A little while ago I started to think a bit more about how I feed my animals. At present I have two dogs, two cats and a hamster. I decided that I wanted to try and be as ethical as possible or at least be making more informed choices. I started to research and realized it was going to be a lot more difficult that I had initially thought. The pet food industry seems to be a very murky one!
Here are my thoughts so far.
Meat or no Meat
I think that probably the most ethical diet for both dogs and cats is a vegetarian one. I hadn’t realised that you could even feed cats a vegetarian diet. Here are ideas of sources for both diets.
For cats there is:
Vegecat/Vegekit
http://www.vegepet.com/forcats.html
Tel : 01424 42739
There is also information about feeding cats on a vegetarian diet at the Vegan society website. There is an interesting article about how to proceed with information about how to do it if you choose this route. I haven’t tried it so can’t say anything about how it works.
And for dogs:
Happidog
http://www.happidog.co.uk/
Tel : 0800 0182955
This is made to comply with the cruelty free standards from the BUAV (British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection).
Having found out about these diets I then had to make the decision whether I was going to go this route or whether I could continue to feed my animals meat.
Big Business
I also started to research about other commercial pet foods and was surprised at how many were made by the same companies.
Proctor and Gamble : This company makes Iams/Eukanuba. At present this company are involved in the most cruel and unethical testing of animals. They directly test pet foods on animals. Julia Bremble has written an article for the Network already about this company when her son found out about it and how angry he was at believing the adverts for Iams claiming they were making a product to benefit our animals.
Colgate Palmolive : They make the Hills Science diet. I have heard from other dog owner friends of mine about the chemicals used in this food being damaging to the health of the animals. I would be interested in hearing from anyone who knows anything more official.
Nestle- Purina/Friskies : These companies make Alpo, Bonio, Felix, Gocat, Gourmet, Omega complete, Propkin, Spillers, Vital Balance and Winalot. I have been boycotting this company for 20 years, or thought I was, over a formula milk campaign in Romania.
Pedigree, Masterfoods (Mars Inc) : These companies make Bounce, Cesar, Chappie, Frolic, James Wellbeloved, Katkins, Kitekat, Pedigree Chum, Royal Canin, Sheba and Whiskas.
They also make Thomas-Rabbit food and Trill-bird food.
I was feeding my dogs on James Wellbeloved and my cats on Organic Whiskas. The cats were also having Senior Gocat biscuits.
I was shocked that I was putting money into organizations that I knew were unethical. I also started to wonder if other people were as unaware as I had been about how these foods were made and where they come from.
Ethical Companies
So we had a rethink as a family and the decision was to try and find a food that had meat that was as ethical as possible and certainly not to buy a food that was tested on animals.
We found a food from a company called Burns.
http://www.burns-pet-nutrition.co.uk/
Tel : 01554 890482
They produce an organic dog food and none of the meat that they use is from intensive farming. Both our dogs and cats are doing really well. For information they do not charge for delivery in the UK mainland when you order online. They also sell a Rabbit food.
I am not recommending this food I’m just letting you know our choice! I’m not convinced that this is my end answer but this is the compromise we have achieved for the time being.
I found this other food recommended as Cruelty free by the BUAV : Nature Diet.
http://www.naturediet.net/
Tel : 08700 132960
A friend of mine uses this with her dog that has a very poor appetite and it works very well.
I also found out about a feeding technique for Dogs called BARF.
http://www.ukbarfclub.co.uk/
Barf stands for ‘bones and raw food diet’ or ‘biologically appropriate raw food’ depending on which books you read. It was a technique started by Dr. Ian Billinghurst in his book ‘Give your dog a bone’ 1993. This is a way of feeding dogs with raw meat and vegetables. From the experience of people I think it may be difficult to use this with a dog that is used to traditional dog foods but I think it would be good if you could start from scratch with puppies. It certainly would make you engage with the raw meat!
I have also found out that the Co-op and M&S have signed up to the cruelty free charter from the BUAV. This should mean that any pet food that is made by them should be too but I’m not sure..
So this is what I have so far. I would be very interested in hearing from other pet owners about how they feed their pets.
