David has written on the AADF Facebook page about a report by BioMed Central Veterinary Research on ‘Undeclared animal species in dry and wet novel and hydrolyzed protein diets for dogs and cats detected by microarray analysis’ - link. For those who do not use Facebook, here is David’s post:
This study is really scary…
They tested 40 foods that are specifically marketed to help dogs with adverse food reaction (AFR) and found that three out of four contained one or more meats not printed on the label!
Three out of four!
Five of the foods had no trace whatsoever of the meats that were on the ingredient list and another two foods each contained at least 7 undeclared animal species!
When diagnosing and treating AFR, the most important thing is to control exactly what is being eaten so that any problematic foods can be quickly identified and eliminated. So, as you might imagine, a random mishmash of meat ingredients is exactly what you wouldn’t want from an AFR diet.
To make things worse, the most common undeclared meats were found to be pork and chicken - two of the meats with the highest likelihood of actually causing adverse reactions in dogs.
Unbelievable.
Sadly the offending brands weren’t named.
Have you used any ‘veterinary’ foods to help with your dog’s digestive problems? Did they work? As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences.
The report is here.