Why You Should Say "NO" When Your Vet Recommends Rx Dog Food

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I've been doing a lot of research on feeding dogs for some time now, and people often ask me to help them find a good quality commercial food. Lately, I've had a few people whose vets recommended Hill's "prescription" diets (or similar foods like Purina EN) which can only be purchased by vet prescription. These foods are usually sold directly by the vet and are very expensive.
People can sense by looking at the labels or reading on-line that these foods don't seem all that healthy, and they would like to feed something better, not to mention cheaper. But they have been told that their dogs need these foods because of allergies, chronic diarrhea or other gastrointestinal problems, and they don't know what a good alternative might be.
You may already know that most vets don't know very much about nutrition or dog food. That may seem strange to you, but it isn't much different than medical doctors. In each case, they take a rudimentary course in college, the same course that nurses & exercise instructors (or vet techs) take.
In fact, the veterinary colleges have no required nutrition curriculum.  What information is provided comes in the form of seminars conducts by Hills, Purina and Mars, makers of the Rx foods your vet sells. The textbooks are written and published by people who work for these companies, and their advertising is all over the walls. They also give a commission to the vets for selling their foods. Can you say "conflict of interest"? The vets are taught to "prescribe" these foods as if they're medicine. "Dog has diarrhea? Recommend this!", the salesman tells them, and then launches into the sales pitch about how great the food is.
If you brought your child to the doctor because he had chronic diarrhea or was vomiting, and the doctor said, "Here, feed him this", would you accept that? Or would you want to know what was wrong, why the child is ill, what is causing it? Wouldn't you expect some tests? Wouldn't you want a diagnosis, a prognosis, and an explanation of how the food (medicine) will help?
We need to learn to do the same thing with our dogs. Let's take a look at some of these foods the vets are recommending.

[Shannon & Lily]

These are the ingredients in the Wellness canned Just for Puppy:

Chicken, Chicken Broth, Salmon (A Natural Source of DHA, Docosahexaenoic Acid), Sweet Potatoes, Ground Barley, Carrots, Ground Flaxseed, Canola Oil, Apples, Pears, Bananas, Guar Gum, Potassium Chloride, Salt, Carrageenan, Iron Proteinate, Zinc Proteinate, Choline Chloride, Vitamin E Supplement, Cobalt Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Riboflavin Supplement, Sodium Selenite, Thiamine Mononitrate, Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin B-12 Supplement, Potassium Iodide, Biotin, Vitamin D-3 Supplement.

Plus Vitamins and Minerals

This is a naturally preserved product.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

If you're using the sweet potatoes, you don't need the rice.

The Wellness puppy formula is too complex for her right now; too many ingredients. She needs a limited ingredient formula. Natural Balance makes canned LID food, you should be able to find that in most pet supply stores. There's a chicken and sweet potato formula that might work.

[Shannon & Lily]

Thanks!  I've got chicken & sweet potato cooked and ready for tomorrow... that will give me time to find a limited ingredient food-- thank for your help!

[Shannon & Lily]

Wanted to update -- She love, love, loves the home cooking!  Vet is not a fan of sweet potato & pumpkin and wanted to keep it as simple as possible, but she's still going strong on the poached chicken & rice.  Wasn't helping until this week when we tried a new antibiotic & on day 4 started to see some improvements -- woohoo!  Thank you again for your help -- reading that can of Hills food from the vet made ME sick to my stomach & I'm glad that you advised me to no longer give it to my puppy.  THanks!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I can't imagine why the vet doesn't like sweet potato and pumpkin, it's  recommended over rice or any type of grains by Jack's IMS, as well as the canine nutritionists who formulate diets for dogs with GI problems. But as long as she's doing better, that's the main thing! Thanks for the update!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Great article:What Does Your Vet Know About Pet Nutrition?

[KLN]

