More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Vikki Moran — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:45:10 GMT

hahaha sorry gareth I hadn't realised THAT was what you sent to them. well done. I suspect the journalist that wrote the article was paid more than a lot of vets!

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Hannah Wynne Richards — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:50:19 GMT

Well done Gareth

Wynne

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:12:55 GMT

[quote user="Vikkivet"]it's not vets, or clients that need a kick up the bum, it's the journalilsts who can't be bothered to do their research! we should be criticising them not each other!![/quote]

They are journalists. Laziness, semi-literacy and ignorance go with the job. If they did some research, they might find there was no story: then where would they be?

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Gareth C. — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:19:12 GMT

its on first page of this thread in its unedited form

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Vikki Moran — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:46:07 GMT

i haven't got access to a copy of the letter - any chance you can put it on here gareth?

i work in 2 practices, at one we sell only prescription diets, and i have a list of non prescription diets which may be suitable for certain condition, or at least preferable to the main "offenders" of the pet food world. I have certainly been known to send clients upthe road to the pet shop to buy these! Not all clients can or want to pay for the prescription foods, which are pretty expensive.

At the other practice, there is a stand selling a brand of pet food, the practice principal is a big fan of this particular "hypoallergenic" (in parentheses for a reason!) diet, and as such has chosen to display it.

HOWEVER as a practice we recommend that if you want to use a commercial diet that this would be our recommendation, we are happy to discuss the merits of other brands (or the problems with them). We are also happy to advise on how to go about feeding RMB if that's the way the client wants to go.

At the end of the day there are certainly some clients who wouldn't be able to manage to feed RMB correctly, and even if they could, it may not be practical or possible to do so. Certianly my own dog is fed commercial food int eh morning (when I am trying to feed the dog, the cats, a 4 year old, a 2 year old, get said children dressed, myself fed, showered, dressed and out of the door by 8am). In the evening he's fed a meal of vegetables and fresh meat. and he regularly has a bone to gnaw on. He's not without his health problems, he is in fact atopic soi have to be quite careful with him. It's not easy to get the balance right. I cannot expect all my clients to do so, nor can I criticise them for making a decision based on convenience.

What concerns me though is that because not all vets have the time or inclination to discuss dietary options with clients, they will inevitably make bad choices. And those people who are criticising vets for selling only certain brands of food are probably missing the point.

Not all comercial foods are bad, not all are good. not everyone can or wants to feed RMB. everything is an individual choice.

I believe the original article related to a cat with renal disease, which was blamed on the diet. I'd rather take issue with that in fact. WAS it the diet causing the renal disease? or was it lack of water with the diet?

cats don't like to drink water next to their food. they don't like water to be too fresh. I have been thinking alot about this lately and wonder if more cat owners understood the complexities of drinking water for cats, there may be less FLUTD or less renal disease? perhaps that was more the issue than the diet itself, or at very least contributory. perhaps a subject for another topic!

The sort of article in the daily mail (as usual for any journalism) doesn't truly investigate the facts. maybe it was a persian cat with PKD - would diet have caused the problem there or genetics? who knows!

it does bring to mind another article i read in there once on a train:

mr and mrs perfect garden whose dog died because of the rats in their neighbours messy garden - presumably the dog died from leptospirosis if it's been attributed to the rats? the article was outraged about the garden next door - at no point was it mentioned that the dog might not have been vaccinated and in fact probably wouldn't have died from lepto if it was??

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211766/House-proud-neighbours-claim-doors-rat-infested-garden-killed-dog.html

it's not vets, or clients that need a kick up the bum, it's the journalilsts who can't be bothered to do their research! we should be criticising them not each other!!

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Vikki Halliday LLB — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 10:46:48 GMT

Send your address to my e-mail vikvet@aol.co.uk and I'll send you a copy if you can't get one. Hope you don't think less of me because I do read the Mail!

Vik

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Gareth C. — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 09:17:29 GMT

excellent, glad you spotted it. I am now trying to get hold of a copy of yesterdays paper, but no one I know reads it! Its all that practice writing in Vet Practice magazine...

