[Ellie May]

Yes, I fed an RC medical food to my Yorkie before. It did not work for her becaus she became very itchy on it. It was not a bad food at all. It just didn't fit her needs. If the vet is suggesting that you feed this, you can be confident that it is a good food made by a good company with some really cool quality control techniques.

I think if an owner doesn't want to feed their dog corn, that is perfectly fine (as long as that belief doesn't get in the way of feeding an rx food when necessary). I'm not sure where all the corn hate comes from though. A lot of grains can potentially contribute protein to dog food. Corn isn't the only one. You would need much more corn than meat to get a certain protein % though, so I'm far from convinced that a company uses it as a protein source. I also don't understand what makes corn worse than other grains. Corn isn't nearly as undigestible as what people think. I'm far more concerned about a company's quality control, their formula creators, and the feeding trials that they do or do not do than whether or not the ingredients appeal to me. And by-products are the most horrible thing ever if SD or RC use them, but if "high end" companies use them under a different name, they are just fine (thinking Champion here).

As for vets and being concerned first and foremost about the almighty dollar, I disagree. Some are of course, but I'm not sure people realize how much vets make (or more accurately, don't make). If I thought my vet was trying to sell me things just to line her wallet, she would not be my vet because I would wonder what she would put my dogs through in terms of testing just to make money. But my vet doesn't play those games. In fact, I'm trying to think of any vet I know playing those money games and I can't think of any. That's about 0/10 who care about money more than animals and people. Actually, I'm trying to think of an occasion where any of them recommended an rx food needlessly and I can't think of one. They prefer that their clients can get the food OTC if possible. They can make money off of any food that they stock. That's just it, they can stock any food that they like and try to sell it. I'm not aware of any special kickback program with SD. If it's based on how many bags are sold, then why wouldn't my vet feed it to her dogs? She does not. Vets don't know a ton about nutrition. They have basic knowledge though and they are students of biology (which is more than most people on the internet). When it's out of their league, they should be referring to a veterinary nutritionist. If they are not, then there is a problem. One of the major reasons a lot of nutrition training in vet school comes from dog food companies at times is because these companies are the ones that put out the money for research. I'm sure a "holistic" company that put out money to do actual research would be welcome to come do a presentation. Wasn't it not long ago that Natura had a program to vet students? I guess they do the kickback thing too?? And PhD nutrition students aren't taught by dog food companies, so that's taken out of the equation. That would be board certified veterinary nutritionists, yet people don't want to listen to them either because they don't think grain is the enemy.

When my dogs' nutritional needs becomes too much for my vet to handle, I talk to a veterinary nutritionist and I have stopped listening to what dog food website authors decide is true. They lack credentials and generally support a diet of meat, meat, and more meat. I see plenty of dogs failing on foods like Orijen and the raw diet to know that just because a diet is rich in "meat" doesn't mean much of anything.