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Why Can't My Vet Help My Dog With Better Nutrition?
This is a very good question to ask. The short answer is that most Vets haven't been trained to help you in the proper area, which is the subject of nutrition and what you should feed your dog.
This is a sensitive issue that is guaranteed to offend some people, particularly those in the profession and for those that place all of their trust in their Vet's hands. Nevertheless, for the sake of your dog’s health, the subject must be addressed. Should people fully trust the nutritional advice dispensed by their Vets?
Most veterinarians are highly qualified individuals and are good caring people that want to help your pet; however, their qualifications and training are for surgery, conventional disease diagnosis and treatment, and conventional drug prescription, NOT for nutrition (although holistic Vets are more aware of the importance of fresh raw foods in keeping animals healthy).
When your dog is suffering from a condition that is caused by poor nutrition, how helpful is your Vet going to be?
While Veterinarians perform much-needed services for our pets, these services should not include:
a) selling pet food, and
b) administering nutritional advice.
Veterinarians receive very little nutritional training in school. The training they do receive is often advocated by or even administered by the pet food companies. Vets nutritional training comes from the incorrect view that dogs can safely be maintained on a grain-based diet that is overly processed, all cooked and filled with cheap ingredients and synthetic chemicals masquerading as nutrients. How well do you think YOUR body would do on this type of diet?
Read an article about what is in commercial pet foods Click here: https://www.facebook.com/BDHBH/posts/542803905763884
Here is what a client told us about Hill’s Science Diet dog food. “As a professional, I personally got to know Dr. Mark Hill who 'invented' Hill's brand dog food. He also became a very rich man with his marketing idea to get Vets to endorse Hill's. We have a dog food plant in our rural community. A friend of my husband works on the sacking line. He was explaining that the sacks to be used for each Science Diet formula changed to fulfill an order but the dry food coming off the auger belt does not. No surprise to me.”
These commercial dog foods are recommended even when scientific research has proven that dogs do not thrive long term on these types of diets. Perhaps that is why pets today are soft, doughy, and suffering from a variety of ailments linked to grain-rich, processed food (cancer, diabetes, arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, seizures, liver problems, bladder problems etc.) – virtually every degenerative disease.
Veterinarians are invariably linked to the commercial pet food industry. They advocate and even market commercial foods, receiving substantial revenue and kickbacks. The pet food companies make sure of this by promoting programs in the universities and by giving FREE FOOD to the up-and-coming Vets to sell in their practices. For example, Colgate-Palmolive, the company that manufactures Hill's Science Diet, spends
"hundreds of thousands of dollars a year funding university research and nutrition courses at every one of the 27 US veterinary colleges. Once in practice, Vets who sell Science Diet and other premium foods directly pocket profits of as much as 40%" (Parker-Pope, T. 1997. For You, My Pet. The Wall Street Journal. 3 November 1997. In Lonsdale, T. 2001. Raw Meaty Bones. p266).
The Veterinary profession is tied closely with commercial pet food companies at every turn. A tour of veterinary teaching hospitals or vet clinics shows equipment, products, and posters sponsored by and endorsing commercial foods and pharmaceutical companies. Due to this influence, Vets are hardly in a position to offer sound nutritional advice.
They are in direct violation of the oath and creed they swore to uphold: "First do no harm." In spite of their oath they are promoting foods detrimental to animals' health, advocating a product that will harm their patients and ensure a returning clientele and source of revenue. This is likely and hopefully unintentional.
But the biggest blame is due in large part to the great lack in the education the universities have administered to them! Nothing but commercial pet food dogma is being repeated in university after university after university; these are institutions of higher learning where people are supposed to be thinking critically and evaluating things analytically, yet in reality are being told to shut off their common sense and ignore the overwhelming amount of evidence against commercial pet foods.
" Michigan State University (MSU) College of Veterinary Medicine recently presented the 2004 Partnership Award to Hill's Pet Nutrition Inc.
"The award recognizes the working relationship between the MSU Vet School and Hill's."
"Hill's provides financial and educational support to nearly every veterinary college in North America, as well as to veterinary students attending those institutions. This commitment to the profession includes Hill's sponsored teaching programs, residencies and faculty programs in veterinary schools and teaching hospitals all over the world."
Hills's Pet Nutrition Inc. is the parent company of Science Diet brand dog foods.
Let me stress once again - your Vet is a good person. But simply put, most Vets are not educated on proper nutrition, just like your Doctor is likely not. What do you do when your dog has a condition that is directly tied to a lack of proper nutrition like a liver shunt, poor liver health, bladder stones, bladder infections, pancreatitis, kidney problems, diabetes, Cushing's or Addison's Disease etc – the list is almost endless?
Is the taking of medications going to allow your dog’s body to heal these conditions on the cellular level and create a lifetime of health OR are the medications just taking their symptoms away?
If you can’t turn to your Vet for nutritional advice, where can you turn? Do you search the internet and become even more confused with all the conflicting approaches you find posted there? I always say this - "if you ask 100 people what you should feed your dog, you will get 99 different answers!" Your head will be spinning after awhile.
One approach would be to partner with someone that has been down the natural healing path that you and your dog would benefit greatly from. This path is like going to a foreign country where you (and your vet) have never been before. You don’t know the language. You don’t know the food. You don’t know the best sights to see. Wouldn’t it be helpful to have a guide that knows all these things to help you in this foreign land ? A guide that has been to this foreign land thousands of times?
I have been down the natural healing path countless times with many dogs and owners in the past 20+ years. It has produced astounding results - some have even called it "miraculous". Please consider contacting me for a free consultation so that I can help you if you have not already done so.
"I have had great success with Buddy's health turnaround due to your coaching and guidance and really no help from my Vet. I am now shopping around for a new vet that has a more balanced approach between medicine and nutrition. My current Vet was never supportive through the process with Buddy. I have started feeling as though it is all about money and not really about the best interest of my pets."
Lori
Westminster CO
Roxie will be 10 years old in October. I am STUNNED that she has been with us 10 years when I thought she wasn’t going to make it to her first birthday! Thank you for all of your guidance!! You absolutely saved her life.
Darla
Oro Valley AZ
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Once you experience what a natural healing approach can do for your dog's health and longevity, you will wonder what took you so long.
You may even start to make some changes to your own diet once you see the tremendous changes in your pet.