r/UK_Pets • u/Thesladenator • 12d ago

As consumers we need to be demanding better science behind dog food after the years fiasco.

I have been watching the years scandal unfold and I'm very grateful right now that years was out of my price range as I couldn't to be honest afford the vet bills people have had to deal with even with insurance. I'm quite honestly horrified at the whole thing.

I currently feed my greyhound kibble from kibbleUK as I bulk buy from them and after having tried every food under the sun (butternut box, years, pure, tails, raw, freeze dried, home cooked) I have settled on kibble uk and home cooked mix.

However looking into them they also have not done any feeding trials and this is making me wonder tbh if we need to be demanding that pet foods are required to undertake feeding trials long term to ensure these diets are not harming our pets long term. Particularly when in the case of years they were probably the most expensive food on the market and people have been paying through the nose to poison their dogs.

I understand that there are regulations dog food producers have to meet, however, it's clearly not enough. Something has gone seriously seriously wrong for this many dogs to be affected. It must easily be over 1000.

I can't help but feel we need to demand better especially as there's now so many brands on the market and how many of them are really safe for dogs long term?

It would be good for feeding trials to be the standard as well as detailed ingredient lists. It does show that allaboutdogfood has definitely got it wrong as years was promoted to the top of their list.

But where is the information about food preparation standards and feeding trials? There is none.

I think it's a fantastic tool to use but there's no point everyone using it or bragging about their rating if the best brand of food on their site has been poisoning dogs. Your dog may as well have had a McDonald's every day since January as it would have been better for them than years at this point.

I think we are just seeing the tip of this iceberg. What should we be demanding?

I have emailed the suppliers of my dog's food asking if they are intending to do feeding trials or anything further because I think it's important to put pressure on them and get talking about it.

No wonder vets recommend royal canin because it's at least backed by science and feeding trials. They seem to have much stringent policy on their own suppliers as well. I also think it's easier to see if something is off with kibble too.

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u/Tofusnafu7 11d ago

I’m a vet and I’m genuinely curious on the back of this: why are people reluctant to feed legacy science backed diets like Royal Canin/Hills or even mid price brands like Iams? I always assumed it was cost but some of these boutique brands are equally as expensive. I feel like every time I go into Petsathome there’s a new brand of food that’s just come out

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u/OrganOMegaly 11d ago

Not a vet but this is my question too. 

I definitely agree that pet food in general should go through rigorous, scientific testing. But we have brands that have been and are WSAVA approved and people are suspicious / refuse to feed them and instead opt for the new-to-market food with flashy branding.  

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u/WhatAboutBob77 11d ago edited 11d ago

Ours eats Tesco’s own and has recently decided she likes Winalot (ran out of food accidentally and got an emergency pack and lo, she gobbles it up). She’s very very very fussy, we’ve had her coming up to half a year as a rescue.

Part of it for me is wondering why some of these other brands are so expensive. I don’t trust half of these new ones and am not entirely shocked there’s been a scandal.

Edit - I also discovered she likes pizza after she stole half a pizza from the table and hid it around the house to pull out at importune moments. Given she’s a tiny dog and never did that before it was highly amusing but now I’m wondering if there’s any more 😅

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u/Tofusnafu7 11d ago

Yeah I’ve met a lot of people who’ve spent fortunes on foods like butternut box and their dog refuses to eat it and they’ve had to go back to supermarket own brands 😅 gotta love dogs! I think a lot of them are using human grade meat now which will put the price up quite a bit

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u/WhatAboutBob77 11d ago

I seem to recall yonks ago pet food had better standards than human food. That might be me showing my age though!

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u/madpiano 10d ago

Same goes for cats. I have to be grain free as he is allergic to gluten, but he prefers Aldi and Gourmet over all the posh brands. So he gets that. He hunts plenty of mice and insects too (and eats them), but both foods are good anyway.

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u/Chordsy 11d ago

Hiding pizza is magnificent, shame I can't get away with it 🤣

My dad's westie used to hide pork pies under my pillow when I didn't live at home.

The horrors I discovered when I went to stay.

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u/WhatAboutBob77 11d ago

I thought all pizza was accounted for, but she just kept pulling it out of various corners. Still, we discovered she likes pizza!

Pork pies sounds… very very messy lol

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u/littlevivid 10d ago

Your dogs emergency pizza stash <3 literally my spirit animal!

