gaybusterkeaton's JumboTweets
Danger with Farmer's Dog sponsorship
Hey y'all,
I just wanted to reach out because I know you love your dogs as I love mine, so I ask that you please stop recommending and working with Farmer’s Dog. There has recently been a growing body of evidence that a lot of these newer boutique, grain-free dog foods are causing nutritionally mitigated DCM (dilated cardiomyopathy), also known as heart failure. It is not yet known what is in these foods that are causing DCM, but only that there is a correlation with BEG diets (boutique, exotic ingredients, grain-free). Dog food is already incredibly unregulated, but these newer dog foods are using ‘natural’ marketing fads to make it seem like their foods are safe when in reality they have no real evidence that they are. What is currently recommended is feeding grain inclusive dog foods that meet WSAVA guidelines as a safety precaution as the research continues, which Farmer’s Dog does not. Although they claim their food is formulated by nutritionists*, they do not perform feeding trials and do not meet WSAVA guidelines. The only feeding trials that they are preforming are on -your dogs-. It’s been a struggle in the community to compile accurate numbers and cases of nmDCM in dogs and with particular dog food brands, because dogs generally appear fine and won’t present symptoms until it’s too late. There may be many people who's dogs passed away from DCM whose families don't know the cause, so it's believed that the number of cases is under reported. More and more dogs are getting ill and/or dying from nutritionally mitigated DCM, and if these dog food brands were actually more concerned about your dogs health and safety than their profits, they would pull their foods until they have scientific evidence that their foods are safe. This isn’t meant as a judgement, we all do what we think is best for our dogs. I’m not asking that you take my word for it, but please look into DCM and talk to your vet and/or consult with a nutritionist. Ending your sponsorship with Farmer’s Dog could potentially save lives.
*a qualified nutritionist is a phD animal nutritionist or a board certified veterinary nutritionist. Many brands will label a ‘nutritionist’ as someone with insufficient qualifications.
A lot of questions (and defensiveness) can come up when people first start a conversation about nmDCM. Which I understand! I was there myself. But the reality is we all were doing what was best for our dog with the information we were given. I personally was feeding a food with a high number of DCM reports (earthborn holistic) because I was told I needed to feed grain-free and high protein. A lot of the marketing for these boutique dog foods is very smart, and they know how to target people who want safe, natural foods, and who might be skeptical of larger corporations. If they don't have the resources to manufacture a safe, researched dog food, then they need to go into another field, because it’s irresponsible, negligent, and in many cases fatal to continue working as they are.
I, like a lot of folks, wanted to feed food that was 'natural' and healthy, so I made a great target for the kind of marketing these smaller companies employ (using words like ‘human grade’ and providing flashy ingredients lists, both of which have no real bearing on the actual nutrition of the food). There’s virtually no regulation with dog food, and these smaller companies obviously have very big competitors, so it makes sense that their marketing would depend on being ‘different’ and ‘more caring’ and ‘more natural’ than those competitors, even if they had no evidence that their foods are safe. Unfortunately the difference here feels more like trusting a doctor about your health versus a pharmaceutical company. They have drastically different incentives.
In terms of... <<<<<< N.B from Jumbotweet: auto-truncated at 4K characters on index page - Click here or on the "view" link to see entire jumbotweet! http://www.jumbotweet.com/ltweets/view/181347