https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dog-food-causing-heart-disease-fda-suspects-citing-16-dog-food-brands-under-investigation/

There is SO little info on this announcement its unreal but wtf?

Im going to look through the fda site about it later. Also texted both the vets in the family. Expecting a contact a nutritionalist response from my uncle but it usually comes with a name and phone or email to contact someone. Being his practice is huge and busy and its not an emergency, it will be a few days till i get an answer.

Anyone know anything more then the CBS thing?

Interesting.... and not encouraging.

I find it odd that Purina is not listed even though, I would assume, they have the largest share of the dog food market and their Pro grain free includes peas.

They are actually. Purina owns Merrick

Lostmaniac wrote:

They are actually. Purina owns Merrick

Ok... I'll take off my tinfoil hat for now.

Im tempted to force my 3 back to purina proplan and figure out how many cans of food does spider need in a day and buy the l.i.d food that is potato pea lentil and probiotic free as well as grain free

Fda link https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/news-events/fda-investigation-potential-link-between-certain-diets-and-canine-dilated-cardiomyopathy

Yep this FDA news has been around for awhile but it’s incomplete/preliminary!
Something about certain ingredients like lentils blocking uptake of taurine, which is needed for the health of the heart? But they are still researching...

Anyway just in case, I switched from feeding grain-free to a kibble that has brown rice. I think IF feeding grains, the grains like brown rice, oatmeal, barley are considered the healthiest (for now!)

Ps
for a long time they told people that butter is bad, eat margarine...
but now they are like, margarine is so bad, has the bad kind of fats...don’t eat it! Sigh.
So I take it all with a grain of salt.

What i got from the fda report was no one actually knows

My mom was in cancer research when i was a kid and on her office door was a comic from the paper. Had 2 cops in a car in front of a donut shop. The one cop says to the other, "you know, one day a multimillion dollar study will prove, donuts are actually good for you"

The current debate seems to be coffee and caffeine. First it was bad, now they say it helps prevent alzheimers. And if you look at why Japanese and certain other groups live much longer and have much lower incidence of alzheimers and dementia its lack of preservatives and psychiatric medicine.

Ive been on the god diet forever, and i may put the dogs on it also. The god diet is insanely simple. If god made it, its ok, if man made it run away. I tried to explain it to my mom and ended up in some religious debate about since god created science, and science created high fructose corn syrup, that technically artificial food is ok. I don't buy it any more then i buy roundup being non carcinogenic. I have enough health problems to contend with without the man made health problems.

Lostmaniac wrote:

The one cop says to the other, "you know, one day a multimillion dollar study will prove, donuts are actually good for you"

True! And in small footer type, it will state that the study was funded by Dunkin Donuts
That's how things seem to work...

Lol

I think they got the ball rolling on grain-free bashing way too early and people are worrying about it way too much because we always want something else to blame other than the poor breeding of our dogs. It's been over a year and they still have zip. they keep throwing out warnings but offer no real information. Now they are trying to freak people out about certain brands with still no real evidence. They also try to warn people away from feeding raw but that's where people are going to turn when they can't feed their higher-end grain free because we already have evidence that low quality grain inclusive foods are bad for our animals. I find it all irresponsible on the part of those putting out reports that offer zero answers, no evidence of substance, any no suggestions other than consult your vet. Hills Science diet must be having a field day because that is the go-to kick back food for most vets.

There are nearly 90 million dogs in America. At least a few million are on grain-free food most likely...and so far they are trying to freak out the whole country over 511 animals who MIGHT have not done well on grain-free food, but they aren't really even sure about that.

Thats what perplexes me. Lack of info yet a warning to send people into a panic. My degree primarily focused on cyber terrorism but my minor was homeland security, and what they did with this grain free dogfood announcement amounts to terrorism by definition.

But without going into that, the actual numbers of dcm were much much higher the numbers regarding specific brands were counting instances of DCM resulting in death, not all cases, and thats really the number i want to see. Id also like to see if there were brands or subtypes within the brands that had no cases. Then maybe cross reference all the ingredients into a database where it can then be analyzed and see what is being left out or added to dog food linked with no instances. Alot of data but relatively straight forward and easy enough a trained Monkey could do it.

The big BUT with that is all cases have to be included, not just cases resulting in death, and thats a data pool that hasnt been looked at yet.

