Pet Food Trends: Should you trust your Vet’s advice?

There is probably no question about pets that is more loaded than the question of what pet food you should be feeding your dog or cat.

In this series of posts, I am going to give you some facts and information to help you decide and feel good about the pet food you choose to feed your pets.

Today I am going to focus on the role veterinarians play in our decisions to use a particular brand or diet. Also, a little background on pet food manufacturers, representatives and the role of store owners in this equation.

Facts, rumors, opinions and lies about pet food.

If you look online, you will find sites that tell you your pet should be on a raw diet, a pure-raw-no-carb diet, a “holistic” diet, a grain free diet or a completely homemade diet. The list is endless. There are a lot of opinions out there. It can be hard to sort facts from opinions.

You will find sites that say pets should be fed “human grade” ingredients, organic only foods, foods made “with real meat” and foods that are not full of “filler” ingredients like corn, rice, wheat, or animal by-products.

Someone will post a story of how their pet had a particular issue that was solved when the owner discovered the principle of (fill in diet type). Your friend at the dog park may look at you smugly and state that their Fluffy only eats a premium boutique brand made from kangaroo and rare tropical fruits…

There is a lot of information on the internet on what pet food to feed your pet, much of it contradictory.

I think the most insidious rumor is one I have heard over and over. I have heard this from representatives of premium dog food companies. I’ve been told it by pet store owners. I have seen it on the web. It has been stated to me in the exam room as I checked in a client.

I even believed it, when I was younger and knew less than I know now.

That rumor is that veterinarians know nothing about pet nutrition because it is not taught in vet school.

So you should never trust your vet when they make a diet recommendation. Trust in the pet store owner, or the blogger, or the boutique company selling you a premium food at a premium price…but don’t trust your vet.

This is a lie.

Vet schools do, in fact, teach up-to-date pet nutrition. Vets actually have to learn about nutrition for dogs, cats, reptiles/amphibians, birds, rodents, rabbits, horses, sheep, goats, cows and more. Of course vets will specialize in large animal, small animal or exotic animal care. And some vets will spend more time than others in keeping themselves current on pet nutrition. But they still cover the basics of all of them in vet school.

Veterinary medicine has evolved in the last 50 years, as has human medicine. This rumor may have been true at some point. It is also true that human doctors were not trained in nutrition or pain management until recently. Times change, fields change, and the science behind nutrition (for animals and humans) is ever evolving.

I think this rumor has gained traction on the internet for several reasons.

There was a period in the 90’s and early 00’s when there were few places other than a grocery store or pet store to buy pet food. Many vets saw that people wanted a place to find reliable, quality pet foods.

So in addition to carrying veterinary prescription diets (more on these in my next post), they also carried regular pet foods made by the same company. Which, in the 90’s, meant that vets almost exclusively carried products made by the Hill’s Science Diet company.

The problem here is that pet owners started to associate Hills foods with veterinary clinics.

As people became more skeptical of medicine in general, they also became skeptical of their veterinarian’s recommendations.

When more pet supply and boutique stores opened and started carrying other high-quality options, there was more competition. The new pet food manufacturers had to convince these boutique owners to carry their products. The boutique owners had to, in turn, convince pet owners that this food was better than what the vet was selling.

I worked at a small, local pet store in the early 00’s. The store sold Science Diet foods along with a number of other premium brands. Staff were trained about pet foods primarily from the different food manufacturer’s representatives. This is how I first heard the rumor (lie) that veterinarians were not taught anything about nutrition in vet school.

If someone asked for advice on what to feed their pet, the store owners would steer customers away from SD foods, to the other brands. Even though they used the SD foods in house for their stock!

I noticed when doing inventory that the other brands had a higher markup than the SD foods.

Our main competitor for pet food sales in the area was not another pet store…it was the vet clinic a few doors down. Our SD prices matched theirs, exactly.

I am not saying that these owners were disingenuous about their advice. I think they believed what the representatives were telling them. But they also had a business to run. They used the food in house that was the most cost-effective for them.

I learned a lot about how to sell specific foods to specific customers.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that this competition was or is a bad thing!

I think it is great that we have so many options.

But I think it is important to recognize that marketing has an impact on what we buy. Our pet food purchases are influenced by these marketing campaigns. The people giving you brand advice are also influenced by marketing. Surprised?

There is also an assumption on many websites that vets are only trying to make more money off of you when they recommend a food product that they sell.

The thing is, no one makes much money selling pet food unless they are selling it in very high volumes. The only way to make a lot of money selling pet food is to sell A LOT of it. Or to sell a lot of other things with a better profit margin to make up the difference, which is how many pet boutiques survive.

