DCM FDA Update

I'm just going by what my dog's cardiologist said and recommended concerning food. I paid 600 dollars for the echocardiogram and an appointment with her, and if she thinks the latest research concerning certain foods having a heart problem link is significant, that's good enough for me, which is why I switched my dogs food to what she recommended.

 

I remember the big apple scare a few decades ago. And others.

 

I'd like to know what will happen a few years from now. We have gone full circle from corn based foods to the push to grain free, now, with this VERY small amount of dogs having issues, this panel is pushing to brands that even prior to the grain free push years ago were considered poor quality foods. We are now back to a push to these corn based foods and many corn based foods are found, in human foods, to contain roundup. To each their own. To me, it is more important to have non-China based products in my pet foods since that is the scariest stuff - peas, no peas, potatoes, no potatoes.

 

Well, maybe we should all just feed our dogs pizza.

 

I never felt pushed to use grain free foods for my dogs, I never thought it necessary to feed that.

WELL SAID CARO!!

 

I have a Weim now and since Danes are related and genetically predisposed to DCM I've been reading up on it and I joined the DCM Facebook site. After going through their units, all I came away from that group was that they wholeheartedly support FDA, WSAVA, and Tufts and feel they are 100% accurate. Honestly, reading that board is like reading politics, it's all or nothing and if you don't think like me, you're delusional. It's kind of scary that everyone on FB is referring people to that site.

I'm not sure what to do or believe. I can't get on board with feeding my dogs something from the 4 companies okay'd by that site. There's a lot of history behind those brands that I just can't support and that goes way back. Of the cases reported, I'm still trying to find out how many were confirmed nutrition based DCM. I don't want to say "this is nothing" and at the same time, I feel like everyone is panicking.

 

I don't get how suddenly these 4 companies who have had recall after recall after recall, a history of YEARS serving what has been considered crap, are suddenly the golden ones coming out of WSAVA reporting. Call me a skeptic, but suddenly their foods are 'the best'? Fishy, to me, at least. I'd like to see the actual food lines recommended cuz some will see 'Purina' or 'Royal Canin' and well, for all their expertise and size and supposed testing and nutritionists, they haven't been able to prevent salmonella in many of their products so what is the testing good for? I do get it though, I feed my cats Friskies, not because I think it's a great food or safe or well made or healthy - I have one cat with Lymphoma who will eat it, that's it. He turns his nose up on anything else and trust me, for years I have tried and Friskies is TOL for him!

I did change up my feeding based on all this - my doxie Buddy lived to a great age of 14 on Merrick Grain Free Buffalo. Kooper just turned 10 and was also raised on Merrick Grain Free Buffalo. But I did switch, based on reports that came out, to a grain based food. I did research like mad for something with no peas - peas are in everything now being used instead of 'real' protein, but I don't buy into these brands being the get all for dog food. I mean everything with these so called recommended brands for years has been suspect and now they are the golden ones - weird. I altered my dogs diets, but stuck with US based ingredients - too much of what goes into our pets food is being brought in from China or elsewhere and THAT is scary, more-so than any brand but where the heck are these brands getting their food sources. So now grain based diet, no peas, lower protein levels and will continue to read before I jump on the band wagon with any of these manufacturers. I do feel many breeders rely on these manufacturers, but more because they are the best they can afford for the amount of dogs they feed. If they were in simply a 'normal' 'hey we want to have a dog' situation, who knows if they would choose the brands they do, but for large numbers of dogs being fed, some balance of cost/number of mouths to feed must occur. And I do NOT trust the word for a vet. I have a few vet friends, all who say their 'nutrition' training in vet school is basically pushed by certain manufacturers. What they might sell in clinics isn't necessarily their first choice of dog food, maybe it is for some.

It will all prove interesting as research into all of this continues. I still feel, for the most part, it is a very, very small number of dogs being affected compared to the large number of dogs owned and what is not reflected in these reports is the dogs who have a genetic pre-disposition, regardless of what food is being provided, to have heart problems. And with round-up being found in things like flour making donuts and cereals - what will the end result of pushing back to a grain based diet be if that grain has been genetically altered or poisoned? In the end, we are each responsible for our dogs. Interesting to follow though, for sure!