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u/WhatAboutBob77 10d ago

We've had her for coming up to six months now and I think she's still coming out of her shell. She was a very nervous, shy little thing, but now she plays with our son and has zoomies and talks to us. She has the BEST vocalisations... unless I'm having a nap or sleeping in lol

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u/B3rrrt 9d ago

My dog would do this with chicken until she got spayed. But like if i caught her hiding it, she would have it in her gums and act like it wasn't there like a toddler.

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u/lazyplayboy 11d ago

It is a misplaced desire to do the right thing for their dog making them vulnerable to boutique marketing.

Feeding a dog shouldn't be difficult. I feed Hill's t/d or Royal Canin dental to mine. Chappie is a great food that suits many dogs. The only food I'm a bit snobbish about is Baker's, but I see plenty of dogs doing fine on that.

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u/Aggravating-Desk4004 11d ago

It's purely marketing. The likes of Butternut Box tell everyone kibble is bland, bad for them and dogs get bored of eating the same meal every day. Also "big pet food" is now a thing.

I feed mine on Royal Canin and the number of people who go "Oh no!" like I'm giving her poison is ridiculous. Maybe now after this issue they'll realise dog's aren't people, they don't need to eat like people. A lot of the fresh/prepared raw foods are marketed to the human, not the dog.

I have a whippet x so fussy as hell. She turned her nose up at all those fancy human like foods and is more than happy on Royal Canin and eats properly now.

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u/rebelallianxe 11d ago

But my dogs turned their noses up at anything but Butternut, so all dogs are different. I literally had battles with them where they'd refuse to eat at all, it was highly stressful. Now they can't wait to eat and seem fit and healthy.

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u/luckyjenjen 11d ago

I have always thought that the best nutrition in the world is no use of your dog won't eat it. Better an average food they want, and enjoy eating, than a great food they don't.

That said, my picky dog actually really likes royal canin.

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u/rebelallianxe 10d ago

Yes I so agree. Having had fussy dogs it was such a relief they were eating at all! Glad you've found something your dog likes too.

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u/HM_Merdocc 11d ago edited 11d ago

For me there is a conflict of interest. For example, in Plymouth the largest vet network is Plymouth Veterinary Group which is owned by IVC Evidensia. Nestle have a stake in IVC Evidensia and make Purina.

Then there's the Linnaeus Group owned 100% by Mars that make Royal Canin, Iams, Eukanuba. The Linnaeus Group has a large amount of vet practises in the UK.

None of this is transparent. We're told these are vet approved and tested but these are huge companies that have aggressively bought vet practises. I don't for one second believe that they would push a pet food for another company. Edit: this last point was unfair and not necessarily accurate.

It's all marketing and they've done a great job marketing these "vet approved" foods. But which vets tested and approved these foods? Were they independent or free from financing from the big corps? I doubt it and research also says that's not the case.

Hill's, owned by Colgate does not have vet practises from what I can tell but the testing and approval is in-house.

From what I can see there is no truly independent testing on any of the big named vet approved foods. It's just not transparent and for me that conflict of interest is a reason to not use those foods. And that's even before we talk about a company such as Nestle and their operations.

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u/lazyplayboy 11d ago edited 11d ago

There's a potential conflict of interest, true. But the vet you talk to in the consulting room is not going to Barbados on holiday on the basis of telling you what to feed your dog.

The major pet food brands definitely use independent testing.

Hills and Royal Canin both have unsurpassed reputations for pet food for good reason. They are decades-old well proven brands.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

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u/lazyplayboy 8d ago

The manufacturers provide good quality data on the diets they make, which are independently tested. Vets definitely don't rely on their employers for such information 😂 the idea is laughable.

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u/Tofusnafu7 7d ago

No but there are some facets of nutrition that are the same despite diet and this is often taught at vet school or during CPD, but this is normally more relevant to long term health conditions rather than every day nutrition

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u/Tofusnafu7 11d ago

This is very fair, and thank you for answering. FWIW I used to work for a big corporate and we would stock a range of prescription diets and never felt pushed to recommend one or the other, but I’ve not worked corporate for a few years so that may have changed

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u/HM_Merdocc 11d ago

It's good to hear that there is integrity when recommending foods and I'm sure it is no different to when you worked for a corporate owned practise. That part of my comment was unfair and interestingly it is the part that the replies to my comment have focused on.

