there's one vet that published a study and her own opinion and experience with fresh food diets
and basically the conclusion is this the pet parent is responsible for making this decision
so think about it like this if your client says i want to feed a raw fresh food diet and you say
no the client's probably going to do it anyway so wouldn't you rather be involved so that you
can help the client do it properly and safely hey friends it's jess and jericho and the two biggest
objections to raw are bacteria and nutritional imbalances both are completely understandable and
can be dangerous if not done properly so i completely get it but with bacteria this is a
risk regardless of the type of food that you feed for example if we look back at the past 10 years
of pet food recalls about half of those recalls were due to pathogenic bacteria and 98% of those
recalls were kibble in just 2021 alone midwestern pet foods meow mix natural balance these three
manufacturers recalled over 140 lots of dry pet food due to potential salmonella contamination
risk and then there was one raw pet food company bravo that recalled nine products so if we just
look at last year alone we can see that kibble was responsible for even more pathogenic bacteria
risks compared to raw additionally salmonella outbreaks are often due to poor human hygiene
so a way to get around this hurdle is to explain to people how to properly wash and sanitize when
you're preparing food and when you're cleaning the litter box this is common sense this is stuff that
we should be doing anyway and at your practice you already know how to sanitize and wash because you
do that every single time you have a new patient come into the room as for nutritional imbalances
this is another risk that's also involved with commercial kibble and wet canned food for example
hills the beloved vet recommended brand recalled an estimated 10 million pounds of pet food because
they had elevated levels of vitamin d and that was in 2019 so to get over this problem you can
check out the raw feeding veterinary society they have conferences that explain how to raw feed and
they also work one-on-one with clients they're seeing great results they're not the only vets
in the world that are doing this but that's just one example that you can take a look at really it
all comes down to how you source and handle the food and another note on nutritional adequacy
so i understand that you want to see the analytical proof you want to see that the
diet meets nutritional standards you want to see that the cats thrive on this diet you don't want
nutritional deficiencies completely understandable but you have your own clinical feeding trials
in your practice just take a step back and realize you know you have way more patients than the
cats that are involved in feeding trials just for regular feeding trials for regular non-therapeutic
diets aafco only requires six out of eight cats to pass the feeding trials and they're only 26 weeks
so take a step back and take a look at your own practice how many cats do you have
in your practice that are eating processed foods and then how many of those cats have health issues
how many cats are eating a properly balanced fresh food diet i completely understand that an
imbalance of nutrients can cause problems but how many of those cats are eating properly balanced
fresh food diets and are those cats sick did they improve on the fresh food diet kind of take your
own clinical feeding trials and see what's what's happening in your own practice and i'll read a
comment that i got for some inspiration elizabeth says i was a veterinary nurse for 14 years
and the feline only practice i worked at slowly transitioned all of our insulin dependent diabetic
cats into a low-carb wet food diet and 97% of these cats went into remission and no longer
needed insulin that's insane right there the numbers speak for themselves and if you want
another example of this dr elizabeth hodgkins owns a patent where she talks about high carbohydrate
diets and its effects on diabetes and she did the same thing in her practice she transitioned
the diabetic cats to a high moisture high meat based low carb diet and a lot of them
improved in fact two of those cats one was hers and another was just a a practice cat you know a
clinic cat she was able to put her diabetic cat into remission her cat no longer needed insulin
and then she went away she went out of town so she boarded the cat she explained the cat's diet
to the people at the clinic and unfortunately the clinic started feeding the cat dry food and guess
what diabetes returned so dr hodgkins transitioned to the low carb high moisture high meat based diet
again and remission happened again so elizabeth goes on it wasn't easy a lot of client education
research and cooperation was needed but i think the results speak volumes so many feline disease
processes like diabetes kidney disease bladder disease and obesity are directly linked to the
deadly dry food all dry cat foods are too high in carbs and too low in moisture to be species
appropriate food for cats thank you so much elizabeth for sharing your honesty and for sharing
your experience and i really appreciate that the vets at your clinic took a step back and
realized that this dry processed food is causing these problems in the first place i get other
comments from vet students that say that these vet recommended brands are easier because they're
already completele and balanced we're familiar with them and they sell them at the hospital
i completely understand but easier doesn't always mean that it's the best option think about it like
this fast food joints are easy because it's prepared and it's right there and it's fast
and everybody knows about them because they've been around for decades but how would you survive
and thrive eating fast food for breakfast lunch and dinner every single day every single week for
weeks and months and years you might survive but you probably wouldn't thrive so we have to apply
that same logic to processed pet foods there's one vet that published a study and her own opinion and
experience with fresh food diets and basically the conclusion is this the pet parent is responsible
for making this decision so think about it like this if your client says i want to feed a raw
fresh food diet and you say no the client's probably going to do it anyway so wouldn't you
rather be involved so that you can help the client do it properly and safely because obviously you're
a vet because you want to help cats thrive and you also want your clients to trust you
and this vet in in the study mentioned that she found that if she's just said no and completely
disregarded it the client would lose trust and you know not kind of disregard the information
and the advice that the vet gave to the client and a personal note here jericho has been eating raw
since 2018 and his vet fully supports my decision in doing that because she knows that i'm educated
and that i'm doing it properly we have a great relationship and she sees him once a year we do
urinalysis blood work fecal and his fecal always comes back negative for bacteria parasites worms
and all of that without the need for medication or dewormers i make sure that i buy from trustworthy
sources and make sure that i handle it properly the vet states raw diets are effective in the
management of some medical problems especially gastrointestinal dysfunction they can also resolve
inappetence obesity and poor hair coat more than half the cats in the us are overweight or obese
and 82 percent of us are feeding dry food either exclusively or most of the time so again the
numbers just speak for themselves and as you know obesity brings the risk of so many different types
of health issues like diabetes certain cancers respiratory issues and even shortened lives
so if a properly balanced fresh food diet can help resolve obesity isn't it worth the time investment
to learn how to do it properly and educate the client on how to do it safely this vet also
states that raw diets may be more expensive but nevertheless solving a problem with diet
is better for the pet and cheaper than repeated veterinary visits and expensive medications so i
completely agree with this there's so many vets out there that are overworked and stressed and
it's completely understandable you spent half your life learning about all of these different various
health issues and not just for cats and dogs for horses cows pigs chickens so it's understandable
that you feel overworked and stressed because it's it's difficult you know you're you're trying to do
what you're told in school and stuff isn't it's not working and you know maybe some
clients are improving but most of them aren't and the client doesn't know like what to do
is it is it the food is it this is that so just imagine if more cat parents educated themselves
with your help and fed a properly balanced fresh food diet the cats stand a much better
chance at being healthier and that would mean fewer vet visits potentially fewer medications
less stress for the cat less stress for the parent less stress for you you wouldn't be so overworked
you would have healthy cats and that's what you're in business for right so if you're interested in
starting raw correctly check out this playlist right over meow thank you so much for watching