Pet Nutrition, Who Can You Trust?

We get questions about nutrition all the time. We try to give our best advice but we know many people go to the pet store and talk to the high school kid and buy something else. Frustrating? YES.

And let me tell you why… We don’t expect that you’re going to follow our advice every single time. My doctor tells me not to eat chips but if you put a bag of Doritos in front of me you better watch your fingers! Let’s be honest though – who knows more about nutrition than your veterinary team?

Who cares more about your pet and their health than your veterinary team? Just you. We try to treat your pet as one of our own, and that is for everything from emergency surgery to the daily routine of good nutrition.

I, Dr. Gough, have been in this industry since I was a kid. I used to pull up a stool to watch dad do surgery from the time I was walking. Since then I have seen a massive evolution in the pet food industry. Back then, we had two choices – Alpo and Tender Vittles. BLECH!!!

Now we have so many pet food choices that I can’t even keep up, so what I look at is: What are the foods that my patients have done well on over their lifespans? What would I feed my pet?
The answer hands down is Royal Canin, and if I had a second choice it would be Science Diet.

Here’s why:

1. Quality ingredients – these are human grade ingredients going into their pet foods! Many other pet food companies are right beside the dead stock – so they are grinding up cows that died from various nasty diseases and may have antibiotics or other drugs in their system. Again I say BLECH!!
2. Quality control – Royal Canin has better quality control systems than some of our human food processing plants…
3. Research!!! – the Research that Royal Canin and Science Diet have done to improve the health and lifespan of our pets should be applauded and rewarded by supporting them and buying their products!
4. Naturally preserved – no preservatives anywhere in these foods! Just good nutrition.

There are many other reasons to feed quality pet foods, but let’s just go with some of these:

• Throwing 15 blueberries into the vat and calling it holistic does not mean it’s going to do ANYTHING to help your pet.
• Grain-free is not even really necessary for people, and certainly not necessary for your pet. Some circumstances excepted, grain-free gluten-free is not a benefit.
• Price means nothing. For Royal Canin you will pay a premium and it’s worth every penny. For many other diets they just jack up the price to make you think it’s worth it, but at the end of the day they have no research to back up their claims.

So after 20 years as a vet and a lifetime in this industry, I can honestly say that the best diet out there is Royal Canin and Science Diet is right behind them. There are others who are in my top 10, but I won’t list them here.

I’ve watched many of my patients grow up and live long very healthy lives on GOOD NUTRITION.

ASK US! We can help you!