Remember the massive Menu pet food recall in 2007?
Soon after that fiasco, Pet Food: A Dog’s Breakfast, a Yap Films‘ documentary that exposes the mal-practices of the pet food industry, aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) on January 24, 2008, and again on September 7, 2009.
Finally, over three years later, our very own CNBC announced it was going to air the documentary last Thursday, February 10, 2011 and again tonight, Sunday, February 13, 2011.
NOT!!! CNBC changed it’s fickle corporate mind.
Read the informative email and telephone exchanges between CNBC and Susan Thixton in this February 9, 2011 post at The DogSmith Blog. It begins:
First CNBC announces they will air the pet food documentary A Dog’s Breakfast. Then they remove it from the schedule with no set date to reschedule. Did CNBC remove the documentary from the schedule because of pressure of Big Pet Food?
Nonetheless, you can still watch Pet Food: A Dog’s Breakfast! Click HERE to see the video. The re-production value leaves a little to be desired, but it’s still quite watchable.
And, then visit our blog pal Jim McBean at Doggy Bytes. He wrote an in-depth post about the documentary last July 12. In case you missed it, as I did, read it here.
I saw this doc when it originally aired on CBC. If this doesn’t change your mind about commercial pet food, nothing will. It’s quite eye opening :O
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Its sad that they did not air it. So many people in the country have no idea what is in those bag of crap they are feeding their pets. I meet so many people that tell me that I am crazy to cook for my dog and that a partially raw diet “can’t be good for a dog.” Ughhhh. I know they mean well they are just un-informed.
Yes, I’m sorry CNBC backed out, but the video is available on-line and I link to it in the post.
Thanks for the link — I think. I mean I knew most of this theoretically but it is so sad to see all these people who thought they were doing right by their pets losing them because of pet food company carelessness/greed.
Yes, I know. And, the horrible animals testing some of these companies do in the name of nutrition makes me ill.
It is a real tragedy how much greed really rules the world. I don’t think it will change until the pet food companies get struck where it hurts the most – financially.
Thanks for this Deborah. I am anxiously awaiting delivery of a couple of books on the pet food industry. One of the concerns I often have is that even the makers of so called ‘premium’ pet foods are relying on beliefs that pet owners have about what is best for their pets, regardless of whether those beliefs are accurate or not, and using them to market a more expensive, but not necessarily better food to them. I am often concerned about this because I am one of those consumers. I have four dogs and am not likely to ever feed a completely raw food or homemade diet to them as I have in the past when I had fewer dogs. Call me lazy or call me crazy, it’s the way it is. So I rely on prepackaged food for a bulk of my dogs’ diet.
I agree with you about the high end pet food industry playing on our beliefs about what is the best food for our dogs. They also play on the “ick” factor. I think some ‘icky’ parts of animals that we don’t eat, although they are eaten in other cultures, are good for our dogs. But, it would take a particularly sophisticated consumer of dog food to see ‘pancreas, tongue, gullet, and heart’, for example, on a label and think that was a good thing.
I find some of the concepts that initially have the ‘feel good’ factor for me, questionable.
In the video the idea that no testing needs to be done to determine what animals should eat seems disingenuous to me. Just what is the song bird to mouse ratio that is best for a cat, assuming that that’s what I should be feeding them (and how much of either is safely replaced by lizards for those living in the tropics?). What about the testing that would have to be done on those mice & birds to determine their nutritional value should we decided to replicate it in a commercial food? Don’t they matter, even if testing is done on dead animals? Does the diet of the mouse matter? Are city mice more nutritious than country mice? Would feeding guidelines to maintain a certain body weight be enough without consideration of content? Should we even be bothering to worry about feeding senior or diseased dogs who might require changes in diet to prolong their life and improve their health? If so, how do we determine their nutritional needs without experimentation?
Does including feeding table scraps in a dog’s diet take into consideration what those table scraps are? Is the assumption that scraps are not going to include foods ‘processed’ for human consumption? Are foods which I have processed myself bad for me and my dogs?
Certainly oversight of the industry is necessary. However one of the most cogent points I got from the vid is to keep my dogs on the thin side, despite my Jewish mother inclination to do otherwise.
Love your questions. I’m thinking….