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Vikki Halliday LLB — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:55:35 GMT

PS it was in yesterday's paper, Tue 26th.

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Vikki Halliday LLB — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:54:55 GMT

[quote user="Arlo Guthrie"]Would be a great result if in the newspaper.[/quote]

A great result then as it was the centre of the letter page, the only other letter published was from a supporter of the BARF diet, Gareth's was the other one published. Good for him!

Vikki

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Arlo Guthrie — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 08:19:13 GMT

[quote user="Vikki Halliday"]Well Said, and they printed most of it too! [/quote]

Where? (in the newspaper itself, or the website? If the paper, what day?).

Would be a great result if in the newspaper.

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Vikki Halliday LLB — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:17:15 GMT

[quote user="Gareth C."]just sent this to the mail, wont help but made me feel better [/quote]

Sorry Gareth should have included the quote in my responce so everyone knew I was alluding to your letter.

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Vikki Halliday LLB — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:15:31 GMT

Well Said, and they printed most of it too! ( well you didn't realy think that they would get into the debate about vet suicides did you?)

Vikki

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Jenny Smith — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:56:11 GMT

Hi Roger,

I'm about to put a reply to you in the RMB section of the site, just because I think we're going a bit off the topic of the Daily Mail article, and I want to stay in Arlo's good books!!!

Jenny

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Roger Meacock — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 22:12:54 GMT

Hi Jenny

All the vet schools are funded in part by the pet food companies, be it lecturers, operating theatres, research grants etc. It is all done to create acceptance of the pet food paradigm and goodwill. Partly it has come about because of Government cutbacks that have left a shortfall in funding that creates the space for outside vested interest to move in. However do not be fooled - the outside vested interests are more than happy to get in at such a formative point in a young vet's career.

I would not expect a lecturer to be so blatant as to openly promote a single brand during lecturers. Students would be too suspicious of that. Even though the extra-curricular lectures may be taken with a pinch of salt by some, others will be more firmly hooked and it nonetheless creates the thought link when you encounter whatever clinical situation that lecture has described. Even the fact that they feed you pizza should make you suspicious as to their knowledge on nutrition but joking apart they choose something they think people eat frequently because every time you eat pizza it reinforces the neural pathways they set up in the lecture by association.

Your "nutrition" lectures are largely/totally founded on research carried out by the pet food industries which is based on kibble-fed animals. As such it is fundamentally flawed for cats and dogs because you have carnivores being fed an omnivore diet which is inappropriate.

As I said before, the branding influence comes from seeing whatever your vet school sells/advises during your clinical experiences, the posters on walls etc. It is all subliminal and there for a reason. Advertisers know exactly how to influence people - you only have to watch someone like Derren Brown to see how it works. They don't put money into these things without reason.

From what you describe I would say you have received virtually no nutrition lectures. Nutrition is mainly the study of ingredients within the diet in relation to health in the body. I can't say I'm surprised. It isn't rocket science or brain surgery (!) to conclude that an obese animal should be fed less of the same diet in an attempt to reduce weight. I'm sure all students are intelligent enough to have worked that one out for themselves. Unfortunately if the ingredients are still inappropriate for that species you will still get inappropriate responses. The Veterinary profession would seem to be no different from the human Doctors in having a very limited understanding of proper nutrition. Calculating energy requirements and matching to energy intake is just maths and is a small fraction of nutrition as a subject.

I hope your lecturer pointed out that feeding vegetarian and vegan diets to carnivores is a welfare consideration. Mind you 4% animal derivatives in a bag of kibble is hardly much better. If vets do not fully comprehend the importance of different ingredients, how the body utilises them and their effect on the body then it has no right to pretend to know how to feed any animal and we have no right to advise on any aspect of diet full stop. How can you even assess any research if you don't understand the basics of what is an acceptable ingredient or not? Chemical analysis alone is an over-simplification that is largely meaningless on its own.

Please don't apologise for getting involved in the discussion. You have every right to be concerned about what you are taught as I am.

