Hello again, I'm not much of a poster on here yet, more of a lurker but I wanted to first of all to say a really heartfelt thanks to Hobbs for the A-Z cat food posts (dry & wet). With so much contradictory and especially anecdotal 'evidence' around on the interweb, those two threads were an absolute lifesaver.

I feel even more fortunate because of what happened today and this is what prompted the thread.

My Girlfriends, sisters, boyfriend (follow that one if you can) works in a Veterinary Surgery and we were mentioning how we've decided to feed Cookie on a combination of Dry & Wet Food. Both with high Meat content / grain free / full of the good stuff.

He really had our best interests at heart and he basically extolled the virtues of Pro Plan Dry Cat Food. Apparently, everyone at the vet's have had several meetings about Pro Plan, all hosted by the Rep from Purina. The rep has told them all the good things about the food, like how it's made from only 'fresh meat' (?) etc etc. Basically, they are told that this is the best stuff around and is a complete diet for cats.

The Vets are now ONLY selling Pro Plan and all staff are being trained to sell it's good points.

Had I not read Hobbs thread, I'd take this advice from someone who worked at a Vet's at face value and probably assume it was pretty good.

There were two reasons for this thread, first was just to share this experience, because I really hadn't expected it and was pretty surprised and second, to ask if this is 'normal'?

Do most vets sell out to large commercial cat-food companies and try to push their products?

I'm a vet nurse. We're taught very little on nutrition during our training, and vets even less. Then when we qualify the pet food companies sponsor CPD lectures which you go along to and they tell you how brilliant their particular food is...I've been to a 3 day course run by Royal Canin, and yes some bits make sense, but some don't (i've done my own further research into nutrition, but vets and nurses don't have to do this obviously).
Then vets make profit on what they sell, and the reps are forever offering deals and incentives on particular products, so if you sell xx amount you get xx (vouchers, ipads, money off etc)
It's not that the vets are brainwashing the clients, its the reps are brainwashing the vets...it's not bad per se, and you can do a lot worse than feeding purina, or any other premium brand, but vets/nurses are not nutritionists and they just go on what they are told by the people making the product unless they choose to do their own research

ETA I don't think i've ever seen advertised a CPD course on nutrition aimed at vets or nurses NOT sponsored by one of the pet food manufacturers, so it's impossible to get impartial advice unless the vets/nurses have done their own research, and most of them have other things they'd rather pursue. Sad

Makes you wonder why makers of quality foods don't try and do the same Maybe it would drive the cost of the food up, though. Which explains why these foods pushed by vets cost more than they should, considering their ingredients.

The Vet that I am not using but had rung up before getting my kittens sent me a text this week to ask whether I needed nutrition advice from the nurse.

I called up and they had a special offer on Royal Canin dry food (even with 25% off not as cheap as Zooplus!) and the nurse told me that she 100% dry feeds her 3 cats until recently when one cat needs a more specialised diet (can't remember why but it wasn't a urinary problem)

I don't think she was particularly doing a sales talk but it seemed like she only knew about thee one brand of food except for the supermarket stuff. It wasn't particularly impressive for me. At least my choice of Vet actually knows more about food and nutrition and were interested to learn more.

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I noticed that my vets,a practice that I have used for more years than I care to admit to have changed from selling Hills to Pro Plan they must have made a better offer to vets in general

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Thanks for the replies, I guess it's not a one-off then

Hey Doolally, I hope I didn't cause offence, I certainly don't have anything against Vet's in general What I think though is this:

Vet's are in a position of power and knowledge, especially when talking to inexperienced pet owners or those that are unable / unaware of the ability to research topic's on their own.

With this in mind, if the Vet themselves or someone who works in the Vet's feels they are not fully qualified to talk about Cat Nutrition and feeding, then they should direct people to appropriate resources where they can try to learn about these things themselves. Either that, or they should give no advice at all.

I think it's quite sad that people we trust for the care of our pets might give advice on nutrition that's not the best, simply because they've been paid to do so.

I guess you're right that pet plan isn't the worst thing you can feed your cat .... but still ... Rice constitutes 16% of the ingredients that seems pretty poor to me

There are better cat foods out there and yet, this particular vets are telling everyone that Pet Plan is the best food for their cat's.

I'm so glad you posted this thread, I have had exactly the same experience here in Muscat. The advice I received from the vet to feed only dry (RC Indoor) I took at totally face value until coming here and being prompted to do further reading and research after BSH said something about it. The boys are on track to swop completely to wet/raw now.

I was amazed that a vet would recommend something that is potentially so damaging and thanks also to Doolally for giving the reasons why.

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I had been told that the training procedure with cats was difficult. It's not. Mine had me trained in two days. ~Bill Dana

How does 5 hours of nutrition a week for 26 weeks sound. If vet nurses do more than that I'd be very suprised. Admittedly I don't study in England, but still!

Vets are not deliberately trying to hurt peoples pets. In the vast majority of cases your animals will be fine and dandy on pro plan/hills/royal canin etc. Yes there are much better foods out there but I haven't ever seen any of those companies at vets telling them to sell their foods. So how about aiming wrath at the good companies who don't bother doing the same as the known brands. I am sure there are plenty of vets out there who would be more than happy to sell the food but they need incentive because they receive plenty from others.

If vets do that amount of training, I'm even more amazed.

And I'm sure no one thinks that.

If I'm paying someone, whom is supposedly an expert, to give me care and advise on something in their field, whether that be my plumbing or my cats, if they screw up, I'm going to be pissed. Its not up to the customer to be more expert than the plumber on how to keep a pipe from freezing, just as its not up to me to know more than my vet about what my cats should be eating.

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I had been told that the training procedure with cats was difficult. It's not. Mine had me trained in two days. ~Bill Dana

vet advice

see the thread I started a couple of weeks ago at a vet visit. I don't understand why so many vets advice is to feed boy cats dried food.