20th January 2010 - Daily Mail article about pet food and vets.

John Burns' Blog

Daily Mail article about pet food and vets.

“Is the pet food you are serving up killing your four-legged friend? (and making your vet rich)

Today’s Daily Mail article launches a two-pronged attack on the veterinary profession and the pet food industry. As a member of both I feel I am well placed to comment.

Starting with the vets, members of the profession are portrayed as gullible and greedy. The self-proclaimed spokespeople tell us that vets are easily influenced by the pet food industry and as a result promote certain foods to line their pockets, with complete disregard for the welfare of their patients. In reality, probably less than 3% of pet food is sold through veterinary practices, and that is almost wholly at the better end of the market. The vast majority of vets are conscientious in promoting the welfare of pets; many recommend Burns even when they don’t sell it.

There are indeed major concerns about the quality of pet foods. But the problem lies with the type and quality of ingredients which are used in most pet foods. That is precisely why I entered the pet food business myself. When I was in practice I used to recommend home made food, but cooked rather than raw. That gave excellent health benefits but is impractical for most people. I eventually realised that if pets were to be fed well, the food had to be conveniently available. The same health benefits can be seen when feeding good quality cooked pet food as with those claimed for raw food.

The notion that domestic dogs are physiologically the same as wild dogs is completely wrong. Domestic dogs have been accustomed to eating a cooked cereal-based diet for thousands of years. Their needs are different anyway; a diet based on meat which is high in protein and fat is completely inappropriate for most domestic dogs.

The responsibility of the pet owner in promoting health through diet has been completely overlooked in this article. At Burns we find that many owners consistently over feed their pets and this causes many different health problems as well as excessive weight gain.

The article quotes Catherine O’Driscoll who says that three of her dogs died prematurely because of poor pet food. I saw her home video of those dogs and they appeared to be so grossly overweight they were not walking – they were waddling!

Royal Canin is criticised for offering Pet Health Counsellor Courses. We need more people to be well versed in pet health counselling as lack of knowledge about health and nutrition is a major problem for pet owners.

20th January - Daily Mail article about pet food and vets.

John Burns' Blog

Daily Mail article about pet food and vets.