I am more than happy to come to your uni and do a session on nutrition from a different perspective and from a position of experiencing the proper diet with my own dogs. Over to you.

Best wishes

Roger

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Jenny Smith — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 20:58:01 GMT

[quote user="Roger Meacock"]

[/quote]

Actually, my college are pretty transparent about sponsorship. Our derm module was sponsored, as was parasitology course books. In both these instances the company doing the sponsoring was clearly written on all our notes. I think that if my lecturer was being paid to teach us about a certain brand, he did a pretty cr@p job of doing it!. No specific brands were mentioned at all. Through the whole thing. Ever.

We have been offered sponsored lectures, but these are usually in the evenings, under the umbrella of one of our various clinical clubs and there is free pizza involved. We're all on the ball enough to realise that there has to be a reason a company is willing to buy pizza, so take things with a pinch of salt (no pun intended)

[quote user="Roger Meacock"]

I expect you were told during your obesity discussion to feed a commercial "light" diet without the option of being told to feed RMB and feed amount relative to body condition?

[/quote]

Actually, we discussed things on a case by case basis, using the general principles of calculating energy requirement and then using this to decide how much intake should be reduced. There was no talk of putting all weight loss candidates onto a one size fits all prescription diet, in fact, this was actively discouraged. We discussed the fact that a radical change in the dietary routine is less likely to result in weight loss because of the compliance problems (sorry guys, no reference for this one!) so to apply the principles to each owners chosen feeding style, be this a raw diet or a dry manufactured food.

[quote user="Roger Meacock"]

Do your lecturer actually understand how to advise a client to feed RMB from scratch? Can you now?

[/quote]

He may well have done (understood how to advise...), but we were not lectured on the specific ins and outs of any diet, rather the principles and evidence for and against multiple diet types, including manufactured, BARF, RMB, vegetarian and even vegan diets. The goal of the lectures wasn't to turn us into nutritionists, but to make us aware of the different options out there for clients (and/or ourselves if we have pets!) and the pro's and con's (granted, in brief) of each. It never set out to be a comprehensive how to, but more of an introduction to the different approaches to the same situation, and a review of current scientific literature for and against each field.

Finally, I apologise for my "RMB/BARF". I was writing my post at 10pm after a very long day. Normally I stay out of discussions on here because I'm not yet a vet, but felt that I had to stick for my uni at least.

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Roger Meacock — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:23:01 GMT

[quote user="phipps"]I think this has been alluded to earlier, but my view is that what clients feed their pet, rightly or wrongly (but none the less true), is a lifestyle choice made be each of those individual clients. Just like the choices about their own diets. Some people choose to follow the "5 a day" guidance regarding their own diets, a hell of a lot don't. The vast bulk of pet owners simply don't want or need the pfaff associated with feeding their pet a 'natural' diet, so they feed their pets canned or dried food, mostly bought from supermarkets. [/quote]

I agree with most of what you say but there is a significant number of people who would choose the natural diet if their vet were prepared to support them. That requires vets to be knowledgeable about how to support people wanting to feed the natural diet. If you choose to be a vet that's your obligation (and not a choice) to be able to advise owners on the basics of how to safely feed their pet as they want to. Once educated you'd realise it isn't rocket science, it's just as easy as the convenience foods and it is helping the pets of those owners who would respect your recommendation. I think you'll find a significant number of people are less apathetic about their pets than they are about themselves and the uptake would be more than you think.

It seems it takes the vilifying of vets and pet food manufacturers to get lazy vets to engage in the discussion! It is just sad that having recognised that a natural diet is better than the commercial ones that some vets are then prepared to sit back and let their clients feed the cr@p or even sell it to them. Given that those diets lead to other diseases (the research has proven this and it is commonly quoted by non-raw proponents) then the press is fully justified in levelling the accusation that vets are selling food that they know harms pets and that will bring in future revenue in treatments. We all have to take up our own position on ethics on that one but it would appear the profession has largely lost them on the basis of what you are saying.

I have no problem with anybody making a profit provided the service they offer genuinely works and does no harm.

