Just talked to Purina

I may have a naive attitude to this but when i see a dog with disease,any disease,from arthritis to cancer,my first thought is food,what is the owner feeding the dog?? Especially when you see dogs as young as 2 years old getting cancer.

Emma is three. She was fed whatever at the shelter. When I got her, I started cooking for her, almost immediately. When she was 5 months old, she broke out in demodex. They told me I was making her sick. I HAD to switch her to kibble. I was so upset that my puppy was sick, that I listened. I asked for reccomendations, and the vet techs reccomended Pedigree. I listened. For a month, she ate Pedigree. She looked like crap. Her skin peeled off in big chunks, and she was shedding like a feind. I switched to solid gold. That worked for a while, and we went back to homemade, at the vet's reccomendation, when she was diagnosed with liver shunts.  When she was twelve months, we started with the limping and muscle degeneration. Spine defect. At fourteen months, she was incontinent, and she broke out in demodex, again.  She has horrible, life threatening allergies. She had another horrible reaction the other night. She started having seizures as a young puppy. She has horrible arthritis in her back, and has acupuncture regularly, to control her pain.

It's not all about food.

It's not all about food.

 
I agree with you Jeannie. I wish it were that easy. But the dogs just on this board alone who still get these diseases after their owners are feeding good food, proves that point. Unfortunately though, some people are blaming themselves for causing their dogs to get sick by not feeding them better food FASTER,,,especially because they might have "found" their dog on the street, rescue etc etc.
Thats very sad. I think we love our pets equally.

Sandra:

Thank you for that piece of information. Youve set my mind at ease. I fed Beneful to my dogs, before I knew any better. When I joined i-dog I was so overwhelmed by the people who told me that Beneful was horrible, that I went out and bought Lizzie Exclusive, in hopes of changing her diet around.

Even after mixing for a week Lizzie had horrible diarreah, low energy and was just overall sick. After that I went back to Walmart and got her a bag of One. I didnt even have to mix the food. Now some people may say 'why didnt you try others?' The only thing available to me was that and Royal Canin, and lets speak realistically: I am a single mom on minimum wage and 50 bucks for a 15 pound bag was NOT in my budget.

I make a budget for my food, why not for my dogs food? I am not a horrible mother because I budjet our food, so why would I be a bad pet owner? I love chicken pot pies, but instead of buying Banquet brand, I buy Great Value from Walmart at half the price, same with Hot Pockets. If I need to budget for myself, I need to budget for my dogs.

Right now I am feeding Kirkland dog food. Why? Its cheaper (and better ingredient wise) and I am feeding two large dogs. The day I cannot possible get down to Costco to buy food for my girls, I wont feel guilty for going out and buying a small bag of One.

ORIGINAL: ILoveChi

After seeing so many skinny emanciated dogs on TV shows and shelters here... I'm just happy people feed their dogs, so I don't judge what they feed. If they ask for my opinion, I'll tell them, otherwise, it is none of my business.

I agree

There is no single right way to feed a dog, it all comes down to what you believe and what works for you. Some people feel comfortable feeding raw, others prefer homecooked, some people prefer large companies that have been around forever, others prefer small holistic companies, there are pluses and minuses to everyone of these methods, it all comes down to what you feel comfortable with and what works best for your dog.

But don#%92t try to tell me that Kibbles & Bits is “just as good” as Canidae because your dog appears healthy.

 
I feed Nutro and my dog appears healthy.
 

As far as diet goes, according to the American Cancer Society, there IS a link between cancer and what you eat:

 
This is a correlative study. Correlations really don't prove anything because there are way too many uncontroled variables.
 
If buying your dog premium dog food makes you feel nice and safe, as though you're insuring that your dog will have a long healthy life, that's fine. It's a nice little security blanket to hang on to. We all love our pets, but there is NO correlation between the amount of money you spend on it's food, and the affection in your heart.
 
Show me a non-biased,independent clinical trial, with a diverse and stable, random sampling of subjects that proves one food to be statistically significantly better than another and we'll talk. Everything else is just personal experience.

If buying your dog premium dog food makes you feel nice and safe, as though you're insuring that your dog will have a long healthy life, that's fine. It's a nice little security blanket to hang on to. We all love our pets, but there is NO correlation between the amount of money you spend on it's food, and the affection in your heart.

Buying a top quality food with healthy ingredients is hardly for the sake of making me feel nice and safe [8|] It's purely for their benefit and knowing i am feeding them the best foods there are,money and how much i spend on their food doesnt even come in to it!

I would call feeding an animal a diet as closely resembling the one they evolved to eat more of a health insurance policy rather than a security blanket....

I just read a quote by Billinghurst that really made sense to me,even though i dont feed 100% raw,i have to agree with him.

"If our pets are to reach their genetic potential of health,longevity,physical activity and reproduction,their modern diet must mimic their evolutionary diet.Pet owners who ignore this truth may seriously harm the animals in their care"

Sure,not everyone can feed a prey model diet,but we can do the next best thing and incorporate as much of the food dogs are designed to eat in to their every day meals. Kibble is about as far removed from a natural canines diet as we can get,so if i am going to feed a commercial food it's going to be the best one available and one whose ingredients as closely match their evolutianary diet as i can. No funky colors or preservatives,no grain laden junk and no mystery ingredients!

Just my opinion,but i think it's totally ignorant(ignorance is bliss [] ) to completely DISMISS that there may be a correlation between diet and cancer.

Recclest what do you feed?