Most vet clinics can not compete with pet supply stores in food sales.

Pet boutiques sell a lot more pet food than the typical vet clinic. Nowadays, most vet clinics carry prescription diets and a limited number of non-prescription diets (if any).

I only know of a few clinics that still try to compete with the boutiques by carrying general, non-prescription foods. Vet clinics just don’t usually have the room to store and display that much food.

The slight profit made off of pet food sales at most clinics will just about cover the cost of storing, rotating, displaying and inventorying the foods. No vet is driving a Porsche off the profits from selling pet food. Breaking even is the best most vet clinics can hope for from their pet food sales.

So no, vets are not recommending a diet to you because it will fund their next exotic vacation.

Vet clinics also do not choose the price they sell prescription diets for.

Every clinic I have worked at has sold their food at the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP). We were not counting on it for company profits. We just wanted to have the foods that our clients needed, when they needed it.

This is why prescription veterinary diets are usually sold at the exact same price, regardless of where you buy them. There really is little-to-no variation in the base price of a specific diet between clinics or even online.

This leads to the final reason I think many people have come to mistrust veterinarian’s with diet recommendations.

Most vet’s really don’t care what brand of pet food you are feeding.

They don’t care that you buy a premium diet from a trendy boutique. Vets don’t care if you are using a grocery store brand. They don’t care if you are feeding raw, freeze dried or a mixture of diets.

What they care about is how what you are feeding effects your pet’s health. If your pet is healthy, at the appropriate weight and enjoys the food, then most vets are content.

So when owners ask vets what brand they should be feeding, they are not getting an answer that feels solid and satisfactory. Instead of hearing they should be feeding “Brand X” they get a bunch of information that forces them to do the research and make the decision on their own.

This kind of advice is emotionally unsatisfying to us pet owners.

Pet boutique staff, on the other hand, will most certainly give you specific brand advice. That is their job.

Your vet and their staff are also not judging you based on the brand of food you feed your pet. The only time they are going to wade into the issue is when your pet has a health issue that is influenced by diet.

So if your pet has kidney problems, your vet will certainly care if you are feeding a high protein diet, and will recommend a veterinary prescription diet instead. But ‘Taste of the Wild’ vs ‘Blue Buffalo’ is not something they are going to judge you for. Nor will they look down on you because your dog prefers ‘Kibbles ‘n Bits.’

But clients expect to be judged when they are asked about their pet’s diet at a vet clinic.

Where is this expectation coming from?

One thing I can state with certainty: There has never been a time in history when we face more judgement over our pet food choices than we do currently.

We feel judged by our families, friends, coworkers and acquaintances. So of course we expect to be judged at the vet clinic as well.

Hence the discord on internet groups, and among friends at daycare or the dog parks. We pet owners are the main culprits in this judgement trend, and we do it to each other.

When a vet does make a specific food recommendation, usually for health reasons, we are already primed to mistrust the advice. The premium pet-food industry has many of us convinced that certain things are the markers of a quality pet food- and the prescription diets usually lack these things.

If your vet recommends a diet that contains something you think is bad for your pet, then you are going to mistrust their advice.

And you know what?

Your vet is going to give you the facts they have about that ingredient, and then they are going to move on. Unless there is a specific concern, like the aforementioned pet with kidney disease, they are not going to try and argue with you.

Of course, veterinarians are individuals. Some vets may have particular brands or types of food that they truly have strong opinions about. No wonder it is so confusing to us pet parents!

The one thing that all veterinarians, pet food manufacturers and pet boutique owners know is that emotions have a big influence over what food we choose for our pets.

We feed our pets the food that makes us feel like good pet parents.

Ultimately, the decision of what pet food to feed your pet will be influenced by emotions as much as by nutrition.

So yes, you can trust your vet to give you advice on feeding your pet! Your vet has received education on pet nutrition and probably does continuing education to keep up on the science behind it.

If you honestly feel like your vet is not giving you good advice, or if you don’t trust the advice they give you then find another vet you can trust.

Keep in mind that every brand is trying to sell you something…and that their marketing is directed at your emotions. You can be a great cat mama even if you feed them Friskies.

In the end, what matters most to your pet’s health is their whole environment. Diet is a factor, of course. But there is no brand that is perfect for every pet. You are doing a great job, pet parent! Most of us do not need to stress out over pet food.

In my next post on Pet Food Trends, I will give you information on ingredients, how pet food is made and why you should never buy pet food in bulk. Subscribe now and never miss a post in this series!

You can find the next post in the series Pet Food Trends: The History of Pet Foods here!