have you heard of...

[Lucky_Lover]

But I don't have to convince my parents lol. Lucky is MY dog. Im aloud to feed him whatever I want. My vet who is a very good vet just higly reccomended Medi-Cal. He had a golden retreiver that got to be in the news paper for being so old and so healthy when it died, and both of his Golden retreivers ate Medi-Cal. I told my mom what you said though about Medi-Cal and she and my older sister both said that its not like us people don't eat food with alot of chemichals in it like you were saying about Medi-Cal being scientific chemichals or somthing. But next time I see my vet I'll ask him about it. But he'll probably just say somthing like "well is he a vet?" or something like "oh what vet is this" but he is a GREAT vet.

[Saje]

Nobody is saying that he isn't a great vet. The thing is that vets don't study nutrition that much. You need to get the most information you can about the ingredients in food and they make the best, educated decision you can. That's your responsibility.

I don't trust everything that every vet has to say. I do my reading and research. I talk to people. I definitely consider my vets opinion and I make my own decision. I think that's the best thing you can do. There are so many people out there with opinions and 'facts.' And the truth is that you can find a fact for anything.

[Renee750il]

My vet is great when it comes to 'vet' stuff, but he knows diddly about dog food. Like most vets, the only real nutritional instruction he got was from the dog food company reps!

And even very good vets like to sell foods that they make a nice profit from!

[Lucky_Lover]

Originally Posted by Saje

I definitely consider my vets opinion and I make my own decision.

Originally Posted by Mordy

just FYI - both medi-cal and techni-cal are owned by royal canin, which is in turn owned by mars, just so you can keep track of what other types of foods they produce.

I did make my own decision and my decision was to feed Lucky Medi-Cal. Mordy said somthing about Royal Canine being like Medi-Cal and Royal Canine was the food that my little Sierra was on. And Sierra was fine with Royal Canine Sierra had a problem with eating, she didn't do it much. And Royal Canine was the only dog food she would eat. Lucky is a perfecty healthy dog that has never had any health problems and has always been on Medi-Cal... except for when he was a pup and was on Iams. His vet said Iams was a fine dog food but said that we could stay on Iams if we wanted or we could change Lucky onto Medi-Cal which we did and yes it was completley are decision the vet just said eiher one was fine. And Sierra was a perfectlty healthy puppy that woul only eat Royal Canine and I know the fact that Sierra died at the age of Six months doesn't support the fact that Sierra was a perfectly healthy puppy but she was.

[Renee750il]

WHOA! Hold up! Iams is NOT good food - not by a long shot! Check out some of the other threads here; there's been a lot of discussion about Iams/Eukanuba. It's horrible stuff - you're no better off than feeding grocery store dog food, which is all Iams is now anyway.

[Lucky_Lover]

I know! I read all the posts on the thread the don't buy Iams thing. Thats why I mentioned it. He gave me the choice he did say that it was are choice but that he recomended Medi-Cal over Iams. And I know Iams does all that ver cruel Animal testings but the food itself is suposed to be allright. But you were all just dissing Medi-Cal and acting as if I was a stupid 12 year old that was practicly setting there dog up for a death bed and now Im even more stupid for feeding him Iams ok I get the point I am a stupid kid that feeds her dogs crap ok fine whatever.

[Renee750il]

No, no, that's not the point! The point is that you have to do your own research; this is something you SHOULD be able to depend on your vet's advice for, but you can't. You're not a 'stupid kid' at all. If you were stupid you wouldn't be asking questions, now, would you?

I hope you'll go to Mordy's site and do some further reading on dog foods. I was appalled when I really started to look into the differences in dog foods and saw just how bad most were and how misleading their information and advertisements were. And I really wish vets would learn something about dog foods. There is one near me who actually does recommend Innova and won't sell the Iams/Eukanuba and Science DIEt like most vets do, but there are other aspects of his practice that I really can't get all that enthused about. Dr. P. is a much better vet, but I know better than to ask him about dog food.

That one thread wasn't the only one that discusses Iams. It's discussed in several threads. The company does practice some heinous treatments of its animals, and the food it produces is almost as reprehensible as its treatment of animals. If you think about it, why would a company that cares so little about animals have any concern about the health of your pet? They just want to make a profit.

[Mordy]

Lucky_Lover, excuse me - you asked for feedback and got it, and now you're mad?

i give up.

[Lucky_Lover]

**** I just spent like 20 minutes making an apology to u but it turned out that I wasn't logged on and when I went to log on my whole letter got erased but it pretty much went like this... Hi Im so so sry I was being a ***** and I know it. I just thing so much of all you guys your like such good dog people and when I found out that I was feeding my dog crap his intire life it hurt I was kind of embarred for ever thinking that I was a good dog owner. Also it hurt when you said that Royal Canine was a bad dog food to because Sierra was on it and I have been trying to think of any possible way to cause Sierras death and when I found out that she was on crappy food to I felt like maybe the crappy food caused her death. I know that is a really stupid thing to think and I know its probably like inpossible but still I felt like I should have known and that its my fault that Sierra had to even smell crappy food she should have been eating the same food as the queens dogs she definetly deserved it. Anyway Im so so so so so sorry. I understand if you never want to respond to another one of my posts again. I look so forward to all of you guyses posts I check for them as soon as I wake up, as soon as I get back from school and at school in the computer lab in between projects. But now blew it and I know that I don't deserve you guyses help no more. Well u know teenage girl raging hourmones lol anyway it was nice knowing yah I know you wont want to talk to me anymore Im so so so sry. Am I being to Dramatic?

[Saje]

Nobody is mad at you. We like that you are trying to get help and find out the best way to help your dog. I understand why you are upset. I always feel sick if I think that I have done something harmful to one of my pets. We understand that. All of us.

Don't worry. We still want to talk to you. We know you are trying to find out the truth.

I am going to tell you something unpleasant. My boyfriend worked at a slaughter house for a VERY short time. They had a bin where they threw all of the 'meat' for the regular brands of dog food. That meat would be tumours. Infected parts. Dirty parts. Parts with pus. The 'good' part was for people. It was horrible. That is what goes into any brand of dog food that doesn't use human-grade meat.

And that is only the begining. there are a lot of factors for what makes a good food. The quality of the product going in, the type of the product, how it is digested...

And Iams is not the only company that uses invasive/cruel tests on animals. Most of the companies do unless they state otherwise.

Those are some of the things that you need to consider if you are going to make your own decision about a product.