Why do vets market crap like Science Diet?
« I have a maltipoo , she is 14 weeks and weight 2 kg, do u know how big and weight she gonna be?
I know that they get a comission for it, but come on!
Why do they? The food is absolute crap and poisonious so why do they?
Why not advertise something good like Innova?Not all of them carry Science Diet….my old vet in Florida carried Innova and a similar brand I can’t recall the name of. She was also one of a growing number of vets who didn’t “shoot down” a properly educated & planned raw-diet. She practiced traditional medicine but her business partner was a holistic vet who could do accupuncture, etc.
It’s marketing, simple marketing. SD makes a line of formulas available ONLY to vets, “prescription diets”….and as such, also hawks their regular dog food to be sold on the shelves. I used to work for a vet and it was my job to control the Science Diet inventory, recieve the shipments every 2 weeks, and stock the food when I recieved it….and every time, the guy running the sales & delivery route would speak with the vet & try to convince him to carry additional products.
I’ve ran across enough vets who are ignorant of responsible breeding practices (one in my former hometown bred Lhasas, several litters a year with NO health tests & no spay/neuter contracts, another bred Yorkies the same way)…..that it’s not hard for me to believe that a lot of vets aren’t incredibly well-versed in nutrition & commercial dog foods.
On the other hand, vets see so many clients who feed Ol’Roy and store brand dog foods, that hawking Science Diet is arguably a big “step up” for plenty of folks. The vet I used to work for, wouldn’t bother suggesting Science Diet to anyone feeding a reasonably decent brand of food. Especially if the dog was healthy & didn’t have any skin/coat/odor issues. It’s only when the dog was eating a poor diet AND displaying obvious health issues, that the vet would suggest Science Diet. Exactly, because they get paid to stock it, and many vets really have no concept of dog nutrition, they just don’t go into it. My vet won’t sell regular Science Diet, he does know what dogs need to eat – meat, not corn meal fillers.
It’s not “poison”, but it sure isn’t good nutrition for dogs, lots of corn meal and artificial preservatives.
The canned speciality Science Diet is, however, another story – it is tailored for special needs dogs and does help for certain illnesses.Well, it is not as if vets spend all day testing the hundreds of different foods out there – nor do vet students learn about which brands are the best in school. Also, most vets don’t get money from this – they get free samples, like with human drugs.
SD isn’t poisonous. I would not feed it to my dogs – there are better foods out there – but calling it poisonous crap is wrong. And most of the additives you listed are also found in human food, especially candies. Again, not stuff I would eat or give to my dog, but reasonably safe. Oh, and they are also found in human drugs and human cosmetics.
Most vets will tell you to just pick a food with a real protein, no fillers, and no preservatives.Because most pet owners out there buy things like Old Roy and dont understand that different companies and different foods have different ingrediants, and Science is the best of the worst. If a vet wants to have a real conversation with a pet owner who knows what theyre talking about, then of course they would discuss things other than Science Diet,get real. Most people dont even know why they need Rabies shots.To each his own. They market it because they get paid to. I personally believe its directly responsible for bringing a cat I had back from the brink of death. We still don’t know what he and our other cat had but it killed her and she was half his age. I put him on the Science Diet Kitten food. The turn around was quite amazing. In the space of a few weeks he went from skin stretched over bones to a very healthy, if old, cat. He lived another 5 or 6 years.
I’m going to assume the cat food and the dog food are worlds apart in quality if the majority of responses are so negative to the dog food.Here is the deal. A lot of the vets that practice don’t have degrees in animal nutrition. They might have taken like ONE class in their studies. I think it is just ignorance rather than intentional. And no, not all vets get kickbacks from selling science diet.
There is ONE good thing about this food. All of the ingredients are from america, and it is manufactured in america.Some market science diet because they truly believe it is good food, but they are way wrong. The best food for dogs are Innova and Buffalo Blue dog food. Buffalo Blue has no animal by products. It is an all natural food that is made with deboned chicken.Their cut of the price is higher than most other foods.
Most vets have NOT had dietician classes so don’t know full nutrition for dogs and cats.
The sales people for science diet are out there doing their best to get their food into the clinics.Because, Science Diet dog food provides scholarships to young vets going through school, in return if they happen to open there own vet office that have to sell the food and they get a kick back…So this is why they push this food. how would they know? they only got a tiny potion of nutritional training, ushually by reps from the big pet food companies.Because they’ve been brain-washed by the Hill’s company, it’s really sad, most of them actually believe this food is great for all pets.$$$$