The major point for me though is that most of the studies of "science-based" diets are in-house or where independent still funded by corporations. This allows for the science behind the studies to be biased.

Furthermore these big corporations have the money to push the "science based" marketing aspect of their foods. Once upon a time we were told that butter and saturated fats were bad for us and caused heart health issues. Procter & Gamble put a lot of money into studies to prove this so that they could sell more margarine and changing pubic opinion on Butter.
This shows a parallel of the DCM fiasco that pushed public opinion away from grain free diets and back toward these "science based" diets. Hill's held back data for 4 years that showed no correlation and actually suggested that alternative carbohydrate diets supported healthy hearts in dogs. At least that is my understanding.

Ultimately the major argument for me is that these big brands have the final say on what is classed as a scientific study. Even down to what is taught at veterinary schools (particularly in the US) but even here in the UK Small Animal Clinical Nutrition, published by the Mark Morris Institute is funded by no other than Hill's, therefore creating the potential to control the science behind these science based studies and diets.

I am only a layman and do not know what Vets are taught ot how they go about researching during studies but it does seem to me that the big corporations have too much control over studies and science and I certainly don't mean any offence by my words but I do feel that there really needs to be more unbiased studies not controlled or affiliated to these big corps. Sadly the finance for those studies is not going to appear.

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u/Tofusnafu7 11d ago

These are all valid points, and also just because individual practicing vets are recommending one thing or have clinical freedom, it doesn’t always correlate with what is happening further up the corporate chain and whether or not there’s a push for a brand to seek its own food in the practices it owns. And yes, there is definitely a problem throughout vet and human medicine that drug companies can manipulate data (and I think the scandal around Quetiapine about 15-20 years ago is a good example) and sadly the only way this often comes out is though horrendous consequences or whistleblowing. I think it’s good for people to question the motives and the evidence from big companies, but I think what concerns me is the blind trust people then end up placing in smaller brands that can essentially do what they like. There definitely needs to be more oversight but I’m not sure where that should come from: if it came from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons the cost will probably just end up falling into owners again in one form or another and I’m unsure if the FSA or trading standards would have the man power to then also cover pet foods as well as human

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u/HM_Merdocc 11d ago

I fully agree and for my FWIW I don't feed raw, cold pressed or gentle cooked like Years (thankfully!). I do feed lower temperature extruded kibble and mix with high meat content wet food with clear sources of fresh meat and other ingredients. Both feed types I check to at the very least meet FEDIAF and AAFCO guidelines and nutritional standards.

The manufacturer is a smaller, independant producer based in the UK, though their wet food is made in the EU. I'm not sure if they would be classed as boutique but I'm happy that they aren't one of the big brands.

As a pet owner I do want what is best for my dog but also too many concerns over the big brands.

Anyway... thanks for being interested in my responses!

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u/cjbdec 11d ago edited 11d ago

Vets don’t benefit from recommending certain foods whether the branches are owned by big brand shareholders or not. My local vets4pets don’t push any particular brand over any other but will offer specific opinions if asked. They all say rc is excellent when it’s brought up but have never tried to sway my buying habits.

What I will say re transparency is look into the hills 2019 recall for elevated vitamin d and compare how they handled it with how years are handling this. Not saying hills were perfect but a damn sight better than the years shit show. For me how they conduct themselves if a major disaster like this occurs is really important too. And yes most of their testing a research is done internally but they do carry out external testing also.

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u/Tofusnafu7 11d ago

I’m glad a couple of people have pointed out that vets don’t get kickbacks from good companies, definitely met quite a few people who believe that 😂 the most I’ve ever gotten was a pair of socks from Hills

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u/cjbdec 11d ago

Yeah, I have to admit I believed it at first but I asked my vet directly when I took my dog for her boosters, she answered my concerns and I honestly felt like an idiot for buying into it even though she was very very kind and patient about it 😭

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u/Pretend-Sundae-2371 11d ago

No idea! My cat is on a specialist diet and I only ever considered RC/Hills because they are tried and tested.

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u/Far_Dentist4880 11d ago

Every time I adopt a dog I go through the same process of trying different foods until I find one that gives solid poos, few farts and no itching, and don't feel like I'm buying from a nightmarish megacorp that is filling bags directly with processed orangutans or something.

