Sunday, March 29, 2009

The Connection Between Dog Food and Dog Vomiting

By Ann Lockley

To most people, for over fifty years, commercially manufactured bagged kibble and canned wet food has been synonymous with kibble.

James Spratt of Cincinnati, Ohio invented first processed dog biscuit in 1860. I wasn't until World War II that commercial dog food manufacturers began to promote the ease of kibble and canned food onto financial struggling families. No one considered the quality of the food or the ingredients. This new time saver had to be better than the table scraps that domestic animals enjoyed at the time, right?

How wrong they were!

In fact, early commercial dog food manufacturers agreed that feeding dogs meat, vegetables and some grains was better for the dogs than the processed kibble they were making from meat scraps, meat- by-products, and factory waste, such as saw dust and grain husk. Convenient? Absolutely! Cheap - not in the long run. Healthy? You can excuse the early adopters but, generations later, dog diseases are near epidemic levels. In spite of the evidence that something is wrong, millions of people continue to give their dogs manufactured dog food.

The commercial pet food industry has been a win-win operation for everyone involved. Instead of paying for removal and disposal, grain farmers and slaughterhouses actually made money selling left overs to dog food manufacturers, that were unfit for human consumption. Unaware dog owners were easy targets for slick Madison Avenue advertising agencies. Purina pushed the envelope when they developed an extrusion process; a technique that puffed up the kibble before drying, making it appear like more than it actually was.

The Pet Food Institute began their massive media campaign against feeding your pets table scraps in 1964. Veterinarians throughout the world jumped on the bandwagon without having any scientific basis. By the early 1960s, the majority of pet owners were feeding their four-legged family members this wondrous, convenient and readily available food.

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