Why This American Supports the Canadian Raw Pet Food Project

If you follow my work, or are a client of mine, you know I believe species appropriate nutrition is vital to our pets’ health. And nowhere is this truer than in Canada.

I know what just went through your mind. “What in the world makes Canadian pets more at risk than those in the US? Are they somehow different than dogs and cats in America?”

The truth is, while the dogs and cats are no different, the laws and regulations raw pet foods need to meet are different. In Canada, pet food is an unregulated territory. When it comes to label claims, nutritional info, website information, and more, there are essentially no regulations. Unverified or untested claims are often made about the nutritional completeness or content of raw products. In many cases, nutritional data is not provided at all, and consumers must rely on blind trust in the company to choose a food for their pet.

This lack of information affects not only consumers, but also pet store owners. How can the owners or the staff of a pet store accurately advise a customer who has questions about a raw product, in the absence of legal requirements about information or claims made on the label or company?

That’s why I jumped at the chance to be part of the Canadian Raw Pet Food Project! This project is the brainchild of Dr. Karen Becker, who practices in both Canada and the US. She has experienced first hand patients who have suffered harms from poorly formulated foods in Canada. The project will be testing ten popular raw products sold in Canada, representing the range if options available to most pet parents. The results will be shared publicly, in comparison to most internationally accepted standards.

Because thorough pet food testing is expensive, many small companies are unable to do it. Some rely on calculated values, others on empirical formulas such as 80-10-10 (80% muscle meat, 10% bone, 10% organs). Other companies pursue hybrid approaches, or just offer meat and bone mixes. It can be incredibly confusing for the pet parent.

Our goal in this project is to provide independent, third party testing, with total transparency. We will purchase and handle the food just as a consumer would. The credentialed laboratory will follow appropriate testing methods. We will not be rating, approving, or disapproving any products. We will just be providing information, so you can make your own choices for your pet.

So, why am I, as someone who will likely never feed these products, jumping on board and devoting many hours of my time to the project? Simply put, because I care about raw fed dogs, and the perception raw feeding has, everywhere! Well or poorly formulated commercial raw products impact the industry, whether in the US, Canada, or the rest of the world. The harms experienced by dogs fed nutritionally incomplete products are real, wherever they happen. And the opportunity to share information based on lab data of foods whose ingredient list is available is universal. Even DIY feeders can learn from the data we collect. Many of the products we are testing are similar to what a DIY feeder may put together for their pet at home. It will be very enlightening to see the data from products that are based on prey model or other feeding philosophies.

I hope you will consider supporting our project. Even a small donation or a social media share makes a difference. And watch for an announcement when our results become available early next year!