'Are we killing our pets?' Petfood article.

Claire_Bear

sleepymy wrote: »

I know some of their legally sold flea treatments have been shown to be fatal in some animals. We seem to have stricter rules here.

The same can be said for flea treatment sold in the UK, it's just not widely publicised. There is a link on another thread for Bob Martins (I think) flea treatment having the same effects on cats. ETA Here's one link, I'm sure there are others saying the same thing http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/pets-accessories/bob-martin-flea-products/reviews/

Even if boosters don't directly harm your cat, there's a difference between this and them simply not being needed. If initial vacs will protect a cat for life, then there's no point in topping this up, as it says in the article and as crank_girls says, a vet will make a lot of their revenue from boosters so they wouldn't actively go around saying they weren't needed. However, I still haven't made my mind up, I'm just trying to gather evidence for both sides.

Greenbynature

moneysaver12 wrote: »

How do you work out how much raw food a dog would need. My dog weights 30kg.

Depending how old/active your dog is it's approx 2-3% of his/her body weight and for puppies its 10% but I go more by eye - ie if they're looking a bit porky I cut it down or if looking a bit too lean I up it - I also up it in winter hth

Greenbynature

The thing that gets me with the vacs is that in humans we don't need yearly boosters apart from flu vac so why should our animals be any different???

Kayl06

What about Burns food then? Is that another bad one?

My dog is allergic to all meat apart from fish and lamb so feeding him a raw diet would be quite difficult i think.
He gets an upset stomach if he has too much lamb (apart from the dried stuff of course) and he refuses to touch fish!

Any suggestions as to what we could feed him if Burns turns out to be really bad for him?

UKTigerlily

Burns is a good food afaik it's one of the best & a Vet owns it

sleepymy

Yes, Burns is considered one of the best. Clinivet is also designed by a vet and very good. Neither of them test on animals either.

arlybarly

My old German Shep Simba was fed all his life on the raw fiet and died at the age of 12 with a tumour in the bowel which is a common trait in Shepherds. Apart from a hip operation when he was 7 years old he never went to the vets for nything as he was always very fit and healthy. My 2 German Sheps i have now eat the raw diet also and they are very healthy. I would recommend the diet over any other as you know what they are having rather than tinned sawdust and guts thats in the canned food.

hethmar

I sometimes think papers run out of any decent articles and trawl through a bin of letters to see what they can use to fill a page without actually saying anything.

arlybarly, as you say, tinned "carp" wouldnt touch it for our boys, but the foods like orijen and RC skin support and some of the other foods do seem to have no problem ingredients?

Granny_Smith

I too read the article in the mail and really don't know what to think. I have two 4mth old kittens and they are fed on whiskas/felix kitten pouches once a day but will be changing when I need to buy new. Otherwise they have RC and JW dried food for kittens and they love everything I have given them.

However I am grateful now that I have learned one thing and that is to check labels for content which I must admit.....as I was serving them what I thought were good quality foods.....I was not!

Can I ask a question....Poppy and Daisy my kittens are sisters and due to be spayed in February as suggested by Cats Protection and also my Vet. However a week ago the smallest one...Daisy...came on heat for about 4 days....isn't this early?....Poppy shows no signs. They are indoor cats. Poppy and Daisy are being taken to see Vet Saturday to see if they should be booked in to be spayed now.....anyone else had their kittens spayed at 4 mths?

Paradigm

crank_girl wrote: »

Your vet earns a substantial amount of income from yearly innoculations, as do the pharma companies.

The jabs contain the same each year, unlike say the vaccine for the flu virus, which changes every year because the virus itself slightly changes. I know a little about immunology and from the research I've done, I can't see that cat antibodies last a proportionately shorter time than human antibodies. Most jabs we have we only needs once (plus one booster).

The only reason why pet jabs are given yearly is because their is no data to support long term use. It simply doesn't exist. And who's going to do it? Certainly not pharma.

An interesting article on vaccination in dogs Here follow the links in the red box.
The author is also an advocate of raw feeding hence the website name