If you have suggestions about how to raise serious money then I'd be pleased to hear them. The problem is that there isn't a likelihood of a new industry springing from this - the butcher and meat trades already exist.

I have no doubt that at some stage in the next year or 2 one or more of the major pet food companies will attempt to bring out their own version of a raw diet. There is already one pet food manufacturer marketing cooked pet food on the basis that grains are inappropriate ingredients so don't think proponents of raw feeding are as far out on a limb as you'd like to think. I wonder what those who are so ardently anti-raw will make of a commercial raw diet. Will they eat their words, apologise and reverse their present arguments? Will they try to maintain the position that raw food is dangerous and still somehow manage to believe that commercial pet food manufacturers have the best interests of pets at heart whilst producing a diet they fundamentally disagree with? Methinks there will be much squirming and maybe eating of hats and humble pie!

[quote user="phipps"]give up now since you will only ever be tinkering at the margins.[/quote]

I assure you I have no intention of giving up and you can also rest assured that the "margins" are creeping in. Where that leaves the credibility of the profession only time will tell. I am not hysterical I can assure you. I am very calm as I tell it how it is. If you think that those who head the £2billion pet food industry do so with no strategy and do not plan how to use veterinary influence to their own advantage then you are certainly very mistaken.

[quote user="phipps"]Please don't try and convince me, on this forum or elsewhere, that you have the evidence. Firstly, I am really, really NOT interested.[/quote]

What an admission! You really weren't joking about being lazy were you ... but I'm sure you work hard and meant apathetic?! I guess that's why you don't want to know that the evidence is there already. Relying on being a sheep that follows the crowd is not a legally acceptable defence.

[quote user="phipps"]but it annoys me when I see unmitigated tripe in the Daily Mail.[/quote]

Human nature is funny isn't it - we revel in the story when the sh1t hits the fan at someone else's expense because that's what sells newspapers but when the tables are turned it's a different story. With your recognition that the natural diet is better than commercial I suspect you're more annoyed because deep down you know the article is right. But that's human nature too and we're all human.

Roger

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Glen McIntosh — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 15:56:05 GMT

I think this has been alluded to earlier, but my view is that what clients feed their pet, rightly or wrongly (but none the less true), is a lifestyle choice made be each of those individual clients. Just like the choices about their own diets. Some people choose to follow the "5 a day" guidance regarding their own diets, a hell of a lot don't. The vast bulk of pet owners simply don't want or need the pfaff associated with feeding their pet a 'natural' diet, so they feed their pets canned or dried food, mostly bought from supermarkets.

In my opinion, the pet foods sold by vets for healthy animals (ie not prescription diets) provide only marginal benefits over supermarket sold pet foods. "Natural" diets like RMB would seem, instinctively, to be better than all processed pet foods based on what we are constantly told about our own diets. There are many, many studies that prove the benefits of diet that includes fresh fruit and veg for people. But there is a dearth of similar studies for "natural" diets in pets, so I really have no idea whether a recommendation by me for feeding a "natural" diet to pets who are owned by suitably motivated owners is really helping the animal, or actually causing harm (eg bones stuck in the GIT, salmonella etc from improper handling of raw meat) as well as causing unnecessary pfaff for pet owners. As a result, unless the client seems very motivated, natural diets are mentioned only in passing when I give dietary advice.

So my advice to the proponents of "natural" diets:

