Category: Dispelling Myths

• Because a dog eats a food, laps it up, runs around in excitement at feeding time, doesn’t mean the food is good

So far I’ve talked about McDonalds a fair bit, so let’s talk about kids and cake for a while.

Kids friggin’ love cake! If you feed your kids cake all the time they would love it!

Dogs are no different and will eat whatever you put in their bowl. Kids and dogs don’t know the importance of nutrition, but we do, and therefore their health is our responsibility.

If you put a Big Mac and fries in your dogs bowl, would they love it?

If you put Sugar Coated Corn Pops* in their bowl they would love that too?

Given Sugar Coated Corn Pops are full of sugar, food colourings and humectants, I’m pretty sure your dog will easily become addicted (sorry, I mean “love it”).

Q. Because a kid loves a food, does it mean it’s nutritious?

Of course it doesn’t. Foods aimed at kids are high in sugar, because that’s what kids love. Lot’s of dog foods use similar techniques, with ingredients designed to make your dog “love” the food. These ingredients are called palatants, or palatability enhancers.

A palatant can be anything from salt to fatty broths skimmed off the top of a vat of boiling maggoty chickens.

Spinach isn’t very palatable, but chuck on some bacon dressing and it’s a different story.

What if you chucked bacon dressing on a bowl full of soy bean hulls? That sounds less appealing, but I’m sure your dog would seemingly love it.

Now we’re more in the ball park of many brands of dog food sold and fed in the millions.

Because your dog eats a food, even enthusiastically, doesn’t mean the food is good, and it definitely doesn’t mean it’s healthy.

* Sugar Coated Corn Pops are a made up cereal. I don’t wish to mar a brand name unnecessarily.

Here’s a picture of what I imagine Sugar Coated Corn Puffs to look like. Food colouring’s have been added to make the food look appealing to us humans. Our dogs don’t care, they can only see in black and white.

 

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• Changing a dog’s diet isn’t the cause of sickness and diarrhoea

The picture below shows a clause on the back of a supermarket brand of dog food. It reads “Your dog may have a sensitive stomach. A rapid change in diet may cause them to become suddenly ill, which may result in vomiting and / or diarrhoea.”

This is true, but it’s very misleading.

Let’s discuss humans for a second. If you were to eat Wheat-bix morning, noon, and night, and nothing else, for months (or even years). What would happen to your guts if one day you ate some lentils?

Your guts would probably explode!

The room would be full of toxic gas!

Your toilet seat will become your closest companion, and you’ll feel a bit down in the dumps about the pains and groans in your belly.

Our pets, just like us, develop intolerance if (a) we eat the same thing for a long period of time, or (b) we cut something from our diet for a long period of time.

If grandma sucked on some eggs, if she hadn’t had eggs in years, she’d probably have a few bowel movements.

Something I hear all the time is “This new food’s making my dogs sick, I’m taking it back to the store to complain“.

Regardless of whether a new food is good or bad, the sickness and diarrhoea probably isn’t caused by the new food (although don’t rule it out). It could be the old food, or more likely it could be because the dog hasn’t eaten anything different for so long they’ve become intolerant of other foods.

That’s not a good thing, and the worst thing you can do is put him back on the old food and forget about it.

Why do we believe a dog should eat the same food all the time and develop intolerance, when we know it’s really not a good thing for us humans?

I’ll tell you why:

Pet food manufacturers have trained us to believe changing foods is bad. The reason is simple, and it’s nothing to do with nutrition. They want you to feed their product for the entire lifespan of your dog.

Next chapter – “I love this food, it’s so goooood!” ->

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• Dogs shouldn’t eat the same food every day…
• …and they definitely shouldn’t eat the same shit every day.

Let’s talk about McDonalds.

I’m not saying McDonalds food is shit. When I’m late for a gig or a jam with the band I’ll pick up a Big Mac on the way. I realise it’s unhealthy, but the odd burger really isn’t going to affect my health or my gut, is it?

Go on, look at it! It looks tasty, doesn’t it?

But what if I swung by Maccas every morning on my way to work, and every evening on my way home? I’d look like Santa by Christmas.

Fortunately I have an active life and love running around the park and playing ball games… (yep, I’m a bit like a dog, aren’t I?)

Despite my diet my lifestyle would keep me trim, and I’d be more reminiscent of Marathon Santa and his hareem of foxy elves.

But I’m sure you’d agree, as would McDonalds CEO Steve Easterbrook, that my insides would be pretty screwed up after months of burgers and fries.

So let me be far flung out and radical for a second….

 

Why would you feed worse to your dogs every single day?

 

You may not believe pet food is worse than the infamous MacDonalds beef patty, but consider this:

Even McDonalds can’t legally sell “pet grade” meat.

We live in an age where people feed their dogs very poor quality food, and they feed it every single day.

Maybe that’s why 3 in 5 dogs (and 1 in 3 cats) end up with cancer?

Next chapter – “Please don’t change my diet, I’ll be sick” ->

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This is nothing radical, and it’s a topic which has been widely discussed in pet circles worldwide for years. It revolves around this:

Q. I’m a meat eater, what should I eat?

1. Rice Puffs
2. Wheat-bix
3. Corn flakes
4. Meat

Please select only one answer.

Did you pick Meat?

If that’s the case, why are most dog foods made mostly from rice, wheat, and corn?

Dogs have a dental structure and digestive system geared towards eating and digesting meat. Their digestive tract is shorter than ours, which means they can efficiently digest meat and meat proteins, but other types of proteins (i.e. from grains) are harder to digest or even wasted. Carbohydrates, especially when we’re talking about high carbohydrate foodstuffs, are hard for a dog to digest and even damaging.

So why are most kibbles high in carbohydrates and bulked up with protein sources other than meat?

Next chapter – “Same shit, every day” ->

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