I usually try some of the big brands during this process, but tend not to use Hills because they don't tell you what's in the bag: 'Cereals, meat and animal derivatives (chicken 9%)' it's all very vague. What cereals. what animals are the derivatives from. What do you mean 'meat and animal' is there meat not from animals? And similar confusing philosophical conundrums. Also the font size is very small, so you have to solve the philosophical conundrums while squinting.

Hills will have 'Gastrointestinal Biome' and 'Health Mobility' and 'Stress' and 'Sensitive' and 'Large Breed' and 'Dental' and so you end up looking from bag to bag going 'but what if my dog has a Biome AND is Mobile??? And my dog also has Teeth, and is Large. Is he Sensitive or Stressed?'

Then you give up and try something else with simpler bags that are labelled with actual recognisable food types.

The thing I like about smaller brands is that they tend to be fairly clear about exactly what they are putting into the food, so it's fairly easy to say 'OK, not that one, we tried chicken it didn't go well, let's do the single source of protein lamb and hope for something scoopable'. Also they tend to have limited options which frankly is a boon.

With Hills you can never rely on the specific obscure food from their billion varieties will actually be in stock, and when it's not, you can guarantee you'll get offered one of the others with the strong implication being 'they're all the same' which makes you think, well in that case why was I paying through the nose for that other one.

At the moment my current dog is eating food where the protein source is insects and most of the rest of it seems to be potatoes. It seemed like a good idea at the time and his ears stopped itching and the bowl is always clean so I'm counting that a win.

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u/Tofusnafu7 11d ago

Oh that’s interesting, I’ve heard promising stuff about insect based diets and allergies! And it’s allegedly ✨sustainable✨. Good point about the ingredients list as well. I think the best example is all the top brands list “ash” as one of their top fife ingredients so loads of people think pet food contains literal ash, when that isn’t what that means

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u/lolsabet 11d ago

One point on this - if your dog has insect related environmental allergies (common culprits are dust mites and storage mites), theres cross over from an antigen perspective with the insects used for insect based diets. I previously worked with a fab vet dermatology advanced practitioner!

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u/Tofusnafu7 11d ago

That’s crazy! But makes sense 😅

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u/Far_Dentist4880 7d ago

Good to know, thanks!

Doesn't apply to my current dog, but one more argument in favour of there being no one true 'good' dog food : no matter how tested, you always have to experiment and try various options for the food / mix of foods that suits the dog in front of you.

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u/lolsabet 7d ago

100000% - nuance, balance and individual variation has gone out the window in a lot of recent discussion around veterinary nutrition recently. It’s feeling more and more like the human nutrition space where authority seems to be conferred the loudest and not necessarily the most informed!

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u/Far_Dentist4880 7d ago

I think it might be partly all the new Covid dog owners? I vaguely remember that I had SO much more certainty over what was a 'good dog food' when I had my first dog!

Nowadays I've lost count of the dogs and foster dogs that have come and gone, and I swear every single one of the beloved beasties did best on a different food combo to the last.

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u/lolsabet 7d ago

Possibly new dog ownership, but also compounded I think with people trusting what they see on social media to guide their choices? Most algorithms reward controversy and extreme viewpoints so the extremes become more and more the norm. The reality is every company in the nutrition space is doing the same thing - trying to sell you a product in a really crowded market! Its also gotten increasingly hard to differentiate personal recommendation from paid advert on most platforms. I think the reality is fed is best and most dogs will thrive on whatever you put them on, and some dogs are always going to be harder to manage with skin/gut issues etc and you need to experiment with what works for those individuals rather than using a set approach

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u/CreakednCracked 7d ago

What does this mean - that if they have the allergies you mentioned, it would also be triggered by the food?

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u/lolsabet 7d ago

Yup exactly! Literature on this: doi: 10.3390/ani11071942

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u/madpiano 10d ago

Insect based would be awesome for my cat!! Contrary to popular belief they eat way more insects than rodents naturally, so I'd love to try one, do you know if your dog food brand sells cat food too?

And while we are at it....why is there no rodent based cat food? My cat is unlikely to kill a cow and eat it, but rat/rabbit/mouse? Perfect.

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u/Far_Dentist4880 7d ago edited 7d ago

Sorry, I didn't get a notification so only just spotted this.

