Quote:
Originally Posted by MaryleeII
So, what do you suggest I do? Return my pet family to a shelter because I can't figure out how to feed them? We all do the best we can, with the information available. I'm not a food scientist.
You know, I've had pets all my life, mainly cats and some dogs. Outside of some injuries, my pets always did well. Now, seems I'm losing my confidence. there's so many varieties of pet foods out there, so many different manufacturers who's motives is not the pet's health but rather their financial health. I get dizzy reading about how to care for animals, something that has brought me pleasure most of my life, to think I was so stupid, I killed marshmallow.Perhaps I should just re-home the remaining cats, any home would be better than with me
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Stop it. Many people have been spoon fed and brain washed by the pet food industry, not just you.
The fact of the matter is, more and more are waking up and realizing this and changing how they feed their pets and trying to inform others.
I don't tell people what to feed their pets, but I WILL tell them that their dogs and cats, and yes, ferrets, ARE carnivores! What should carnivores have? Meat. What can carnivores do without? Grains! Let's take a look at the ingredients on the bags of pet food....by-products and grains.
Well, what do they mean by "by-products"? What IS that, exactly? And if they don't need grains, why are these pet foods loaded with grains? In fact, when DID we start feeding our pets this way?
Ask those questions. Do some research. Find the answers.
We have ALL made the mistake of trusting the pet food industry. I failed three cats! One went in to a coma, one got diabetes, kept gaining weight, lost her tail and eventually died because of it and one poor guy had kidney failure. I attribute every damn last problem to their diet.
Do you know when I woke up? When my 4th cat, (after the others had died), was starting to show signs of failure even though she was not old enough to be showing those signs of failure. I thought back to the other cats...how the hell is this possible?
And I started reading. I read for almost an entire YEAR before I finally felt I had informed myself well enough to change their diet over.
There's no need for you to respond the way you did...someone was trying to help you.
What I find the most interesting is that MANY years ago I had a vet for the first cat, (the coma cat). He was a spay/neuter, vaccine vet so I went to him when the pets needed their stuff done. I also had a dog at the time. This vet told me, all those years ago, that it was ridiculous the amount of money that people spent on "teeth cleaning" products for pets and that all of that was a rip off. That dental visits, where pets can die, were unnecessary if people would feed their pet correctly. And he said, "bones are nature's toothbrush". My dog had bones to gnaw on ever since.
A vet I worked for, an exotic pet and bird vet, geez....over 10 years ago, had made up pamphlets on what to feed these animals, including dogs and cats. I never read over the dog and cat one because I thought I knew what to feed them. I did read over all of the other animals though, including ferrets.
You walk in to any pet store today and some uneducated salesperson will tell you it's ok to feed your ferret cat food. No. It's not. But people buy in to that and people feed their ferrets cat food. People buy their birds that crap at the pet store that is filled with fat. Same with their mice or rats.
"But the pet will get bored!!!!"
No, it won't. The pet DOESN'T know the difference, just like this guy said. Fluffy is not going to get bored. Fluffy just wants something to fill his stomach, that's IT.
When people feed that crap, it is, essentially, as if you fed your child candy every night for dinner. Or McD's. Hmmm...well, well, we DO seem to have an obesity epidemic in this country, don't we? And kids are not getting healthy foods...hey! Maybe it DOESN'T work out so well! Same for animals.
What the vet did say about cat and dog food was that it didn't matter what bag you bought, it was all the same. You may as well feed your pet the leather from the bottom of your shoe because it would have more nutritional value.
And even despite all of that, I STILL didn't get it because the pet food industry, a multi-million dollar industry, has done a bang up job of LYING and confusing far too many people.
So don't get offended or upset...but now that you have the knowledge, research. Find out the truth. Do something about it. Change it. Give your pets a better diet that they deserve.
Here: A very, very good place to start: Orijen White Papers.
Google it. You WILL find it. Doesn't matter what site linked to it, go there, click the link to the pdf, read.