Have you switched to a grain-based pet diet because of the potential link between grain-free dog foods and Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM)? Or are you still feeding your Tripawd grain-free food?
Whether you are or are not we hope you will take this quick Tripawds Grain-Free Food Survey.
What is Causing DCM in Dogs?
It’s been just over a year since the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) announced a potential link between grain-free dog food and Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM), a type of heart disease. The FDA just released a third report on the DCM and dog food controversy. In a nutshell:
Between January 1, 2014 and April 30, 2019, the FDA received 524 reports of DCM (515 canine reports, 9 feline reports). Approximately 222 of these were reported between December 1, 2018 and April 30, 2019 (219 canine reports, 3 feline reports). Some of these reports involved more than one affected animal from the same household.
Many of the dogs diagnosed with DCM were from a variety of breeds without a known genetic predisposition to the condition. What they all had in common was they ate grain-free diets. Since “only” 10 cats were reported with DCM, the FDA is focusing their attention on dogs with the condition.
“More than 90 percent of products were “grain-free,” and 93 percent of reported products contained peas and/or lentils. A far smaller proportion contained potatoes,” says the FDA in it’s June 2019 status report on DCM and grain-free diets.
The FDA’s news turned the pet food industry on its head, especially when it named the dog food brands most linked to DCM. Since then, industry news says grain-free pet food sales fell. Meanwhile grain-free pet food manufacturers stand by their recipes.
Zignature, producers of exotic grain-free dog and cat foods, published a Statement in Response to FDA Findings. They say important to remember that:
- The DCM cases reported to the FDA included dogs who ate both grain and grain-free diets.
- The overwhelming majority of impacted dogs belonged to breeds genetically predisposed to DCM
- More than 50% of the foods reported were from chicken, lamb or salmon proteins.
- The FDA received a significant number of DCM reports from the largest pet food producers.
Are You Still Buying Your Tripawd Grain-Free Food?
For now, veterinarians are recommending that we rethink our pet’s diet. The most conservative vets recommend going back to a grain-based food. Natural medicine renegades like Drs. Karen Becker and Judy Morgan suggest adding a can of sardines once a week and/or avoiding kibble diets high in fillers and low in meat.
Meanwhile we want to know, are you still feeding your Tripawd grain-free food? Take this short survey and let us know, we would love to share the results with the veterinary community.
Please take this survey between
Monday November 11 and Sunday November 17th, 2019.
Create your own user feedback survey
Thanks for taking the survey! Watch for a report in December.
Dr. Dressler also includes grain in the dog cancer diet (although specific types of grain). I now stay away from kibble with peas, lentils, and so on although that did proove extremely hard to find.
Thanks for that reminder Tina, I’ll have to mention that in a future blog post. Meanwhile I’m curious what brand of food(s) did you find that don’t contain the suspect ingredients?
Yup. The OP gets VICTOR Ultra Pro 42 Grain-Free Dry Dog Food plus home made–primarily meat, sweet potatoes, veggies. The home made does include some rice for filler and poop management so their diet is not entirely grain free. The dry food does have peas as the 4th ingredient but there are also multiple additional meat and fish based protein sources. There is also added taurine. Finally, they only get between 1/2 and a full cup a day split between two meals. So we feel fine about the dry food and they have done really well on it. We used to feed them Orijen but felt the quality declined significantly once they started making it in the U.S. 🙁
Not sure my food brands will be helpful at all, being German. It took me about an hour at the dog store to read the labels on the back of the bags. It was actually quite scary to find that almost ALL of them had leguminous plants as the main filler. I ended up finding only two brands without peas, chickpeas, lentils, all that. for all Germans here: Markus’ Mühle und Nature’s Best 🙂
and according to Dr. Dressler it makes a lot of sense to feed brown rice or oats for example so I do also buy canned food (human grade) that has those ingredients.
The vet recommended that I feed my dog purina pro plan, a was feeding her Origen for small dogs. She is not crazy about either one, I don’t don’t know what to do.
She is a 4-year-old Norwich Terrier. I put out two bowls of each, she seems to like the Purina better. is this good for her/
Marlene, I’m not a vet nutritionist so I can’t answer that. But it’s always best to find out what your dog likes and stick with it. I would give Pro Plan a chance if your vet recommended it. See how she does. If you don’t like what you see, talk to your vet about another brand. Good luck!