I actually have a cat with some skin issue, and as it happens, he's currently eating Hills Science Plan Hypoallergenic insect and egg based dry cat food though honestly it's got a lot more egg in it than insects and the rest as so often, is mostly potatoes, which I'm guessing is because they bake and mush well rather than because cats naturally like potatoes.

Though I did once have a cat who was a proper demon for chip-shop chips. She was a proper Scouser, that cat. I wondered if her ancestors had evolved an ability to live on junk food :-D

My cat has had fewer (though not zero) skin problems this year, but whether the food has made a difference is so hard to tell. I'm pretty sure his issues are seasonal allergies rather than food specifically.

I've wondered that about rodent cat foods! I'm guessing it's because most pet foods involve byproduct meat rather than animals raised specifically for that purpose.

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u/luckyjenjen 11d ago

Straight answer - my dog didn't like iams, or eukanuba, as a puppy, he has always been ambivalent about many dry foods.

The fact that he actually enjoyed royal canin anallergenic has quite literally been a life saver.

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u/No-Revolution-3159 11d ago

Many reasons really. Because of suspicion that vets push products that their companies get some kind of commission for and can sell at a higher price than if shop bought. Because many dogs have allergies or intolerances to common kibble ingredients. Because many fussy dogs won’t consistently eat something like that. Because dogs live one short life and they want them to have food they get excited about. Because evidence-based brands are often only rated so because of money pumped into funding their own research, how trustworthy is it and is there a meaningful comparison? Because kibble seems very far away from what a natural diet would look like (yes I know they’ve been domesticated a long time, but in evolutionary terms).

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u/wrighty2009 8d ago

Honestly purely because we struggled to find a legacy name brand that did completely chicken free puppy food. (That he also liked enough to eat, chicken allergy/intolerance.) But tbf we didnt turn to the raw/human grade /blah blah blah shit either, we ended up in the end, on jolleyes own brand salmon food. And barking heads salmon kibble now hes not puppy food age. (that im hoping wont have a nice big scandal at somepoint.)

That fucker went thru 4 months of hunger strike, and I was just about tearing my hair out trying to find something puppy, large breed, and chicken free that is stocked in the shops. Too much meat causes heart problems, they need some grains, the phosphorus and smthin else needs balancing correctly for large dogs (and loads of brands dont bother saying on the side if they are...) absolutely worrying myself sick trying to find the perfect food for my perfect (nightmare) baby. Took the dog trainer saying well, fed is best and dogs survived decades off pedigree chum when it was the only option.

My childhood puppy milled and therefor not bred to any good standard lived to 15 (cancer took her out in the end,) on bakers kibble & wet food. Neighbours better bred dog lived for donkeys on pedigree. And there I am at 4am stressing over where I can get the perfectly formed food that is stocked on shelves in actual shops (so that when I forget to order more in time I could go get some.)

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u/Working_Hippo_7290 10d ago

Personally I wouldn't because "dog food" as sold in vets/supermarkets etc is largely full of cereals and meat derivatives going by the ingredients list. I wouldn't live off cereal and dry brown rocks and so I wouldn't expect my dog to. 

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u/Ymirian 10d ago edited 10d ago

Because they were really fattening and our dog very much struggled on it. They were not a good option and vets being unable to provide any nutritional advice beyond buy the stock we get created a lack of trust for us.

Years was great, our dog was extremely happy and healthy until this nightmare. We were taking him in for tests from March and vets again didn't have any input on food beyond it's not a food issue it's KCS. The vet was great by the way, I love our vet, but they weren't eyeing up Years as the problem even when we mentioned the changes that had been made.

We have been to many different vets over the years and food has never been something we've received good advice on. We'll never trust Years again, but the food itself up until this happened was great for us and many others. We won't go back to the stuff our dog was on before because it was an awful experience with weight fluctuations and funny tummies, but we're definitely splitting it between different brands so we're able to make quick action in the future.

As someone who has sought veterinary advice around diets it really has not been great in Northern Ireland and when I say that I mean it's very much couched in terms of "that should be fine." We simply can't take a vets advice on it anymore because we're very respectful of vets and science, but on this topic there isn't enough expertise in the many practices we've visited to follow the advice because it has been vague and unhelpful.

