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Old September 15th, 2010, 10:24 AM
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bendyfoot bendyfoot is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by driver8 View Post

Why do you guys think so many people use IAMS, etc if they are so bad and there is better alternatives??
I think a lot of it boils down to accessibility and advertising. The brands I would trust with my own animals...I've yet to see a single ad anywhere for any of them. Their popularity increases almost exclusively by word of mouth. Plus, many of those brands are only found in smaller pet stores (Barry's is a good one, and Pet Value is increasingly offering really good stuff); you never find them at the big box pet stores and never in grocery stores.

I think many people just want to be able to just grab a few cans of food for their cat while they're grocery shopping for themselves...it's about convenience. Also, most never stop to think about what's in the food, and if they did, they likely wouldn't have the tools/knowledge required to correctly interpret the labels. That comes with a fair bit of reading and research, and it takes time. I know I've invested many, many hours into learning about my pets' food...probably more so than for what I eat!

I know not to be lulled into a false sense of security by words like "veterinary approved" on the label, or pretty pictures of fresh meat and veggies on the package...NOW...but I used to. Now I make what I consider to be educated decisions for my pets about their nutrition.

I do trust my vets for most aspects of my animals' medical care, but not very often the nutrition aspect. Many of them are simply repeating what they've been told about certain products (food and otherwise) by the manufacturers. If you look up the research yourself (often difficult to find) you can learn an awful lot about what many of the claims are based on, and I have to say it's pretty shaky stuff sometimes. To top it off, the research can be very difficult for the layperson to interpret (another reason why many people just take the claims at face value). I have a science/biology background and I still have to slog through material that I consider challenging. That said, most of our vets respect our decision to feed a raw diet; it's never been an issue for our pets' medical team.
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