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Pet Lovers Beware: When The Drugs Don’t Work

We pour our hearts into caring for our animals, and spend small fortunes on their meds. What if the drugs are worthless?

Thanks for this article, Panchito. I'll be sending it to some pet-lovers I know.

We had an experience with one of our cats that's 12 years old. She was coughing and making weird noises, so we took her to the vet. They said she was also underweight and wanted to do a bunch of tests on her, so we said OK. The tests cost $400. They said she had bronchitis, asthma and hyperthyroid and gave us three prescription medications for her to take, two of them would be for the rest of her life - the asthma and hyperthyroid pills. We only gave her the antibiotic for her bronchitis, and it got better in a couple weeks. The vet had wanted us to come back in a month to see how she was doing with her hyperthyroid because they might need to adjust the medication, but we never went back. We don't believe in taking pills for ourselves, so why would we give them to our cats. I feed her the best canned food I can and give her twice as much as the other two cats so she'll gain weight. The vets also want to give lots of vaccinations to the animals. We usually just let them get a rabies shot and that's it.

It's amazing that these pets are getting the same dis-eases that humans get but why should we be surprised. Now they are pushing pet insurance. The whole concept of what constitutes health is upside down.

Watch out for any canned cat food. I think they use the worst pieces of the animal (although if it's supposedly good quality, that might not be true) and who knows if the animal was diseased? I have heard that cats cannot be vegan but what about just giving them scrambled eggs each day? I think it would be better than canned dead flesh!

The best and cheapest canned pet food is from Whole Foods - 79 cents for cat food. The only ingredients in them that I don't like for the cats are salt and guar gum. At the pet shops, you can also get a lot of other pet food with good ingredients. Call the pet food companies and they'll send you coupons. I give our cats egg sometimes and I used to mix raw egg yoke in their food for their hair, but then I got too lazy.

If animals can eat eggs then I would just use that along with maybe grains that are okay? I remember when I worked in a health food store a man always came in and bought veggie burgers. They were for his dog. I know that dogs can be vegans but supposedly cats cannot. However, I would think they don't have to eat animal flesh and could stick to eggs. I wouldn't get a cat unless I knew I could feed her only eggs.

I feed our cats and granddog grain-free pet food. There's a lot of it out there. Years ago, one of our cats was losing her hair in spots and a holistic vet said to go grain-free. We did and it got better, so I switched them all over and they've been much healthier since.

Is that the canned food you talked about in the pet forum? I've been researching grain-free kibble for our cat and the dog we're going to adopt this spring. This stuff looks pretty good...[www.amazon.com]

KidRaw Wrote:
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> I feed our cats and granddog grain-free pet food.
> There's a lot of it out there. Years ago, one of
> our cats was losing her hair in spots and a
> holistic vet said to go grain-free. We did and it
> got better, so I switched them all over and
> they've been much healthier since.

This is Whole Foods store brand - Whole Paws Pet Food -

[www.shescribes.com]

When you say 'kibble', do you mean dry pet food?

It looks like Whole Foods doesn't carry grain-free dry food, but the regular pet shops have plenty. Just ignore the SAD pet food like you see in the supermarket - "Fancy Feast" "Purina" "Iams". Some good brands are - Wellness Core, Felidae, California Natural, Canidae, Nature's Recipe, Solid Gold, Merrick. They always say, "Grain Free" on the front because it's a big selling point. My favorite pet shop is Petco because if you sign up online, you get coupons in the mail, and if you sign up for their store card, you get 5% off.

Here they are -

[www.amazon.com]

I feel like a pet food sales representatiave



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2014 08:53PM by KidRaw.

I have to admit that this dog I have here was very spoiled his whole adult life by mostly giving him fresh and freshly prepared organic human food so it was very difficult finding something to compliment that that I could buy which wouldn't set off his allergies and lifelong health challenges.(He was a rescue dog that had been starved throughout his puppyhood and is 17 and on his last legs now so I've switched him back to mostly people food and canned.)


This is the only dry dog food that fit the bill - that he would actually eat...

[www.earthbornholisticpetfood.com]

Now I know it has problematic ingredients but it's the best I could do and it was the only one he would eat and not get sick on. He wouldn't touch the companies' other mixes and even human quality salmon didn't work because it always gave him the runs.

Maybe I should try that for my daughter's other dog. He had Beneficial dry dog food since he was born, so when they adopted him at age two and tried to feed him healthier stuff, he couldn't handle it. They tried everything, but now years later, Beneficial is the only food he can eat without digestive problems.

KidRaw Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Maybe I should try that for my daughter's other
> dog. He had Beneficial dry dog food since he was
> born, so when they adopted him at age two and
> tried to feed him healthier stuff, he couldn't
> handle it. They tried everything, but now years
> later, Beneficial is the only food he can eat
> without digestive problems.

It's worth a try!

Raw Eggs are great for dogs and cats. I give my dog 2 to 3 eggs a week, but dogs and cats are NOT Grainivores anymore than we are Grainvores! The only true Grainvores on this planet are birds and they have special organs to digest Grains. I also throw a bunch of Greens in my Vitamix and pour that mixture into a couple of ice cube trays to freeze it and then, feed her 2 of those thawed cubes a day as she only weighs 10 pounds.