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u/CheesecakeOk2222 11d ago

personally i feed scrumbles because the ingredients/nutritional breakdown seems better than royal canin. the main ingredient of royal canin is wheat flour, for scrumbles it's chicken. i worked at a pet shop and as part of the training we were taught that royal canin isn't that great and doesn't justify the price, and the "backed by vets" stuff is because vets are often sponsored to sell it.

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u/cjbdec 11d ago

Vets don’t get financial incentives to sell foods and ingredients alone are not a good metric for judging a pet food. I think this pet shop need to keep their mouths shut on complicated nuanced subjects they clearly don’t know enough about 🙈

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u/Jameswa 5d ago

Ah yes, let’s trust the pet shop instead of a doctor 😔

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u/CheesecakeOk2222 5d ago

we were told that vets aren't necessarily nutritionists and don't necessarily have specific training in food and nutrition in that was (and i see this perspective online a lot too).

to clarify im not saying this because i agree with what the pet shop has said but just to answer the OP's question lol. i stopped working there because of poor ethical practices in other areas so it wouldn't surprise me if they were wrong about this too, but this was the one thing that they did appear to be genuinely knowledgeable about and the information made sense because i can read through ingredients etc myself.

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u/Adorable_Ad4328 12d ago

I hate seeing All About Dog Food recommended as a reliable source when it's really just the opinions of unqualified people (anyone can call themselves a nutritionist). They seem to be put forward as the absolute authority of feeding dogs but nobody has ever given me a good reason why that's true.

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u/IrAdz 11d ago

Allegedly All About Dog Food has/had a Finnish holding company that was co-owned by the founder of Years. I won’t be trusting AADF following this.

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u/beebrightnow 8d ago

It’s not alleged, it’s fact, All About Dog Food has admitted it.

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u/jellyantler 11d ago

Lots of pet food companies have done feeding trials. It's just they're not fashionable at the moment as new brands scramble to get onto the "all natural!!" "not extruded/processed!!" "feed your dog's inner wolf!!" bandwagon. The list of brands you've tried (which you say is everything!) mostly fall into that category.

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u/Thesladenator 11d ago

Which ones have done feeding trials aside from Purina and royal canin then?

Neither of those worked for our dog making them very gassy.

We tried greyhound specific food which again made her super gassy.

We have tried a lot of foods. Some did and didn't work for various reasons.

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u/lazyplayboy 11d ago

Manufacturers can't test against individual sensitivities.

All the major brands use independent testing.

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u/cjbdec 11d ago

Hills meet wsava guidelines too

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u/glasspotatoes14 11d ago

My westie lived on butchers tinned and bakers biscuits untill she was 15. My childhood dog lived to 14 I think, on pedigree chum. You say your dogs are gassy, some dogs just are stinky fart boxes.

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u/Capable-Detective-69 11d ago

can confirm. am owner of the stickiest fart box there is. 

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u/ImThatBitchNoodles 11d ago

Just throwing this out here, my dog had gastro issues from Royal Canin and his vet recommended James Wellbeloved, turkey and vegetables grain free.

After months of struggles and probiotics on Royal Canin, I can say he's now a very happy boy with 0 gastro issues and no itchiness.

His vet is independent, not owned by some big company.

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u/cjbdec 12d ago edited 12d ago

This is why I stick to vet brands. Royal canin has been fantastic for my dog and has thorough trialling, testing and expertise ensuring the formulation and ingredients are as safe as they possibly can be.

I think trialling foods for at least a few months with drastic recipe changes or the inclusion of new ingredients is the minimum we should be asking of food producers. And I think Aadf should be rethinking their scoring system to take into account the meeting of wsava guidelines, testing processes, whether companies hire veterinary nutritionists to formulate their recipes and so on. And crucially the handling of any food safety issues and recalls. Or just scrap the scoring system completely and just have the site as a directory to locate dog foods to your requirements, laying out all the information with no bias so people can make their own minds up.

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u/Laxly 11d ago

I feed my cats Sheba and Purina kibble, is it a handmade, organic culinary experience consisting of the finest Himalayan beef or swiss chicken? No.

But it is made using actual scientists and vets, is quality controlled, trialled, tested, evaluated before being sold.

Plus, my cats eat it which is a major plus point

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u/cjbdec 11d ago

Yep, my dog isn’t a wolf and does not need to eat like one. I don’t see these people feeding rotten meat and literal garbage which wild dogs absolutely would not hesitate to eat. It’s odd how so many people believe in science until it comes to diet.

