Family Veterinary Clinic offers a full range of veterinary care services for your puppy or dog. We focus on wellness and prevention, as well as care for when they are sick. Learn more about our canine-friendly services below or contact us today.

Food Recommendations

Family Veterinary Clinic recommends feeding a high quality, age appropriate, nutritionally balanced pet food for most pets. Pets with certain health conditions may require prescription diets. There is a lot of information out there, not to mention a plethora of pet food choices, which makes it a little scary when trying to decide what food is best to feed your pet. For this reason, we have compiled a list, which is not all encompassing, as that is a daunting task even for us, but lists some foods that we feel comfortable recommending. We never recommend feeding raw diets; handling raw meat can cause serious bacterial infections, like Salmonella, in people. Eating raw meat can lead to bacterial, protozoal, and parasitic infections in pets.

Homemade diets are an option but we would recommend consulting with a veterinary nutritionist as most recipes available in books and on the internet are nutritionally unbalanced and can lead to serious health issues.

Family Veterinary Clinic has some some great food recommendations to the right, for your pet’s optimal health.

Yes, these are large food companies but they have the experience and the testing to back up their foods. See the Pet Diets website library listed below for some debunking of common myths and misconceptions about pet food. Again, there are many pet food choices out there so read the labels. Call the company that makes your pet’s food or write an e-mail to get your questions answered. A general note about pet food recalls, almost every pet food out there has had or will have recalls. Ideally, companies would test every ingredient in every batch of food for evidence of infection and toxins but unfortunately, even the food we consume does not live up to that standard.

ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

If you would like to call or write to the company that makes your pet’s food here are some questions you can ask:

1. Do you have a Veterinary Nutritionist on staff in your company? Are they available for consultation or questions?
2. Who formulates the diets and what are their credentials?
3. Is this diet AAFCO Feed Trial tested? Does this diet meet AAFCO Nutritional requirements?
4. What Testing do you do beyond AAFCO trials?
5. What specific quality control measures do you use to assure the consistency and quality of your product?
6. What safety measures do you use?
7. Where are your diets produced and manufactured? Can this plant be visited?
8. Can you provide a complete product nutrient analysis of your canine or feline pet food including digestibility values? (This list was modified from a list of questions asked by a nutritionist to certain pet food companies)

TRANSITIONING A PETS DIET

Remember that if you switch foods even within the same brand it is always wise to do a gradual transition over 7 days to decrease the chance of GI upset that usually manifests in vomiting and/or diarrhea.

Here is how to transition a diet:

• For the first 2 days feed 75% of the original diet and 25% of the new diet
• For the next 2 days feed 50% of each diet
• For the next 2 days feed 25% original diet and 75% new diet
• On day 7 your pet is transitioned to 100% of the new diet

For cats, it may take longer to transition their diets not because of GI upset but because they are sometimes fussier about their food choices.

SOME HELPFUL WEBSITES

To learn more about pet food and nutrition go to the American College of Veterinary Nutrition website at http://www.acvn.org and click on read more under frequently
asked questions

• To look for recent pet food or product recalls go to the United States FDA website at http://www.fda.gov then click on the Animal & Veterinary tab then click on
• recalls under reporting problems.
• This website’s Nutrition Library is very useful (some of the articles are pay only but many are free): http://www.petdiets.com/Library/Articles
• These are good resources to help understand raw diets: http://vet.tufts.edu/nutrition/faq/frequently-asked-questions-about-general-pet-nutrition/
  http://www.fda.gov/downloads/animalveterinary/guidancecomplianceenforcement/guidanceforindustry/ucm052662.pdf