Kristi Reimer Fender’s shares challenges veterinary teams face when advising clients on pet food for their pets. Her article focuses on clearing up a storm of pet food myths, misconceptions, guiding clients and how food is integrated as part of the human-animal bond. Kudos to the DVM team for assembling this valuable collection of resources.
Here’s what it comes down to: A diet is only as good as its formulation. And to understand a diet’s formulation, you have to do some digging. – Lindsey Bullen, DVM, DACVN
Source: DVM 360 Magazine, June 28, 2019. Link.
Dr. Bullen’s criteria for evaluating a pet food checklist:
- The diet is made by a reputable, longstanding company.
- The company participates in active nutrition research—and shares its findings.
- There are veterinary or PhD nutritionists on staff.
- The diet has gone through feeding trials.
- Quality control processes are rigorous.
- The company keeps a “diet vault.”
- There are no unverified claims.
- There’s no promotion of nutritional myths.
- The company doesn’t bash other manufacturers.
Source: Leadership Challenge—Mission: Nutrition, DVM 360, July 20, 2019. Link. Veterinary professionals should be at the heart of the pet food discussion, but they often find themselves pushed to the fringe. The DVM360 staff provides a collection of articles to better guide pet owners, veterinary teams and patients toward the best sources of nutrition they can get.
Every veterinary student gets some nutrition information, but no one is expecting the average practitioner to explain the intricacies of homemade food recipes, raw food, grain-free formulations and pet food manufacturers’ quality control processes. Well, no one except their clients.
INSIGHTS: It is likely that 99 percent who read this will find a new perspective or new approach to discussing nutrition. This is a superb collection of resources and worth the time to review.
Regardless of your role in animal health, animal diets are core to healthy animals. Understanding the good, bad and ugly about them makes all of us better advocates and animal stewards.