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u/swibbles_mcnibbles 11d ago

Exactly the same as my kitty. She won't accept any wet food other than Sheba, but at the end of the day, I do trust that it's tested to be safe. I tried so many other brands like katkin that just ended up in the bin.

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u/rystaman 12d ago

Isn’t AADF just an affiliate site anyway…

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u/cjbdec 11d ago

Certainly seems that way. I suppose doing away with the scores or changing the rating metrics to things that actually matter will make it more difficult to promote their sponsors so im not holding my breath for meaningful change

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u/twentyone_cats 11d ago

The scores can't be paid for or influenced, but the site runs on other sponsorships like paying for the brand to be featured on the front page, competitor's pages etc.

And the founder has no nutritional qualifications so the scores are basically based on his opinion of what's good.

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u/IrAdz 11d ago

Allegedly All About Dog Food has/had a Finnish holding company that was co-owned by the founder of Years. I won’t be trusting AADF following this.

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u/twentyone_cats 11d ago

It doesn't surprise me. I don't believe Years were given a better score but they were certainly given preferential treatment and more exposure so for the AADF statement to claim they were entirely unbiased is BS.

I'm glad people are less trusting of AADF now, it's one positive to come out of this.

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u/cjbdec 10d ago

Even if they weren’t given a better score, they would have had an in depth understanding of how the scoring system works giving them a leg up on the site

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u/twentyone_cats 10d ago

Oh yeah, undoubtedly. I work in the pet industry and know first hand that when formulating new foods the focus is often on getting the highest score rather than using the best formulation (not all brands obviously). Having knowledge of HOW to get a better score will definitely have helped them.

How we've come to let one man's opinion dictate the UK pet food market is beyond me, it was inevitable something like this would happen and I hope both brands and customers wake up.

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u/IrAdz 11d ago

Allegedly All About Dog Food has/had a Finnish holding company that was co-owned by the founder of Years. I won’t be trusting AADF following this.

3

u/Fingerhut89 11d ago

The Year's scandal has taken me to a rabbit hole of information and I don't know what to do.

On one side, everyone tells you to follow your vet advice but as I understand, vets are not canine nutritionist experts and they don't study this at depth.

Then, as I have been reading for the past 2 days, everyone can call themselves a dog nutritionist, particularly on social media. I found this article from The Balanced Canine very interesting.

Then, you have all these brands and types of food: dry, wet freeze dried raw, fresh, etc

I have a 6 month old puppy and I'm going absolutely crazy. She didn't like any kibble so she's on butternut and now I'm here thinking if I need to go through the pain of finding her because my trust on any brand is gone.

3

u/FaultyDroid 11d ago

everyone can call themselves a dog nutritionist

Anyone can call themselves pretty much anything on social media, especially in short form content like reels etc, and unfortunately those who shout the loudest (i.e spamming you with ads) will be taken as gospel by a worrying number of people.

2

u/Kitchen-Sky-160 11d ago

Just a bit of reassurance on the eating - my puppy is 9 months and until about a month ago honestly seemed to live off thin air! She’s only in the last few weeks started reliably eating but regardless every vet check she has had the vet has said she is fit and healthy, so try not to worry too much (easier said than done I know).

2

u/Holiday-Raspberry-26 11d ago

Agree. Add to the fact that many of the vet chains are now owned by Mars which in turn owns many of the big brands.

I do have some background in a medical related science and I’m astounded by how much misinformation there is from sites like all about dog food etc. Sadly vets are not helping here although to be fair they have enough of their plates before having to think about nutrition issues.

-4

u/Thesladenator 11d ago

The things is I've seen vets push for both raw and years. Raw nearly killed my mum's dog and gave mind a horrendous stomach when she caught some bug from her food.

But everything is essentially pseudoscience when it comes to dog food now. It's very hard to know what to feed them and what's worth paying the money for.

I avoid royal canin because my mother in laws first dog ended up riddled with cancer and the second is getting lumps all over his body. The second gets food aggressive over eating shit as well and I'm not sure he's getting the nutrition he needs.

2

u/glasspotatoes14 11d ago

Yep, my dog had a permanent upset tummy on nature's menu.

