Heading off a potential row with the vets?

Have been reading some horror stories about people being "talked to" and in some cases shouted at! for not feeding their little bundles with kitten food like Whiskas etc. and instead using a good adult food.

My two are due their jabs next week and apparently I will be given a talk on nutrition, how do I get my point across that I know what I am doing, am happy with it and NO I won't buy your Hills! (HUGE display in reception, my heart sank when I saw it!)

Tips please - what will I say?! I want a good relationship with my vet as it's the only one in town, not got much choice really!!:scared:

 

Smile sweetly, tell him/her that, yes, you think Hills is fantastic stuff but you buy it on-line because it's SO much cheaper than what he/she charges. Sorted

 

Hmm, I will be interested to hear what they say .

Personally, I would just smile politely, nod, and think my own thing and do what I think is right concerning my cat's nutrition at home.

I guess you will gauge pretty quickly whether your vet is after all a bit more open-minded, could be part of the younger generation of vets that are now establishing practices, and you can have a bit of a conversation with or whether it will be a case of letting sleeping dogs lie.

Best of luck and please update!

 

I agree with Hobbs, try and gauge where the vet stands on cat nutrition. Some of them (it is rumored, lol) don’t just try to shove Hills & Royal Canin on to you.

It would be great if your vet was one of the more open-minded variety.

However, if your vet is old-school Hills/RC pusher - I don’t know if it’s worth even trying to get the point across that “thanks for your talk on Hills dry food, but I won’t be feeding it, I’ll be feeding Bozita/Grau/Almo wet foods with a small portion of Orijen dry every day”.

I tried this route with my own vet and to be honest I am sorry I did. It just created animosity. He felt I was disregarding his professional advice. I felt he was disregarding my opinion, experience and research. I eventually caved in and said “your right, you’re right, I’ll go back to Royal Canin dry food immediately, but I’ll be buying it from zooplus as it’s cheaper”. I just knew if I forced the issue… every time I turn up at the vets with anything he was going to write it off to “wrong diet, your fault, you created this problem”.

So although I thinking lying to a vet is a very stupid and irresponsible thing to do… it’s exactly what I am doing right now.:

And I have been lying to many vets for many years now about how I wean my foster kittens too… as most vets just want them weaned onto (for instance) Royal Canin Baby or Kitten dry food. Their theory is… if you give kittens wet food or raw food or cooked meats or boiled fish or raw meats and fish, you create fussy eaters kittens who then create problems for the shelter as new owners complain they won’t eat the dry food. I try to expose my foster kittens to as much different food stuffs as possible (including dry kibble) and will continue to do so. But to “keep the peace” I just lie and say “of course all they get is Royal Canin baby/kitten kibble”. But I always get compliments on how well my kittens look, how I never have underweight kittens, lol, go figure.

 

oooh i love it!

Nothing like a good argument to start the day! :lol:

In all seriousness its usually best to smile sweetly, nod at everything they say and tell them in a polite way that you have taken on board all their suggestions and will consider them carefully when you get home. In other words... dont commit to a thing. It gets right up their noses when your all sweetness but wont commit lol.

Should they get heavy handed and litterally try and force you into taking the food. Exclaim loudly, while holding the consulting room door open that you refuse to be bullied and intimidated. Afterall you only wanted time to consider your options! I guarentee the practice manager will be in there in a shot trying to calm everyone down and hoping you dont put in a complaint!


If they give you free samples, take them and drop them off at your nearest rescue centre, along with any money off vouchers they give.

Ive had a few rows with some of the new vets at my practice. The last one was AFTER she had commented on how they were the healthiest litter she had seen in a long time.

 

This happened to me when I took Nala to the vet for her first jags. The vet asked me what I was feeding her and I told her she was being fed Bozita. She looked at me very confused and asked what it was, I told her it was a high meat content cat food and then I was made to sit through a big lecture on how I should be feeding her kitten food etc etc and made to feel like a silly little girl. So i'd personally just say that you are feeding her kitten food and continue with what you believe. It saves you having a bad feeling with your vet and saves the awqkward situation of you feeling like a complete idiot when the vet talks down to you :thumbup:

 

There's a conspiracy theory that Hill's are going to take over the animal world!
They've laced their recipes with a top secret ingredient. One taste and your pet refuses to eat any other product on the market! :lol:

Ha! Hill's is big business in Veterinarian surgeries here in Finland too! :scared:

 

I certainly never went to any vets looking for confrontation over feeding, I just get it when I say I do anything except feed 100% dry food from Royal canin or Hills. Lol.

