Your Pet's What You Feed It
Monkey is a cat without nine lives. He has a neurological disorder that robs him of all his nimble feline qualities. He is a cat that can’t leap, climb, or land on his feet. Watching him as he attempts to maneuver from one couch to another is like witnessing a tight rope act. Wobbly and unbalanced, there is a lingering doubt of whether Monkey will survive the crossing of the couch without taking a tumble.
Monkey’s disorder was passed on to him from his mother, and no veterinarian is quite sure of the cause. What is sure is that Monkey needs very special care, and a very special diet. Lucky for him, he was adopted by Diana Bokhari, owner of Naturalanimal and Pawtisserie, a holistic pet center in Westmount.
Besides his clumsy demeanor, Monkey also has severe diarrhea if fed grain. That means no dry food, and only raw meat from a specific lamb based diet.
This isn’t the first time Bokhari adopted an animal with special dietary needs. Her motivation in starting Naturalanimal arose out of her frustration to provide adequate care for her chronically ill German Shepherd named Kelly. After countless visits to the veterinarian, and a myriad of diets, Bokhari stumbled on to the book that changed her life: Food Pets Die For by Ann N. Martin.
The book presents an alternative to commercial pet food, namely home cooking food for pets, as well as concrete information on how to read labels and buy pet food if cooking is not an option. “As soon as I started cooking for Kelly myself, I noticed a difference immediately” said Bokhari.
Between Bokhari’s personal background in homeopathy and nutrition, and because of the results she saw in Kelly’s health, Naturalanimal was created. For the first time in Quebec, animal lovers had a resource for quality food and holistic care for their much-loved animal companions.
But just what constitutes quality food, and what is so terrible about the commercial brands found in grocery stores? Products such as Purina and Iams have faced a recent backlash against their food. Accusations of animal abuse and substandard quality have marred their names, and allowed alternative human-grade food to have a healthy share in the market.
All this health comes at a cost however. At the grocery store, average prices range from $0.25 to $0.35 per 100 grams of dog food. Naturalanimal, which sells their products at the suggested retail, range in price from $0.35 to $0.47 per 100 grams of dog food. That’s 34% more, enough of a difference to question whether human-grade food is a justifiable expense, or just another marketing tool.
According to Dr. Marc Vaillancourt, it is a marketing tool. He cited a study where a group of dogs of the same age, breed, and sex were separated into two groups. Both were given the same brand of commercial food, except one group was always given 25% less. The result? The group that ate 25% less lived two years longer, meaning it isn’t type of food, but quantity of food. “People are simply overfeeding their dogs, and feeding them the wrong kind of food for their age and breed”.
Purina is the largest producer of cat and dog food in the world, and according to Vaillancourt, finding the right Purina product is what’s important, not whether you buy it at a grocery store, or a specialty food store.
A quick glance around Vaillancourt office damages his argument however. His shelves are stacked with specialty food, not found in grocery stores. Both Iams and Purina have their respective veterinary brands, but then, there’s also Hills, Medi Cal, and Royal Canine. All three cannot be bought in a grocery store, and all three are significantly more expensive.
When asked what these foods are for and why they are so expensive, Vaillancourt explains that certain dogs or cats with certain health problems need these foods. He prescribes diets that “if they do not eat it, they will die.” As for the cost, “there is simply no comparison to the quality of ingredients”.
Perhaps there is a correlation between high quality human-grade food and health after all.
Human grade food does not use any by-products, nor so they use any unnatural preservatives. Bokhari says that by simply reading labels, one can tell if food is human-grad or not. “Look for terms like by-products, BHT, BHA, and ethoxyquin”, all have been considered to be cancer causing agents.
As for spending the extra dollars for human grade food, Bokhari says that “if you can’t afford high quality food, you shouldn’t have a pet,” a notion that her customers heartily agree with.
Mylene Pinard and Caroline Breslaw were both shopping for food at Naturalanimal.
Pinard comes from the Plateau. A long haul to Westmount just to buy a bag of cat food. She heard of Naturalanimal through friends, and since there are relatively few other places to buy human-grade food, she makes the trip.
“For me, if I can eat it, than my cat can eat it,” she says, “There has been amazing results, her coat is so beautiful, so I don’t mind paying extra.”
Breslaw has two cats, one of which she adopted from Naturalanimal. She says that she made the switch to human-grade food when she adopted her second cat. He was already eating Natural Balance, and seemed to enjoy it. As soon as she switched brands for her first cat, she noticed immediate results. “It’s wonderful for them, and I am more than okay with the price difference”.
But what exactly are animal by-products, and why are they deemed evil in the pet food world? Pamela Bellamy, a veterinary technician at Iams, is tired of being labeled as an evil corporation that harms animals. “I’m an animal lover, everyone who works here is an animal lover,” she says, “I feed my dogs Iams, why would I put something in the mouths of my beloved pets if it wasn’t safe?”
Francine Dupont, also veterinary technician, but at Purina Canada, echoes Bellamy’s statement. “We’re all encouraged to bring our pets to work, this is a pet friendly company, it’s simply a question of ethics, and I wouldn’t work for an unethical company.”
Both agree that their food is not human-grade. But their definition of human-grade is vastly different from that of Natualanimal’s.
“We can’t call our food human grade because it has by-products in it, but the term by-product simply means meat that isn’t muscle tissue,” says Bellamy. She goes on to explain that Iams complies to with Association of American Feed Control Officials, which dictates how animal food is labeled. “Anybody can call anything, anything, but we can back it up, we have standards, we comply with AAFCO” she says, making reference to the fact that it is possible that many of these human-grade food companies are simply using “human-grade” as a marketing tool, as there is no one to monitor them.
Bellamy also clears up the confusion surrounding by-products health value. It is in fact healthier for dogs and cats to eat by-products, because that is where most of the nutrients are found. Because cats and dogs are carnivores, in the wild, they would get their vegetable content from the stomachs and intestines of prey. “It is the organs carnivores eat first, followed by the stomach and intestines, muscle mass is what they would eat last” says Bellamy.
Bellamy states that Iams uses only natural preservatives such as rosemary, citric acid, and vitamin E, and that “only premium food is found at a grocery story, everything we use has a nutritional value.”
Despite all the varying range of advice, and the diverse choices of products on the market, there is one things that all the vets, holistic pet storeowners, and commercial brand representatives can agree on; understanding a label is necessary, and nothing can beat a home cooked meal.
Both dogs and cats are carnivores, and meat is what they need. No vegan diets, not a lot of grain, just meat. The freshest and best quality meat is of course found at home, and it is for that reason that all agree, if time allows, cooking for your animal companion is the best insurance to a long and healthy life.