Don't vilify vets and the companies that produce the pet foods commonly recommended by vets. They are meeting the demands of a, lets face it, lazy pet owning populace (heck, I'm one of the laziest), and they are doing so in a way that has, demonstrably, improved the nutrition of pets over the years. (Plus you will eventually need them if you ever prove your theories.)
Don't vilify these same vets and companies for making a profit. Virtually nothing happens anywhere without somebody making a profit or getting paid.
Raise some serious money and do some serious studies that will stand up to rigorous scrutiny such that they are published in respected peer review journals and eventually become seminal papers that no one can ignore. A good model for this would be the use of pain relief perioperatively in animals. 15 - 20 years ago it just wasn't done, today you are pilloried if you don't. This was achieved by committed people doing work that produced respected studies that have changed the way the mainstream of the profession thinks.
Either start your own company, or become involved with the current pet food manufacturers, to promote the production a diet based on your studies that is equal in convenience and ease of availability to pet owners as current canned and dry food. If you can't do this, give up now since you will only ever be tinkering at the margins.
In the meantime, steer clear of conspiracy theories, accusations of brainwashing of vets etc. You may or may not be on to something with your nutritional theories but hysterics will win you over only a very small section of a population that is, by and large, quite apathetic towards what they feed their pets and will quickly lose you credibility with the rest. And that might be a shame - we simply don't know - until you show us the evidence.
Please don't try and convince me, on this forum or elsewhere, that you have the evidence. Firstly, I am really, really NOT interested. Secondly, there are much smarter people than me, who I trust, who are interested in this type of thing and I will believe it when they tell me the evidence is there-and I might then even read one or two of the journal articles myself. (Like I said, I am about as apathetic as I can be on this subject - but it annoys me when I see unmitigated tripe in the Daily Mail.)

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Roger Meacock — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:05:53 GMT

[quote user="Jane Dunnett"]So how do you know you haven't been brainwashed Roger?[/quote]

You're quite right Jane, I was! Tom admits the same too until he woke up and realised what damage the commercial food was doing to his clients. Having tried the RMB option and witnessed the advantages and health improvements he saw Tom has been blowing the whistle ever since. Likewise having tried the diet on my own dog and then seeing the improvements in others I've advised I know it is the right way forward.

I'm sure if you tried it you would soon come to the same conclusion. It would appear that the majority of vets are too scared for whatever reason to see for themselves. Some who have tried it prefer not to put their head above the parapet and speak out which leaves the few of us who do to continue to call for changes.

All I can urge and encourage you to do is to not take my word for it but to see for yourself by doing it properly yourself.

Roger

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

jd2008 — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:31:03 GMT

[quote user="Roger Meacock"]

[quote user="Niall Taylor"]

Many thanks Jenny, I too have no recollection whatsoever of being brainwashed by pet food manufacturers while at college - yet another sensationalist claim made to sell newspapers/books/lecture tours etc...

Cheers,

Niall

[/quote]

That's how brain-washing works Niall.

[/quote]

So how do you know you haven't been brainwashed Roger?

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Roger Meacock — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 10:36:55 GMT

[quote user="Arlo Guthrie"]That doesn't make the story any truer.[/quote]

I agree Arlo! You can't get truer than true!

Cheers

Roger

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Roger Meacock — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 10:09:16 GMT

[quote user="Niall Taylor"]

Cheers,

Niall

[/quote]

That's how brain-washing works Niall. I believe you were one on the other thread who posted that you thought all pet foods were the same. They certainly did you!

Cheers

Roger

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Roger Meacock — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 10:06:48 GMT

Jenny

Thanks for your post - you very nicely support my point for the following reasons ...

As far as I am aware all the primary vet school small animal nutrition lecturer's salaries are paid for by one or other of the pet food companies, so yes your lectures are sponsored - it just doesn't get written on your timetable as such so you are not aware of the process under way. The branding indoctrination comes with what your school is contracted to sell that you see during clinical teaching etc. If you don't believe that is intentional you should read some of the correspondence that took place between Edinburgh and Waltham a few years back.

[quote user="Jenny Smith"]a whole hour on RMB/BARF and other dietary alternatives to the usual food choices.[/quote]

The fact that you wrote RMB/BARF instead of RMB, BARF would tend to imply that you believe RMB and BARF to be one and the same. Wrong! They are significantly different.

How many hours of nutrition lectures do you get? 5, 10, 20 hours? So am I supposed to believe that spending a fraction of an hour being told about a number of raw diets by someone who clearly doesn't understand the difference between RMB and BARF is balanced relative to the nutrition you get about commercial feeds? I expect you were told during your obesity discussion to feed a commercial "light" diet without the option of being told to feed RMB and feed amount relative to body condition?