To end this with something to think about. Grain free dog food is just as popular in Europe, but Europe is not having an increase in non genetic DCM cases. Australia on the other hand is having the same issues with DCM as here.

https://therawfeedingcommunity.com/2018/02/08/grain-free-diets-and-dcm/?fbclid=IwAR1fCZf7THsIvVvl3CeDKKZl8Rqkfsw8TMFnyahSrT3mAGxte18_H_uQ6os

I can't imagine being a vet right now... dozens of calls a day regarding this, I bet.

Since it's being discussed I didn't post the links to DogFodAdvisor and the FDA Announcement.

Susan Thixton with TruthAboutPetCare has her own take on this.

And as others have said, I have a problem with the 'release' of information which is at best a scare tactic saying "We don't know anything." and an advisory that they really don't know anything except that there appears to be a problem.

Its really really easy to figure out what it is, without going scare tactic. Its just analyzing a astronomical amount of data, on a world wide scale and then cross reference it and narrow down what doesnt cause it. But vets are doctors not software engineers and the fda is incompetent.

If anyone is bored they could turn it into a project. Start by entering every brand and type of dog food both with and without grain. Subtree each type to include every single ingredient. Cross reference to see what is in food that has caused dcm but is not in food that hasnt caused it. Simple enough exept on a worldwide scale thats alot of data. An autointergating database would be optimal if the data was in a uniform format but its not and it would take years for one person to do it alone.

Either they know and aren't saying whats causing the dcm, or the datapool is flawed, im leaning on data flaw because its based of vets reporting to the fda so how many actual cases are there. I think expanding worldwide because some countries like the us have this issue whereas other places dont.

At this point the data isn't good enough to put that kind of effort in IMO. I've read through the 77 pages they published so far and a lot of the reports I don't trust. Some are made by emotional owners looking for something to point a finger at, or made by lazy vets that now have an easy answer to get pet owners off their back. I'm sure the new release will be huge with a bunch "new" cases but with the hysteria that now exists the information is going to be so skewed by people clutching at straws to explain why their "healthy" dog (that probably wasn't that healthy genetically) suddenly has issues. I do like Susan's point in the article you posted Al. It is an all dog food issue, not a grain free issue. We've known that carbs are a big proponent to cancer in our pets. Thousands of pets die every year from cancer, yet there isn't some big scare about how the high carbs in dry dog food is killing our pets, even though it is.

Actually its bigger then that, its become an all food issue, along with municipal water supplies dumping chemicals that clean the water but what do they do to you (or your dogs) insides. And that most municipal water supplies test positive for drugs like antidepressants. Just lots and lots of variables. And i also think the food guidelines for people are bs and skewed by lobbyists from the corn and grain industries trying to convince you high fructose corn syrup and sugar are the same (it was politically motivated by the embargo with cuba). I guess how can i expect my dog food to actually be good for my dog or safe when i cant even be sure what im eating myself is?

Grain free has always been a bit of hype. I jumped on the bandwagon for my cats before I had my huskys. It came from the idea that dogs evolved from wolves and that means they should eat a similar diet to wolves. However, the key word is evolved. They can eat grains. I know that grains won't hurt the dogs. I'm just waiting to truly understand if grain free will or won't hurt them.

Now that I have husky puppies, I am looking to get a new puppy food. The breeder had them on the Blue Buffalo Life Protection. Their stool is a bit soft and the female will finish a soft formed stool off by also having small very loose stools. Their anal glands aren't expressing either suggesting their stool is too soft. So I know we need a new food (well at least as a step 1).

My problem is that when you research best foods, every recommendation. is still caught up in the grain free hype. It hasn't caught up to current research. So I'm not anti-grain free yet (jury is still out), I'd prefer just to get the best dog food for huskys that isn't grain free and I'm feeling overwhelmed.

Purina Pro Plan Focus comes up a lot. But ice read chicken is one of the most common food allergies ( Tufts University) and I was thinking Salmon may be best.

The blue buffalo commercials are funny. And those are mid content wolfdogs not wolves they use. And in my house blue buffalo isnt dog (or wolfdog) approved. Spider caused me to jump on the grain free bandwagon. And from there to find food she would eat, is high protein, and NOT made from Chinese ingredients.

@biogrl ive seen chicken free grain free food at tractor supply. Spider had the runny poops on the wrong food, now it only happens when she gets her heartworm pill.

Now if i could figure out how to stop the scat marking with dog food id be the happiest person in Colorado. It took me a little bit to realize that her scat marking was not diarrhea.