thank you to jessica for this brilliant video idea!
jessica said "my vet is probably going to push a prescription diet
after their dental cleaning. i'm not looking forward to that conversation".
my advice is to brush up on some education.
brush... brush up.
whether you want to politely say no to prescription diets or you want to
feed raw it's important to have an open and honest conversation with your vet.
and i'll show you how!
hey friends it's jess and jericho from caticles.com
here to teach you how to feed your cat better.
i'm sure a lot of people are dreading this conversation with their vet.
but first i want to say vets are not the enemy.
we should be working together with our cat's doctor
to create a wellness plan that works for our specific cat.
having said that, you are responsible for your cat
so at the end of the day you have to decide what to do and what not to do.
by the way the information in this video should not be used to replace
medical advice given by your cat's doctor.
instead use these resources to help prepare yourself for
the conversation about your cat's wellness plan.
education is the best tool you have. the more you know about these furry creatures
the better your relationship will be.
i recommend scheduling an appointment with your
cat's veterinarian specifically to talk about your cat's diet.
vets are very busy and they typically schedule... vets are
very busy and they typically schedule quick appointments.
so make it clear that you're coming in to talk about your cat's food.
if your vet's pushing a prescription diet you're gonna have to go with hard facts.
you can't say oh i read it on a blog post or saw it in the video.
you'll have to educate yourself on aafco labeling rules and definitions.
for example here's a veterinarian recommended prescription diet product. aafco's product name
rule here says there's no minimum requirement of meat because the product is named chicken flavor.
unfortunately vet schools don't teach afco labeling
rules so your vet is unlikely to know this.
print out aafco's labeling rules and bring them with you to the appointment.
or you can bring up aafco's website on your phone.
bring this up in a non-threatening way something like...
i was really confused about cat food labels and all the different claims
on them so i went on aafco's website to learn a little more.
did you know that there are rules in place for the product names?
did you know that cat foods that have the word "flavor" in the name
have zero percent minimum requirement of meat?
products that have the word "with" in the name only have
a minimum requirement of three percent meat?
and the next rule up says 25% is the minimum requirement.
the prescription diet that says chicken flavor has less than three percent meat.
if it had at least three percent chicken the
name would be "with chicken" instead of "chicken flavor"
or if the product name says "with chicken" that means it has less than 24% meat. isn't that crazy?
a lot of the prescription diets have the word "with" or "flavor" in the name.
so most of them have less than 25% of those named ingredients.
but your vet probably doesn't know this.
your vet will definitely agree that cats are obligate carnivores. meaning
they need meat to survive.
so say this in a respectful way of course,
if this cat food has less than 25% meat how can it provide the nutrition that my cat needs?
i also recommend finding a product that has similar ingredients to the prescription diet.
print out the ingredients and bring them with you to the vet.
for example here is royal canin a veterinarian
recommended food on the left and this product is for dental care.
the product on the right is the treats called temptations. so we have two very
different products but when we look at the first five ingredients they are very similar.
we see a form of chicken meal a form of corn, chicken fat, brewer's rice, and a form of wheat.
so here we have two very different products marketed for very different things
but we have the basic same main ingredients.
in a respectful way you can ask, can you please explain how each of these
ingredients will help my cat for x condition?
can you please explain how this non-prescription
food and this prescription food have the same ingredients?
what makes the prescription food better?
remember you schedule this appointment specifically to talk about your cat's diet.
ingredient definitions come in handy here too.
here's asfco's official website. under meat meal it says "meat meal is the rendered
product from mammal tissues".
here's a crs report to congress by a specialist in agricultural
policy. this report is about animal rendering.
in the summary it states "renderers convert dead animals and animal by-products into
ingredients for a wide range of industrial and consumer goods such as animal feed".
on the second page it states "renderers annually convert 47 billion pounds or more of raw animal
materials into approximately 18 billion pounds of products.
sources for these materials include meat slaughtering and processing plants the
primary ones, dead animals from farms, ranches, feedlots, marketing barns, animal shelters,
and other facilities and fats, grease, and other food waste from restaurants and stores".
print these resources and bring them with you to your veterinarian appointment.
or if your vet emails you you can also email the resources
and then talk about them together while you're at the appointment.
every single pet food manufacturer has to abide by aafco's labeling rules and their definitions.
your vet can't argue with that.
here's another resource,
this is specifically about diabetic cats but honestly it can apply to every cat.
many veterinarians believe that diabetes is incurable.
however dr elizabeth hodgkins owns a patent in which she treats diabetic cats.