This post literally takes my breath away.  I am relatively new to DK so many of you probably don't recognize me...as a quick introduction...I have a brand new double doodle, Finley Franklin as well as an eight year old cocker spaniel, Ellie.  Ellie was my first dog as an adult and when she was two I got a brother for her to play with, Cooper.  In October of this year, at only six, I had to let him go.  It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do and I am still devastated from the loss. We just had a special bond and he is terribly missed.  He was a text book cocker spaniel...everything that could be wrong was.  I spent thousands of dollars on him between his eyes, skin, allergies, hernias.  I always said that he was meant to come to me because most people could not have given him the medical attention he needed on almost a daily basis.  He had awful allergies, to the point of sores breaking out into open wounds on his body.  Until about a year and a half ago I fed him raw rabbit patties (nature's variety).  I hated them because they had to be defrosted the day prior and if I forgot it was just a nightmare and I travel a lot and it was so hard to travel with frozen patties.  So a friend told me about a completely hypo allergenic kibble made by Purina (HA) in a hypo allergenic plan (meaning no other food but hypo allergenic was made there) and I asked my vet about it.  He said "lets try it and see how he does on it".  It seemed to work great and Cooper's skin and allergies stayed at bay when I made the switch.  After being on the food for maybe a year/year and a half, he just stopped eating one day.  Within three weeks he was gone.  We thought it was just a flu like bug at first but after multiple tests, we found out that he was in complete liver failure.  He wouldn't eat anything...I tried EVERYTHING and spent hours on the floor crying and coaxing him to eat just something.  I decided that starting a feeding tube just wasn't the life I wanted for him so I let him go.  I am still so sad about it and miss him so much.  I have had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind for awhile now that it was the food switch (to HA) that made things worse. Looking back on other symptoms that we thought were just random symptoms, he probably had undiagnosed liver failure for years but the raw diet kept it stabilized.  I know I can't beat myself up for what happened, I did what my vet recommended and what I thought was best and know that I would have done anything in the world that I could have for him but I will never, ever, put any food into my dogs now that I am not 100% comfortable with.  Seeing this post just made me think even more about whether it was that food that might have caused things to get so bad.  My apologies for the long post...my intention wasn't for it to be this long and there wasn't much that I actually contributed.  It just makes me so sad to realize people don't understand the importance of what we feed our dogs and the impact it makes on their health. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I am so sorry for your loss. Please don't beat yourself up, many of here didn't know what we know now, and nobody can fault you for making what seemed to be the best choice at the time. Hugs to you, and congratulations on your new baby! 

[KLN]

Thank you and thank you. I will never know if it was the food that I was feeding him or just his time but when my friends and family tell me I'm neurotic now about my pups food I don't care!!

[Star and Goldie]

KLN, I can completely relate. I lost my first dog I had as an adult as well.  I was clueless on foods as I thought Purina was a premium food :(  My sweet baby Sway died at the young age of 7.  It wasn't until I found this site last year that I connected the dots and came to terms with the role I played in her passing. I was absolutely crushed. I cried for days and immediately made a switch for my then 12 week old doodle and 10 year old Golden.

As Karen said, don't beat yourself up. We are all growing and learning here and I'm so glad you found this site! Welcome to the group :)

[KLN]

Thank you! And thanks for sharing your experience, I am really sorry for your loss as well, you know how hard it is, especially when they are so young. :0). I'm so glad I found this group! I have always had cocker spaniels but got Finley (my doodle) after my vet recommended the breed due to them (generally) being a much healthier breed than cocker spaniels. I am quickly falling in love with the breed!

And you are both right, I cannot beat myself up, I did the very best I could with the knowledge I had. The food I was feeding him was "supposed" to be a premium food but after reading this post who knows what they were putting in it to make it hypoallergenic. I have always been very conscious about their food and the ingredients but because this was prescription and recommended by my vet I didn't do the research I did with their foods I would buy at the pet store. :(. Now I'm neurotic about everything that goes into their mouths!!!!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I thought this would be an appropriate place to post this.

In the email "digest" that I get every day from my IBD Dogs support group forum, there was a post by one of the members about Rx foods. I thought it was worth posting here.

"So it was (dog's name) semi annual wellness appointment yesterday.  I was given a few insights into prescription dog food from the vet’s viewpoint.

The owner is a through and through Hills believer.  Like most, he was provided only one semester in school on Canine Nutrition and also like most, he was innundated in school with perks and education seminars from Hills.

The vet tech that worked with (dog's name) and I happened to be the person in charge of inventory and restocking in their retail area.  She loves doing business with Hills and Purina because they will take back any bag of food past it’s expiration date, no questions asked.  The bag will either be replaced or a credit given, whichever she specifies.  She avoids Royal Canin when possible because they will not accept returns unless they are notified 30 days before the expiration date on the bag.
In further conversation, she said that she has been offered several courses on nutrition from Hills because she works at the vet clinic.  She finds them informative and is given tons of information about why Hills is the greatest, has the greatest food, nobody else has an actual Doctor on the premises where food is manufactured, etc etc etc
She understands that Royal Canin has a much shorter shelf life when opened because it uses fewer and more natural preservatives and she agrees that that is a good thing.  However, for ease of her job, she prefers Hills and Purina.

She went on to say that we have to keep in mind that many older vets were only exposed to Hills in vet school, and that when they started their businesses, who appeared to help them but the Hills sales rep offering to handle the management of all their dog food inventory.  Expired products?  No problem !  Cost of Inventory, no problem, they’ll help you get started!"