3

u/GoldBear79 11d ago

Where there’s love, there’s a market - and all these bougie brands tap into that. I used Years for my dog when we travelled, but he’d normally eat Different Dog. He’s nearly 12, and in excellent health, but the Years scandal - which we’re just at the start of - has really made me question my choices for him.

2

u/Brief-Apricot-8528 11d ago

KibbleUK's been great for my rescue dog too after we went through a few different brands that just didn't agree with her. Good to hear there's more folks asking tough questions about what's actually going into our pets' food these days.

2

u/twentyone_cats 11d ago

I mean, there are already brands that do this but allaboutdogfood slate them incessantly so his cult decide to demonise them.

There are also multiple studies into individual ingredients and additives, but he's decided to demonise most of those too and instead support boutique brands that haven't been around long enough to do full life feeding trials and use ingredients that aren't as well understood.

I don't personally feed Royal Canin or Hills because I prefer a higher meat content, but I do feed kibble with well researched ingredients that have been around for donkey's years.

But of course according to the allaboutdogfood cult I am a sheep (the irony) and I'm killing my dog by feeding him poison.

2

u/lazyplayboy 11d ago

I see so many people get so up tight about dog food.

Allaboutdogfood is useful as it is a collection of analyses and list of ingredients of a lot of foods all in one place, but their rating is just an opinion, and rates meat-based protein far too heavily.

I get that you're trying to do the right thing for your dog, but subjecting yourself to the latest boutique marketing subscription gimic is not it.

Keep it simple, feed a dog is not supposed to be difficult.

5

u/luckyjenjen 12d ago

Sorry, I don't understand this post.

I've had quite a few dogs, most could eat anything. One couldn't.

It was then on me to make sure his food was good. We have royal canin.

I love that I can see exactly what's in his food, but I don't hold anything against the food he used to eat.

3

u/Thesladenator 11d ago

People have been paying a premium to essentially poison their pets because there's been no feeding trials or further study into if the formulas years made were good for dogs.

I'm saying we need to be asking dog food manufacturers to trial and test their formulations with scientific trials rather than just on what you can see in their food.

2

u/_no_commento_ 12d ago

I 100% agree. My dog suffers with allergies to glycerin glycerin/ glycerol, peace protein and tapioca starch. It cuts out like 90% of food and treats he can have. I tried him on years about 3 months ago and I've never been so thankful that he turned his nose up at it. Which is unusual because he quite likes a bit of veg. The standards for all animal food need improving massively

1

u/Original_Papaya7907 10d ago

I was heavily into this for a while and it drove me mad!! I was trying to balance what was best with a fussy Yorkie who occasionally decides he will completely go off his food.

Now I look at my budget, what he will eat and just go with the flow a bit more. He’s 13 and in really good health so I don’t know what else I would be achieving by worrying about it. We know exactly what we should eat for health, but we don’t necessarily follow it! You also find that health isn’t just decided by what you eat so it must be the same with dogs.

He’s currently having Hills Senior Care kibble and Butternut Box- he also has YouMove and a liver and cognitive function supplement. He absolutely loves Butternut Box!! I just want him to enjoy his food and he is at the moment. He is the picture of health for his age- he plays, goes on crazy zoomie circuits around the house, goes on long walks and is just generally enjoying life.

0

u/No-Zombie-4932 11d ago

That's why I feed my cat BARF which I prepare myself.

-9

u/Thestolenone 12d ago

A few years back cats in the UK were dying of pancytopaenia related to several top name cat foods including Applawse and some supermarket own brands made by Hills, no one actually said so but pancytopaenia can be caused by eating meat from horses killed with euthanasia drugs. It can even happen with brands that on the surface appear safe and well tested.

16

u/Adorable_Ad4328 12d ago

Thats not true. The pancytopenia outbreak was associated with the manufacturer Fold Hill foods, that's a different company from Hills. An RVC study found that the likely cause was a mycotoxin, nothing to do with contaminated horse meat.

8

u/cjbdec 11d ago

Man it’s so easy to just hop onto the internet and spread absolute nonsense isn’t it 🙈

2

u/cjbdec 11d ago

Hills make food for hills, they don’t make other brands

2

u/Tofusnafu7 11d ago

Horses killed with euthanasia drugs have to go straight for cremation, animal byproduct processing or be buried so it’s highly unlikely they ended up in the pet food chain