with what is actually in the bag, but that sort of misleading advertising is perfectly legal. As long as it contains some sort of chicken product, in some quantity, however small, it's legit to put a picture of a gorgeous boneless chicken breast on the package. It's a consumer beware world out there! Just remember, the marketing is aimed at the humans & how we perceive the food based on the packaging and pretty pictures. After all, how many folks have a degree in veterinary nutrition? They just hope the package will look healthy and attractive so you'll buy it based on the impression the package creates.

The next obvious question is… are all these new and improved foods that have appeared in the last 10 to  20 years really better? That's hard to say. Some are smoke and mirrors and some appear to be very high quality foods with readily digestible proteins. Most contain less corn than more traditional foods and many contain less grain in general. The current trend is lower carbohydrate and more protein in pet foods. I think that when it comes to cat food, that's a clear win-win. Cats were not designed to eat grain; they are protein munching machines. They are true carnivores that need lots of meat whereas dogs are not quite the carnivores that we might think. The dog has been hanging with humans for thousands of years and they learned to scavenge around our camps and settlements. They adapted to a more omnivorous diet than their ancestors because that’s how we eat. So the grain vs. no grain debate continues. One thing is clear though, dogs are much like people in that some do better with one type of food and some with another. I do occasionally see dogs eating cheap generic dog food that have great shiny coats, they just aren't the norm. Most dogs on lousy food have dull, coarse coats and most dogs on higher quality foods have a smoother, shinier coat, brighter eyes, better muscle tone and an overall healthier appearance. But just like people, genetics plays a huge role in health and in food intolerance. Some dogs don't do well on high grain diets & others are fine as long as the protein and fat contents are also adequate. Food allergies will trash any animal's coat regardless of what the food source might be. Until they are eating a diet that is less antigenic for them, they won't do well or have a nice coat. Those dogs with food and environmental allergies provide a whole separate challenge in finding the perfect food.

To be continued....