I can totally understand and respect the fact that not all vets are (for instance) pro-raw feeding. And I can understand they have many concerns that owners feeding raw might not be getting the balance right. I would welcome any vet questioning an owner on the details of their cat’s diet – that’s their job. What I can’t understand, nor respect, is the many posts on this forum about vets practically recoiling in horror and acting like owners are being neglectful if not downright irresponsible by feeding their pets a good, balanced raw diet. What I also can’t understand are the many posts on this forum about vets propagating myths about the benefits of feeding dry kibble. How cats will drink more (and ultimately be healthier) if fed dry, how their teeth will be better, how their coats will be better, how they will suffer less skin complaints, IBS and FLUTD complaints (and so on) if fed dry kibble.

Vets (obviously not all of them, but a considerable percentage of them) often won’t broach any discussion when it comes to feline nutrition. They are not open to discussion and they (the vets) are oten the ones being confrontational towards the owners.

I move house a lot, so come into contact with a lot of different vets due to moving around. I also always have different vets for my own cats and for my foster cats… and I have never once looked for confrontation on feline nutrition, but I have been sneered at, looked down on, lectured like I was a moron and ranted at by vets more times than I care to remember to on this issue.

And sorry if that sounds like I am ranting at you… lol.. I don’t mean to . I just wish I had a vet as open minded as yours.

 

When we first got our dog home at the age of 6 months we of course took him to the vet for a check over. They had a reception full of Hills and although I specifically asked about food, I have to say he didn't try and push anything on me.

I told him I was concerned about the dogs loose stools and he of course recommended keeping him on dry food but explained that they are not all created equally. He added I was quite right to assume his diet was responsible and just suggested I try out some alternatives until I found something that suited the dog. Sounds like I was lucky.

If he had of recommended a specific brand then I would have probably gone with it at the time but having since learnt better, it would soon have been changed anyway. As it was he left me to do my own research and I have learnt a lot very quickly, which ultimately has helped my dog considerably.

In your situation I would politely say that you have already researched the matter thoroughly and are going to continue to feed them XYZ. If he does try to convince you however that Hills is a superior food to XYZ and you have done your home work correctly, then you are in a perfect position to prove him wrong.

 

I don't tell my vets what I feed - they would laugh at me. So I nod and smile and refuse all offers of Hills

 

My vet knows i feed mine whiska's and she said as long as he's happy and healthy i'll let you feed him

 

lol @ they'd laugh at you

mine are more "snarl and sneer at me"

yeahhhhh @ another mmeber of the "nod and smile brigade".

I am glad I am such good company! :thumbup:

 

I think you definitely have to gauge where they stand on nutrition before you make a choice of whether to be honest about what you feed them or keep that to yourself as it may affect the diagnosis you get should they ever get ill.

If they come across as being definitely anti raw then I would not tell them thats what you feed. If they are open minded then that is a different issue. The reason is one of the US pro raw vets, can not remember who now gave a seminar to a group of other vets and as a test presented a few cases for their diagnosis. They all came up with suggestions about what they thought the problems were, then she said to them what if they knew those cats were fed a raw diet and everyone of them admitted that they would have blamed the diet! In none of the test cases was the diet to blame, but it just shows you how blinkered some vets can be, potentially dangerously so had one of those cases been life threatening.

 

Thankfully, my vet has never asked on what I feed the cat...yet! I'm not looking forward to when/if she finally does, but I'm well aware that I may have to grit my teeth and smile because I don't know what her take on food is.

I know to an extent the vet will highly recommend Hill's, they've done it several times with my OH's elderly dog who has been overweight for many years. Naturally the dog won't touch the stuff, so the last trip to the vet my OH's family declined the rather strong recommendation but because the dog desperately needed to lose weight, I found them a high-meat-no-grain dog food (wet food as well, as that's the only thing she'll eat) and the dog was transformed from a round pot-bellied barrel to a much normal dog shape in four short weeks. She's a dog transformed, in many ways.

Going to enjoy what the vet says about that

 

it really is down to the individual vet. at my practice there is a group of about 8 different vets and they all have different reactions when i tell them what my cats eat.

one told me to feed dry only as all wet food is like giving the cats mcdonalds.
the others have mostly just nodded.
none of them have tried to sell me hills or rc despite the big display in reception.

 

I've never had this problem with either cat at two different surgeries. :confused1:

If I did, I would tell them where to shove their marketing lies & go somewhere else for advice & support.

 

I don't have that luxury unfortunately, it's the only vets in town

Well I am booked in for next Tuesday so will report back I don't want to lie about what I am feeding my (luxuriously shiny furred and happy and healthy ) kittens but if they go all preachy on me, well they will get a preaching back at them I think!

 

I suppose I am very lucky with my vets. It was about 6 years ago a senior vet suggested I fed raw lamb to mine to help with the teeth, and since then 2others have never questioned what I feed them. The vet I usualy see now is only 28 and agree's now that most commercially prepared food is no good for cats at all, and its like feeding them junk food. So some are prepared to learn.