What is best grain free dog food
Grain Free Dog Food...Dangerous?
most pet parents generally want what's
best for their pets and so we treat them
as best we can we give them the best
food that we can but what if I told you
that some of the most popular foods that
people are feeding their dogs are are
actually causing more harm than good
let's investigate hey everyone I'm dr.
Holmes and welcome to another episode of
pet doc Sherlock where we help people
solve the mysteries of pets and there's
a story going around in the news if you
haven't heard it by now that grain free
diets are actually causing problems in
dogs now let's look back a little ways
and think about just kind of dog food in
general for many years marketers and ad
campaign managers have been really smart
and how to hook pet parents into
purchasing their foods they'll use a
cute little puppy they'll slap a
celebrity chef on the bag they'll talk
about how your dog is just like a wolf
and release its inner wolf by feeding it
this food and all of that's well and
good and I've never had much of a
problem with most commercial foods that
are out there and then this term
grain-free came out of seemingly nowhere
and people started thinking that if I
feed my dog green free it's better now
I'm not gonna bash green free that's not
what I'm here for
I've never really cared that someone
feeds grain free because it at one point
we thought was not causing any harm I
just didn't love that lots of companies
we're getting people to spend extra for
grain free when it really doesn't matter
because let's face it is a teacup
chihuahua really just like a wolf or a
Maltese or a dachshund or a poodle or a
golden retriever you name it they don't
look like a wolf they don't act like a
wolf we have genetically modified them
have a particular breed that is very
different than a wolf so it goes without
saying that if they're different on the
outside they're probably different to
some degree on the inside as well the
other thing is most grain free foods if
you look at them also contain carrots
and various other ingredients such as
potatoes and beans and I'm pretty sure
wolves aren't eating that either so the
argument that it's like what a wolf eats
and it will release your dog's inner
wolf is kind of invalid the other is
some people think that dogs have lots of
allergies to grains and yes there are
some dogs that have corn allergies and
things like that but it's really
uncommon people generally have allergies
to grains dogs believe it or not tend to
have an allergy to the protein source
usually if they have a food allergy it's
too chicken or beef so it's not even
important to remove greens from an
allergy perspective so I'm not really
sure how or why the green free thing
started but it did and it took off like
crazy people were buying into the
commercials and the ads and everything
else and I don't blame them they were
done very very well and the food
companies have been able to make a lot
of money off of it and again I had no
problem with it except for the fact that
it was more expensive and not necessary
otherwise I was like you know what if
it's working for you and your dog great
I don't have a problem until recently
when reports started coming out that
dogs were starting to get sick because
of grain free foods and I don't mean
slightly sick very sick and the biggest
issue was the disease that's occurring
is really really hard to find and
usually you don't find it until it's
been going on for quite some time so
what is this disease it's something
called dilated cardiomyopathy really
long words I'll abbreviate it to DCM
we break it down it's not too
complicated dilated just means kind of
expanded cardio means heart
Myo means muscle and APPA Thea is a
disease of so it's a disease of the
heart muscle that causes it to dilate
now usually we see this in just a very
select few breeds of dogs such as boxers
Dobermans and Great Danes there are a
few other breeds that pop up here and
there but generally those are the ones
that we see it in the most and so what
occurred is cardiologists at various
veterinary schools at UC Davis Tufts
Cornell NC State and a couple of others
started seeing DCM in breeds that we
have never really seen it before and
they started to think what in the world
is happening I've seen several DCM cases
in the last month and breeds I have
never seen before and I'm a cardiologist
this is what I do I've done it for years
and I haven't seen this so they started
digging a little deeper and trying to
find some common thread between these
breeds and they discovered really only
one all of these dogs had been eating
grain free food from the time they were
very little to now and let's look a
little bit at this little diagram I'm no
artist by any means but I'll show you
why DCM is so problematic so your heart
is made up of four chambers you have two
atrium and two ventricles at the bottom
and the heart is one big muscle it
serves one function to pump blood
through the entire body so this in some
dogs it can fit in my hand easily and it
pumps blood through the whole body
that's so cool but the heart muscle the
wall of the heart is all one solid
muscle so it should look kind of like
this it's just like think about a strong
guy or gal if they've got strong biceps
and then they're larger they're more
dense now what happens in DCM is the
heart dilates it expands it starts
get bigger but not because the muscles
getting bigger it's not a bodybuilder
who's building more muscle it's
expanding because the muscles getting
thinner so instead of looking like this
it ends up looking like that now when
this muscle contracts it's nice and
dense it's big it's gonna have a
powerful contraction when this muscle
contracts not much is gonna happen think
about say a guy in his 20s versus a guy
in his 70s they may both be in shape but
their muscles are gonna be very very
different and that's just it that's the
problem we're having a change in the
muscle you can't see that you can't know
that it's happening until it's really
bad the muscle continues to get thinner
and thinner until the heart can't
squeeze hard enough to pump the blood
through the whole body and so the dog
becomes weak and then the dog starts to
enter into heart failure and if it goes
on long enough the dog will die because
of dcn now we don't know exactly which
green free foods are causing this we
think currently that it's foods that
contain a lot of legumes so beans like
chickpeas garbanzo beans soy beans
things along those lines
and and diets that contain a lot of
potatoes as well but we don't know
exactly why this is happening in dogs
who eat grain free food what we do know
is it's the only link we found in all
these little dogs and these odd breeds
that are starting to show up with a DCM
so when I tell people right now is this
I say I didn't have a problem with grain
free food before but now it looks like
it might be problematic the safest thing
to do at this point in time until we can
figure out what's going on and why this
is happening is to switch your dog to a
non grain free food a normal food
companies that I know a lot about and
have done a lot of research are Hill's
science diet Purina One or Purina Pro
Plan and Royal Canin
all of their commercial diets are just
fine
for your dog but I'm not trying to freak
people out I'm not trying to bash
grain-free but I am concerned about my
patients I'm concerned about my dogs and
I don't want this to happen to your dog
and so if you're feeding a grain free
food you can even stick with the same
company you're with I just look into
something that's a normal diet that does
contain a small amount of grains until
we can figure out exactly what's causing
this issue so I hope this has been
helpful I hope you've learned some
information I'm gonna have a more
thorough article about this on my
website pet doc Sherlock comm so check
that out but again my main goal is not
to tell you exactly what diet to feed or
get paid by some company because I'm not
and it's not even to bash grain free
foods because of their marketing this is
just something that we've started to see
that's very concerning that's kind of
flying under the radar that we want you
to know about so if you have any
questions let me know
send me an email put a comment below if
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remember to keep your pets happy and
healthy
