Why Are We Feeding Our Pets?

This is rather a basic question, but how many of us have stopped to consider the real answer? Are we feeding our pets to meet their basic nutritional needs, our needs, their perceived needs, or some other perceived reason?

Because of all of the advertisements and marketing distractions and often misleading misinformation, we may have forgotten our original purpose of why we are feeding our pets. The specific purpose of any food should be to supply all of the known required nutrients at balanced and optimal levels for the life stage and life style of the pet, and in a form that is acceptable to the animal we are feeding.

One may say ‘Duh’? However, it is easy to confuse one’s purpose of selecting and providing a food based on what is in the market. All premium and super premium foods are palatable, nutritionally complete, and balanced to meet the needs of all healthy pets. The danger comes when we select a food based on perceived benefits, marketing hype, appealing packaging, uniqueness of ingredients, and anthropomorphism. We are all vulnerable to varying degrees of these sales techniques. Millions of dollars are spent every day by companies hoping to bring the various attributes and qualities of their product to our attention, real or perceived, in order to influence our decisions. These attributes may have nothing to do with the quality of the product or impact its efficacy, but it often influences our decision because of our interpretation of the information we receive.

In our current information age, on any given day, we receive an incalculable amount of information that we cannot even begin to analyze and understand. In regards to pet foods and the nutritional needs of our pets, even if we assume that the majority of this information is correct, which our experience tells us likely it is not, it is still beyond most of our ability to digest and apply this information, to answer even the basic questions on our pet’s nutritional needs. The compounding effect of misinformation, market hype, fraudulent data and information, and down right lies, make most of this information unreliable at best and misleading or useless at worst. The frightening consequence of this informational morass is we make many of our pet's feeding decisions using this source and this process. By humanizing our pets, which is easy as they are part of the family, we further cloud our diet selection decisions based on what we like, or how we think of a food or an ingredient. When asked in survey about what food a person would select for their pets, most people will either be influenced or make their decision based on the belief that because it looks good, consequently, it is good for the pet. “You would not want to eat the same thing every day, why would you think your pet would”? This was actually a response received from a blog recently on the internet from an individual when posed with the treatise that dogs do not need variety in their foods, just optimum, high quality nutrition made from high quality animal source ingredients. Fortunately, for the millions of domesticated pets in the world, the large majority of foods available on the market do meet the nutrient requirements of our pets. Though many of these foods do play on our anthropomorphic projections of our pets and at times mislead the consumers through misleading promises and statements, they are still nutritionally balanced and good to feed most pets.

It would, however, behoove us all to ask a second line of questions that would include, “… What is the best value of the foods available to meet these objectives”? “What are the real ingredients that are necessary to deliver these needs or requirements at the optimum cost”? “Is one food better than the next or is most of what one reads marketing hype”? "Do exotic ingredients really supply quality nutrients or is it just misleading hype"?

The ability of marketing to guide our decision on what products to use displaying beautiful pictures, graphics, videos, and all strung together with a great tag-line or a memorable tune is not only remarkable but it is extremely dangerous. The Internet through the social networking capabilities, phones, etc. has added to the willing deception or covering of truth. To bring this home, look at what has recently happened to some of our sports heroes, our scientist, late night show host, least we forget to mention politicians, just to site a few examples. The bottom line is most things we read and hear are a mirage that hides the real truth under layers of schmooze, feel good phrases and images. Can any of us say we are not or have not been swayed into buying a product, any product, based on these techniques? Is it any wonder we only should believe half of what we read and none of what we hear? Is there a more reliable source and a better way to identify the optimal food for our pets?

Tom R. Willard, PhD
TRW Consulting Services


01.12.2010
TRW