Do your lecturer actually understand how to advise a client to feed RMB from scratch? Can you now? Were you told all about the reason why RMB supporters feed RMB or were you told the myths that it was unbalanced and dangerous and to be avoided? It would take me far longer than an hour to properly cover RMB so people understand it enough to start feeding it.

Quite obviously the pet food companies have realised more recently that they can no longer totally suppress the existence of RMB etc but to only give you a fraction of the truth lectured by someone who has probably never fed it and clearly doesn't fully understand it is a devious way of making sure you are aware of it but without sufficient evidence and knowledge to support it. Very clever.

So not quite as balanced as you first thought.

[quote user="Jenny Smith"]I know that my uni education on nutrition is not yet complete, and probably won't be on graduation. But then, how many topics would a new grad claim to have a complete knowledge of?![/quote]

It is criminal to think that vet students don't fully understand the most basic function of keeping a pet alive and healthy on a daily basis. What an admission! I rest my case.

Roger

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Cat Henstridge — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:51:13 GMT

My main issue with the article was how it primarily attacked the foods vets tend to sell as being bad for pets. I am sure we all agree that some makes of diet, mainly those on the supermarket shelves and large advertising campaigns, are dreadful for the health of animals, do contribute to a range of issues such as obesity and poor teeth and should be 'named and shamed'. I actively advise my clients against these and point towards the better quality brands, either from our shelves or elsewhere. A good diet is a vital componant of a healthy life and we should be recommending the best ones to our clients.

And no Roger, I have not been 'brainwashed' by the food companies, I have seen the benefits of these diets with my own eyes. I worked in a clinic which had been a Hills practice since it first came out and I regularly saw cats in their late teens, having been fed the diet all their lives, in brilliant health with perfect teeth. I have also seen pets whose owners followed my advice on dietary change have better coats, cleaner teeth and lose weight. I am sure we all have, which is why most vets will recommend certain brands over others.

For the record, I am happy if people want to feed a RMB diet if they wish but I think it is difficult to get right and so I don't actively recommend it.

Cat

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Roger Meacock — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:38:48 GMT

[quote user="Martin Jones"]I, certainly, have less issues with some processed foods than do you - although we'd be equally horrified about some (that we can't mention hereabouts) - but then, I'm not selling them and I'm affording my clients the respect of allowing them to make their own choices. [/quote]

Martin

I respect the fact that you don't sell everyday pet foods and I understand that you differentiate between different brands in your perception of their quality. In another thread on this forum some vets posted that they think all pet foods are the same. The public is therefore even more likely to believe likewise and the fact that vets sell commercial feeds at all will be seen as an equal endorsement of all brands.

[quote user="Martin Jones"]a very wise woman once said, 'If everybody looked the same, we'd get tired of looking at each other'. [/quote]

Well this is something else we agree on but maybe from different angles. Can you imagine how boring it must be for our pets to be given the same cr@p every day? So it would appear that vets are going against the advice of the wise woman! At least with the RMB diet there is plenty of variation and room for individuality within that. When it comes to diet too we should remember that in the wild every carnivore eats a carnivore diet and that is why we should recommend the same. I'm not asking anybody to believe in me - just believe in that other wise woman - Mother Nature!

Roger

Re: More vet-bashing in the Daily Mail

Arlo Guthrie — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 08:17:36 GMT

[quote user="Evelyn Barbour-Hill"]I talked to a number of the attendees at the breaks. Most of them thought it was scandalous, vets selling dog foods that were bad for dogs, after the lecture that told them so. [/quote]

This is absolutely my problem with anyone who argues that because pet owners don't respond to stories like that in the Daily Mail by posting comments criticising the story and supporting vets, the story (and everything in it about natural diets) must be true.

That's just rubbish. As Evelyn says, if a trusted publication like the Daily Mail (and it is trusted by a large cross section of society) tells its readers that diets sold by vets are bad for dogs, a great many are going to believe it and voice their outrage. That doesn't make the story any truer.

My thanks too, Jenny, for that very valuable addition to the debate.