LET YOUR PET DINE WITH YOU Dr. Wysong

Across the land for over half a century pet owners have been cautioned about feeding their dogs and cats from the table. The main reason this caution is echoed by pet food manufacturers, nutritionists, and veterinarians is because of their belief in processed "100% complete" commercial foods. Their view is that table scraps would disturb the precise balance of these foods. But since we know that no such nutritional precision exists in commercial foods, denying pets the relish of table scraps makes no sense. Consider how that cats fed "complete" foods suffered taurine deficiency. These were premium cat foods which had been "proven" to be "100% complete and balanced" through feeding trials, laboratory analyses, and digestibility studies. If cat owners had occasionally fed bits of organs and meats from the table, the cardiomyopathy and other maladies would have never occurred. Thousands of cats would have been spared suffering and death, and owners spared grief and medical costs. Taurine deficiency is just the tip of the iceberg. Other examples include potassium deficiency, carnitine deficiency, zinc deficiency, riboflavin deficiency, and chloride overdose. That is what has been discovered thus far. Yes, formulas have been adjusted and these problems are now rare. But there is every reason to believe that most chronic degenerative diseases - affecting virtually every modern day pet - such as arthritis, obesity, heart disease, cancer, immune disorders, allergies, and skin, eye and ear infections are related to processed diet malnutrition. Subtle deficiencies cast a long shadow on health and cannot be detected in short-term feeding trials. Rather, they incubate over the lifetime of the animal to crop up in later years when little can be done to resolve the problem or - convenient to the perpetrators - identify the underlying cause - "100% complete" pet foods. The only way to make your pet's diet complete is to let nature work its magic by offering a variety of foods, intelligently supplementing, and giving tidbits and scraps right from your dinner table.