I stopped smoking a little over 7 years ago, believe it or not, for the sake of my dogs, Buck and Scooter.  I saw what was on the walls and the glass on my pictures, etc.  I had smoked for 28 years.  And if anyone thinks giving up smokes (I was doing 2 packs a day of the Misty 120 menthols) is easy, think again.  BUT IT CAN BE DONE IF YOU ARE DETERMINED.    And I was.  After i made that big step, i decided to all but stop my coffee drinking, maybe one cup a day--i was doing as much as 8 cups a day)  I kept reading over and over about how bad it was for you and i decided I was going straigten up and fly right.  I had always eaten properly, but to much cigarettes and to much cofee.  Now i may go a week without a single cup of coffee.'
 
Then in Sunday's Parade, dadgum an article about coffee being GOOD FOR YOU.  Did any of you see it.?  It wasn't not talking about 8 cups a day, but did say 2 or 3 cups (I think that was the numbers it gave)   It is so hard what to go with when for a few years it is this way, and then suddenly it turns and is that way, and then in a few years, back to the way it was.  I have seen this over and over.
 
I guess all any of us can do is go which way we believe best, regardless of the reason for believing such. 

ORIGINAL: recclest

As far as diet goes, according to the American Cancer Society, there IS a link between cancer and what you eat:

This is a correlative study. Correlations really don't prove anything because there are way too many uncontroled variables.

If buying your dog premium dog food makes you feel nice and safe, as though you're insuring that your dog will have a long healthy life, that's fine. It's a nice little security blanket to hang on to. We all love our pets, but there is NO correlation between the amount of money you spend on it's food, and the affection in your heart.

Show me a non-biased,independent clinical trial, with a diverse and stable, random sampling of subjects that proves one food to be statistically significantly better than another and we'll talk. Everything else is just personal experience.

Interesting.  I suppose that you also don't believe that there is any link between lung cancer and smoking, and diet and excerise and heart disease either?  It is very common medical knowledge that there are numorous lifestyle links to not only cancer, but quite a few ailments.  Do you have something to refute that data?

If that belief helps you enjoy your Big Mac that much more, fine, please don't take offense if I find the American Cancer Society a bit more credible than you.  An once of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

ORIGINAL: recclest

As far as diet goes, according to the American Cancer Society, there IS a link between cancer and what you eat:

This is a correlative study. Correlations really don't prove anything because there are way too many uncontroled variables....[snipped]...
Show me a non-biased,independent clinical trial, with a diverse and stable, random sampling of subjects that proves one food to be statistically significantly better than another and we'll talk. Everything else is just personal experience.

 
Correlations do prove something- that there is a (statistically significant) relationship between one variable and another. They may not demosntrate causation; e.g eating a certain type of food causes cancer, but they can show that it is related.
 
A LOT of applied research in many scientific areas uses correlations to test theories/hypotheses, mainly because non-biased independent clinical trials with a completely random sampling of subjects, and proper control over ALL possible interfering variables is unrealistic and nigh impossible when we're talking about real life situations.

I have to bring this up again because no one seems to address this subject. We keep talking food and cancer and other diseases.  How can we address this issue without considering all the toxics that we are putting into our dogs on a regular basis,,such as Heartworm and flee preventions?  And for that matter,, some people believe vaccinations causing these problems?  I just don't understand how we can talk about one food or another so much and not address this issue!

The shots and heartworm are supposed to be preventitives.  I guess which is worse...the vaccine or the disease?  Which is worse heartworm or the preventitive?  Is it better to vaccinate for something that if our dog gets it they could die?   Its not just vaccines and heartworm ...what about cleaners in the house and feritlizers and other things we use in their environment?
I guess you have to decide the risk factors...to give vaccine or to take chances?  Each one of us have to decide whether the preventitive is worth the risk or not.
I personally won't use the flea spot medication again on Harley.  I tried Advantix and the natural drops and Harley's skin got red and irratated.  I used flea shampoo and that was fine.  I give him ACV in his water daily and that helped cut down on the fleas as well.
I guess sometimes we have to figure things out through trial and error and hopefully not at the expense of our dog's health.

Dyan I happen to agree with you whole heartedly.
 
I follow Dr. Dodds minimal vaccine protocol.  DH and I were talking last nite when the Petmeds commercial came on encouraging folks to KEEP their pets on flea/tick and heartworm protection year round.  The summer that we lived in Savannah, I used very little frontline.  I haven't needed it since.  Where we live is right off the shores of Lake Michigan and we have incredibly sandy soil and we DO have sand fleas.....they get on me, but never the dogs.  So, what I feed, I believe gives them a robust immune system that is not appealing to fleas.
 
I look at it more holistically I guess.  The cockers often had skin problems, yucky ears, and an overall doggie smell.  These guys do not.  The cockers HAD to be bathed regularly....these guys rarely get a bath.....once or twice a YEAR and they do NOT have a doggie odor.  That I think has a great deal to do with what they eat.
 
But I also think that over vaccinating causes more cancers and illness than anyone wants to acknowledge, weakens the immune system instead of strengthening it as they are supposed to, and gosh darn, the ones that are still preserved with mercury just can't be good.
 
So I think its the OVERALL picture and not JUST the food.  I think the food is an important PIECE of the puzzle, but you can't discount the rest.

I guess I am missing what all these carcinogens are in Purina. I want to see a study showing me what in Purina is causing cancer. Is there a study saying that a dog food using rice or potato as a carb source instead of corn, reduces the risk of cancer in dogs.  Is there a study that shows using chicken meal instead of a chicken by-product meal reduces the risk of cancer in dogs?  Purina is not like eating Macdonalds every day.  Purina is complete and balanced nutrition for dogs, known to meet all of the known nutrient requirements of the dog within a resumed caloric intake.  I don't think there is a nutritionist alive that would say eating Macdonalds everyday is complete and balanced nutrition meeting the total nutrient requirements within a resumed caloric intake.