she transitions the cats from a high carbohydrate kibble
to a high moisture high protein low carbohydrate fresh meat diet.
so dr hodgkins was a veterinarian for over
a decade before she realized that this diet's change can be helpful.
she had a diabetic cat and she was frustrated because prescription diet
foods meant for diabetic cats weren't helping.
so she started thinking about the cat's natural diet and how it compares to the prescription diet.
she transitioned her diabetic cat from the dry kibble prescription diet
to a high protein moderate fat low carbohydrate high moisture meat based diet.
so this was a properly balanced fresh food diet that she slowly transitioned the cat to.
during the transition to the more appropriate fresh food diet
she was testing the blood glucose and noticed that started going down.
so she adjusted insulin levels based on the cat's blood glucose levels.
she reduced insulin accordingly and after some time on this new appropriate diet
her cat stopped needing insulin altogether.
additionally she went out of town and boarded her cat at a facility.
she explained her cat's diet to the facility. but
when she returned she found out that the facility gave her cat dry kibble.
and guess what? diabetes returned.
dr hodgkins transitioned to the more appropriate diet
and again diabetes disappeared after some time.
dr hodgkins had so much success with this in her own cat
she started testing it with her patients and she saw success with her patients as well.
she saw so much success that she created a patent for it.
please work with your cat's doctor on this. print the patent and talk to your cat's
doctor about how you can test your cat's blood glucose and adjust insulin doses accordingly.
insulin overdoses are very serious so again please work with your cat's doctor on this.
the point is that these resources are official documents from professional peers.
educate yourself with these resources and that'll help prepare you for the conversation.
give me a polydactyl thumbs up if this is helpful!
maybe you're dreading a conversation with your vet about a raw diet.
many traditional vets are against raw feeding because the american veterinary
medical association, the cdc, the fda, and the aafco advise against raw feeding.
the two main objections with raw feeding are bacteria contamination and nutritional imbalances.
so to assure your vet about your raw feeding
explain how you're sourcing the food, where you're getting the ingredients, how the raw
pet food supplier keeps those ingredients clean, talk about their processing and manufacturing.
talk about how you plan to store the food, how you plan to sanitize everything,
and how you plan to serve the food.
for example i buy jericho's mice from hare today.
they are licensed and inspected through the pennsylvania department
of agriculture and regulated by the fda.
they ship frozen food in a styrofoam cooler with dry ice and ice packs.
i pay the extra for two day shipping so the food arrives frozen solid.
i store the mice in the freezer for at least three weeks prior to using it.
the usda says that freezing raw meat solid for three weeks can prevent the growth of bacteria.
i'm very clean when i portion food and when i serve it.
hare today sources mice from a breeding facility called layne labs.
they are a usda licensed facility.
and all animals have a constant flow of fresh air, clean drinking water, fresh food,
clean dry bedding, natural night and daylight cycles, and peace and quiet.
every cage is clean and inspected daily.
all feeder animals are euthanized humanely and packed delicately to prevent freezer burn.
see what i mean by educating yourself?
you're basically preparing yourself for the
conversation so that you know what you're talking about.
and i'm not saying be cocky but you have to be confident.
this is your cat you should know everything there is to know about what you choose to feed.
i recommend finding a raw pet food supplier that can provide
you with a nutritional analysis of their product.
and again print this nutritional analysis and bring it with you to your vet.
the nutritional analysis will include a breakdown of the product
versus aafco's recommended guidelines.
this will help ease the risk ideas of bacteria contamination and nutritional imbalances.
for example feeding a raw diet to your cat is much more complex than just giving a chicken breast.
chicken breast is not complete and balanced nutrition that your cat needs.
if you're still having issues with this conversation it might be time to find a new vet.
i know this might take some work but think about the long-term investment here.
a holistic vet that's also a nutritionist is more than
happy to talk to you about your cat's diet and different ways to improve it.
this is the american holistic veterinary medical association. click on "find a vet",
accept the conditions, and then you can sort by small animal and your location.
then a list of holistic vets in that area will populate.
explore the vet's website to make sure it's a good fit.
you could also email several vets and explain what you're looking for in a cat doctor.
when you get a warm response from a vet you know you've found the right doctor for your cat.
i found jericho's doctor on ahvma and she supports my raw feeding.
also some vets are offering telemedicine appointments right now because of the pandemic.
so if you can't find a vet in your area try to find one that offers telemedicine.
just keep in mind with telemedicine you won't be
able to do bloodwork but you can still do a urine analysis and a fecal exam.
if you want to see what holistic vets are saying about kibble versus raw
check out this video right over meow.
thanks for watching!